We booked Daniel for an 18-day trip to Europe to house sit and care for our dogs, since our regular Rover sitter was unavailable. The meet and greet went great—Daniel clearly loves animals, and his work as a vet tech felt like an added reassurance. Unfortunately, about an hour before our international flight took off, he told us he wasn’t feeling well due to symptoms from his multiple sclerosis (which he lists in his profile) and might need to cancel the entire stay. I had even confirmed the booking with him earlier that same morning, so this last-minute change caused us a great deal of stress as we were heading out for nearly three weeks. We frantically reached out to other sitters, but because of the short notice and long duration of the trip, no one else was available. Thankfully, Daniel agreed to continue and try to watch the dogs, which we appreciated under the circumstances. He ultimately stayed and watched them, but he was not able to provide the walks we had agreed on (2–3 walks a day, 15-20 minutes each). Several days in a row he skipped walks entirely, and the times he did take them out he sent pictures labeled as “walks” that our Ring cameras showed lasted only 2–3 minutes at most. Exercise is a big part of our dogs’ routine, so this was very disappointing. There was also an instance where he asked us to find someone else to let the dogs out because of a work conflict, which was concerning and stressful—especially since we wanted to trust that we wouldn’t have to be coordinating emergency walkers while overseas. He did send plenty of photo updates otherwise, and our dogs seemed comfortable with him. However, through our Ring cameras we also saw that while taking the dogs out to the front yard he dropped a leash when one of them pulled, and she ran off for a short but very stressful moment. He never mentioned this incident to us, which was concerning to learn only after the fact. Midway through our trip, we switched the booking over to another Rover who could provide the exercise our dogs needed, and to Daniel’s credit, he was cooperative in helping with that transition. Another thing to note is that his profile says he is not currently working and is available all day, but in reality he is working. That made it harder for him to give our dogs the time and walks they required, and it felt misleading. This was our only booking with Daniel, so we don’t know how typical our experience was. He may be a better fit for families with smaller or lower-energy dogs, or homes with large yards where walks aren’t as necessary.

I can’t say enough good things about Daniel! My pups loved him, he was extra attentive to them and I got tons of great pictures to let me know they were happy!!