Rover.com – Dog Boarding & Sitting

I’m sure there are amazing people at
, but our first experience was the worst experience ever. We were unable to book a room for our dog at our usual boarding place and so we decided to check out
. We found Jocelyn J. and decided to do a meet and greet. She was very nice and seemed very responsible and our dog warmed up to her quickly. We booked her over Christmas and should have made sure what her schedule was. Since we booked overnights for the week we were gone, from our conversation she said she would come every day (staying at our home during the evening and then coming for a walk in the day).
Unfortunately, our dog was left alone for two out of the seven days we were gone. What I mean is, Jocelyn left her in the apartment without food, water, or access to the bathroom (she has to go outside). I was so angry and upset because Jocelyn didn’t inform us that she wouldn’t be coming at all for 24+ hours for two days! I texted her since we have a webcam set up to check on our dog and asked if she was going to be coming because it had been more than 10+ hours since her last visit. She responded by saying she wasn’t going to come. Our dog peed and pooped on the carpet because of what happened and it was barely cleaned up when we got home.
I just don’t understand how someone who is responsible for taking care of any living animal can leave them more than 24 hours and still get paid for negligence. It was a horrible first Rover experience for us and Rover did nothing. I called them to let them know our dog was being neglected. Rover pretty much said to try to work it out with the pet sitter but if the pet sitter is incompetent, how are we protected? Rover didn’t do anything for us and our horrible experience so I can’t recommend them right now.

Nothing but great things to say about our experience using Rover. We were very lucky since we ended up using the first dog walker we contacted, Angelic M., and she has been fantastic. She goes above and beyond for our dog and has shown a tremendous amount of patience, training, and care. We could not get by without her! Rover app is super easy to use for setting up and paying for new appointments. Overall, incredibly happy with the app and with our dog walker — both are highly recommended!

So far so good! Have used Rover for dog sitting and walking and it’s gone very well. I appreciate the convenience of the online booking system as well as the quality care providers. I like that each person is vetted, and each stay is insured by the company. Really like being able to communicate via text. Have yet to use it for an extended stay/​boarding, but it’s on my list for Feb!

Great option. Super helpful in last minute situations. I love the varied locales in case I want my pup near a certain area.

I have used rover a number of times now and unfortunately my experience has varied greatly.
First the positive, after an all night barking incident in my own home with a stop by a few times a day pet sitter I needed to switch to keeping my dog outside my home while away. Rover gives me a reasonably priced option where my dog can stay in a home rather than a kennel. I have had some truly exceptional sitters with rover that send me lots of updates, and appear to take great care of my dog keeping him happy and entertained. However, unfortunately I’ve had bad luck being able to consistently using sitters I like as they often seem to stop using rover, have limited availability, or raise their rates outside of my budget, leaving me constantly searching for new sitters which leads me to the bad…
Not all sitters on the site are good and its really hard to separate the good from the bad until its too late. Some of my worse experiences have been with sitters with tons of 5 star reviews. I think part of the issue there is the reason they have such a high number of reviews is that they take a lot of animals into their house at once. Because of that you can go to a meet and greet where everything seems great, but then wind up actually boarding with a dog that is not a good fit with your own. I have an older small dog. On one trip I came to pick him up only to see a large clearly young dog jumping all over him while my dog was trying to escape with his tail between his legs. Needless to say if that dog was at the meet and greet I never would have left my dog there. In another case my dog wound up being crated due to the large number of dogs in the home and came back with a sore on his nose from trying to escape said crate. If you read through the negative reviews you can find horror stories even worse than mine.
So in conclusion, your rover experience could be a 5 star, or could be a 1 star and unfortunately its very hard to predict which you’ll wind up getting, so I went with the middle.3.
Quick edit. I did contact rover customer service after my most recent negative experience. I was offered a $ 15 credit which while not really a lot of money for an injured dog was at least a nice gesture. I just learned today that credit was only good for a month, and of course I have no travel plans. Seems odd to give a «we’re sorry credit» with a quick expiration date.

We were traveling to LA for New Years concert at the Forum. On the road with our staffshire Bull Terrier. Searched Rover .com for overnight boarding. Found Marie who was located 1 mile from our hotel. Very convenient for us. Marie and her family provided great care. When traveling and you need dog care in another city
is the Air B&B for dogs.

