WARNING - PLEASE READ!! I hired Gracia to watch my animals while I was away and she did more damage than I ever would have thought possible during her 11-day sit. The first thing I saw when I got home was a noise violation notice from animal control that my puppies had been barking and left unattended in the backyard for over 12 hours. I also discovered that Gracia had been leaving the dogs regularly for 12-17 hours at a time which was in direct contrast to what she told me she would do when I hired her. Additionally, I told her not to leave the dogs unattended in the backyard because they could get the chickens or rabbits. Gracia showed no regard for their welfare when she left the dogs outside for hours upon hours. There is no sign they were even left with water or food. Also, Gracia left grapes out which are toxic to dogs and my puppy got them which ended in a trip to the vet, a $400 vet bill, and incessant texting on my honeymoon. Not only that but she did it a SECOND time and blamed me even though he is a puppy who of course will eat food left out when he’s not being watched. She had the nerve to ask me to pay to replace her food. She also invited a man to my house in the middle of the night (10pm-1am) on at least one verifiable occasion to do who knows what. She did not have permission to have guests in my home. Lastly, She did not water the garden or take out the trash during her entire stay. Both of which I explicitly asked her to do at our meet-and-greet. I returned home to a house full of flies and trash bins outside full of maggots. The fridge reeked and my garden was dead. My housekeeper came on the last day to get the house ready for my return and she told me she had never seen the house so messy even when all five of my kids (all 10 and under) are home making messes. She said that Gracia left the dogs outside the whole time, didn’t interact with them at all and left piles of food, trash, dishes, and clothes everywhere (no, the housekeeper did not use this as an excuse to ask for more money and had no financial incentive to tell me any of this). I tried to talk to Gracia about this and she pretended that she had no clue what I was talking about and then preceded to blame my dogs. My dogs are well-behaved, crate-trained, e-collar trained puppies. All that being said, they ARE PUPPIES so they have a lot of energy that they need to work out daily or they can be more difficult. Gracia did not show them attention, exercise them, walk them or really interact with them in any way that I’m aware of. She left them alone in 100 degree heat and got mad when they were energetic when she finally returned to feed them. This is victim blaming. I was a sitter with rover years ago and it was a wonderful thing for me as a young, single mom, but there were a few rough times with a few rough dogs. I dealt with difficult puppies, and even a few aggressive dogs. My dogs are nothing compared to that. They are really quite easy as long as you give them some attention. The fact that Gracia said they were misbehaved just shows me she A) has very little experience with dogs or B) is lying to divert blame. Either way, it’s not acceptable or professional. Given my history with rover, I wanted to help out another young woman by taking a chance on her but I was so utterly disappointed with the whole thing that I am not sure I will ever use rover again. This review was hard to write. I hate conflict, but I felt the need to protect anyone who may consider opening their home to Gracia. Massive disappointment.

Maverick had a great time and we felt comfortable having him stay with Gracia during our vacation.