My dog Mia always had the best time with Toney! They get lots of steps in. Mia is always excited for their walks.

I really wanted to like Toney. From his reviews, he sounds like the perfect pet sitter. I booked a stay with him on Rover for the 10 days we were spending on vacation over the Christmas holiday. A couple of days before he was scheduled to begin his stay, he sent me a text saying he needed to discuss pricing with me, which I found odd, considering I had already paid for the stay, but I had asked him a day or two prior if he could extend his stay to the next day, so I assumed this is what he was referring to. When he arrived, he told me he needed me to cancel the booking through rover and pay him directly. He also quoted me holiday rates that weren’t in line (higher) than was listed on Rover. This made me quite uncomfortable, as we were leaving in a couple days, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to find a new sitter in time. He said he had his own insurance policy and sent the policy documents to me. In our meetings prior to him watching my 2 dogs, he said “this job really isn’t that difficult. Whatever notes you leave for me to follow, I follow exactly.” Well, that turned out to not be so true. We recently started our dogs on The Farmers Dog food, which if you use, you know isn’t cheap. In my notes, I left instructions (one bag is 2 days worth of food), and I also left the printed instructions sent directly from Farmers Dog with the same feeding instructions. Into our trip, he wrote me and said he was almost out of food (when I knew I had left enough to get them through our trip). He admitted he had been feeding them twice what he should have fed them, which leads me to believe he didn’t read any instructions. He just said “sorry, I thought I was doing it right,” which if he actually read any of the instructions, he would know wasn’t correct. I also left instructions asking him to clean up the dogs poop in our yard each day. When I arrived home to about 25-30 piles of dog poop to clean up in the front yard (and there was even dog poop in our garage), it was clear he didn’t follow that instruction either. And picking up dog poop is a pretty basic part of dog sitting, whether I left it in the instructions or not. When I told him I was disappointed to come home to so much poop to clean up, he said “there’s always a learning curve when working with new families.” A LEARNING CURVE?!? Here’s where things really take a turn. It wasn’t just the dog’s poop I came home to clean up. Toney left poop smeared on one of our toilet seats, and there was a dried clump of poop on the side of the toilet paper roll as well as the toilet paper holder (if Rover allowed me to upload photos with this review, I would include them). Both bathrooms he used during his stay here were pretty gross. I would never leave a mess like that for someone else to clean up. I hesitated to send him the photos of this, but I knew I was going to include this in my review, and I didn’t want him to claim I was making it up in his response, which I’m sure will be very defensive and passive aggressive, as this is what I experienced when communicating with him after my return. In response to the photos, along with a note saying this is one of the things I was most disappointed to find upon my return, this was his response: “Yikes! 🥴 🤢 💩 ❌ glad the dogs were content! We can take this as a learning experience. Sincere Apology. Of course , I wish that all went perfect but you win some , you lose some tis the flow of Life. thought the house was in order , I come to find out there was 💩 everywhere! is less than ideal. I could go over cause & effect but there’s no excuse. Be sure to download the Theo & Stella videos you want to keep and delete this thread , as will I.” Even though he claimed he washed the sheets he slept on (which was appreciated but certainly not expected or asked), I came home to a couple large stains on the sheets. When I sent him a photo of the stains, he said it was already there the first night he was here, but in the same text, he also said if he did it, it would come out. So which is it? Well, when I washed the sheets, the stain fortunately mostly came out, so if it had been there when he arrived on day 1 as he claimed, it would have mostly washed out when he washed the sheets. When asked about all these things, he just said “Glad overall assignment went well. Glad you traveled safely, the dogs were safe and your house was secured.” (He only started “securing” my home after I texted him, asking him to please arm the alarm at night and when he left the house - even though that request was left in my written instructions as well). Honesty, accountability and doing what you say you’re going to do is paramount when you are trusting a stranger to stay in your home and care for your furry family members. If these qualities are also important to you (or if you don’t feel like coming home to clean up another adult human’s faces), you might want to reconsider hiring Toney. Where Toney is great - he was at my house 99% of the 10 days we were gone. He seldom left. He also sends videos and pretty frequent updates. —Though he also keeps very odd hours and was up at literally all hours of the night (1am, 2am, 3am, 4am, 5am), and we would see him also letting the dogs out in the front yard on our cameras at all hours as well. Where he isn’t great - at following instructions or taking accountability. We travel quite a bit, and thought I had found our guy! I thought he was going to be Uncle Toney. I have no other words than to say I’m truly just so disappointed.