I was torn as to what I should rate this service because I think the service itself is excellent. I am very pleased with the sitter (s) I have used, however, the website and app are pretty crummy. I would consider myself knowledgeable with using, creating, and navigating websites so I’m not sure why I have so much trouble with this one.
More often than not, new and old messages won’t show up on the app or the website. One day they show up, the next they don’t. Also, I don’t find it very intuitive. It seems like when you update your profile you should be able to add CC info, but that’s not the case. It also seems like you should be able to search for a specific sitter that you like, which is not the case. I still can’t figure out how to use the $ 25.00 Rover dollars I was given when I signed up. I keep trying to click on things that I assume would tell me more about how to use it but it tells me to enter a promo code, which I still can’t figure out where I am supposed to get it from.
I have a pending booking/​service request from the past that I can’t change or cancel. It allows you to edit only some of the info (i.e. I can change the dates but not the type of service, dog walk, drop in visit, or house stay). In short, there are a variety of other frustrations with this website.
The first time around I paid cash and didn’t even book on the site because I couldn’t figure out how to correct things and I needed a sitter asap. The most we got from the app was the ability to exchange phone numbers so we could book the service over the phone.
If it weren’t for the totally awesome sitter I found on here I wouldn’t even be trying to figure the site out. This service is valuable so I feel strongly about trying to use the site to ensure that the people who worked so hard to create this site get a cut of what we pay for the service but man, this site sucks so I will continue to reluctantly use it.

Rover was an amazingly convenient option for making last minute dog walking arrangements from my phone. The site is easy to navigate to select a walker, further correspondence for making arrangements is via text and then payment is also through their website. It was easier than I imagined and definitely an affordable service. We even received photo updates from our walker of her and our dog out on walks while we were away! Would definitely recommend and would use again.

was an excellent Pet Boarding alternative for me. I have a cat and was able to find a local sitter that was reliable who was able to do a drop in visit and check on him and feed him a couple times a day. Wonderful alternative to having to place my beloved pet in a metal cage. With
I can let my cat stay in my home where he’s more comfortible and have someone I learned to trust visit him and feed him. I will never go back to regular pet boarding!

I really like this service. It’s quick and easy to sign up and find a sitter that fits your needs in your area. We’ve been very happy with our sitter Zoe. She’s really sweet, takes and sends us lots of pictures of our dog while we’re gone and always is on time.
The other thing I really like about the service is that it charges my credit card, so like Über, I don’t have deal with the awkwardness of dealing with cash and tip. It’s all handled seamlessly.

was an excellent dog boarding and dog walking alternative for me… We wanted to find a reliable dog sitter, someone we felt comfortable with. If it wasn’t for
we would have never found Pam. Thanks
!

I’ve really loved rover and recommended it to all my friends with dogs.
I think of Rover kind of like a service like Über or Post Mates in a way. They facilitate the boarding process. They make it much easier to find sitters near you, give you the chance to see reviews of sitters, provide a safe way to exchange funds, provide insurance for your stay, and provide accountability for the sitter. It’s much harder for a sitter to cancel on you and any negative stay can be reported to rover and appropriate action will be taken against the sitter.
For those reasons I think Rover deserves 5 stars. Rover makes the dog sitting experience safer for both the sitters and the clients. I enjoy that I can see reviews on sitters and get to know a bit about them before I contact tem. And I especially love the accountability Rover provides should anything go sideways.
That being said, like in über or postmates, your experience will largely depend on the person rendering services. Thankfully, unlike those apps, you get to pick your sitter. Take your time and Meet. With. The. Sitter. before you book! I’ve met sitters I was happy to leave my dog with and sitters I wasn’t. At the end of the day it’ll come down to your preferences and your dog’s needs. I don’t think I’ve ever met a sitter that was objectively bad, just not what I was looking for.
I’ve noticed a lot of reviews on here are basing their rating on their experience with the sitters. I don’t necessarily think that’s fair. Rover as a service is great and it gives you as much information and access as possible to have a great sitting experience. At the end of the day it’s up to you to pick a sitter that matches you and your dog from the resources Rover has provided. You can read other peoples’ reviews, see photos, see their profile, look for special badges (like taking pet care courses, having home inspections, background checks, etc), and meet with the ones you like most.
At the end of the day, I totally recommend looking for your sitter through rover!

Home away from home dog boarding service. I was so happy with the care my dog Sally received from her care provider Michael. Michael provides a safe environment that involved playing, feeding, and walking my dog. He sent nightly videos and pictures of Sally taken throughout the day. when I picked Sally up she wanted to stay and play some more. I am so happy with
and Michael in particular that I have already booked her next stay. I have recommended
to my friends. I liked that I was able to meet with providers and then choose the person I felt matched Sally best.

is the answer to all my dog-​boarding problems! I adopted my dog, Miki, over a year ago when he was around 6 months old. He was abandoned at a doggie daycare so when I first looked into boarding, I was shying away from those.
That’s when a coworker told me about
! I was hooked after Miki’s first stay and feel like with each subsequent stay, Miki is happy and I’m relieved that I don’t have to worry about him when I travel! All the sitters I’ve had are extremely knowledgeable and the website/​app does a good job of giving you the right information. 10 out of 10 would recommend to any responsible dog owner/​lover!

worked out very well for our dog boarding needs. The only hitch was that it took three tries to find a sitter due to the first sitter saying she hadn’t paid attention to the dates we needed and thus backed out after a visit and the second sitter had not updated her availability dates on her profile (meaning she later said she was not available). The problem here is that it takes time, including a lot of back and forth over Rover’s messaging system, to get the ball rolling.
However, once we found the sitter we went with everything went so very smoothly. Our sitter took amazing care of our dog and sent frequent text updates (with photos!). Will definitely use this service again.

I would give 4.5 stars if I could. I have had nothing but great experiences with Rover when contacting sitters to take care of my own dog. Sitters are quick to respond, flexible, and the ones we have chosen are clearly experienced at caring for dogs.
However, not every single person on Rover is fantastic. Be picky about who you choose to contact, read through all their reviews, what kind of home they have, how often they are home, what kind of exercise they will give your dog, and try to get a good sense of who they are At the same time, if you plan to be a sitter, choose which dogs (and people) you want to sit carefully. Not everyone is totally honest, kind, or completely on their rocker. I had one notable negative experience when caring for someone else’s pet that was clearly a one-​off problem that Rover took care of in the best way they could.
Overall a great company – much better than taking your furry loved one to a kennel (and frankly, its close to the same price oftentimes)

I’ve heard about
for quite some time and I had my doubts about this site. We are very picky as to who can watch our fur baby because we had a horrible first experience with a sitter back in Hawaii (not Rover related). Anyway, we were going on vacation and needed someone to watch him.
Searching for a sitter was difficult. I picked about 6 sitters and majority of them were not available. My number one pick ended up canceling due to an emergency. I went back to searching for possible sitters. Luckily, we found one that we thought would be perfect for Guinness. All of the potential sitters that I’ve contacted requested a meet up (I always ask to meet up at their home), which is highly recommended. It’s always good to know the environment you will leave your fur baby at– do they have dogs? cats? how well does your baby interact with their baby? When the meet up occurs, and you decide at that point that you want to book the sitter, make sure to let them know everything about your dog. What is their schedule, allergies, etc. Since my first booking, I have used the same sitter. Unfortunately, they are moving so I am back to searching for a new sitter.

It was a great experience getting pictures of my pets while on vacation. They were shown having fun and cuddling with the sitter She even painted my dogs nails!
She stayed at my house and also took in the mail and watered my plants. I will be using
many times in the future.

My new favorite business to rave about. Dog boarding at its easiest and best. You can find dog sitters near you or at whatever location you may be going to. Filter the app to show costs, type of dog, dates, and whether you want the dog sitter to come to your place or have the dog at theirs. It’s magnificent and a blessing to come across this and it has been my savior when driving across country and taking emergency trips. You are able to see others reviews, the babysitters can write one for you, and can take photos and videos of their stay!

I’ve been a Rover sitter for over a year. Rover seems to do a great job advertising, as I don’t have to do anything (although they have options to help you promote your services). I have frequent contact from potential clients and have been very happy with the types of clients who have found me.
Subtracted a star because their web site and apps could use some updates, but overall I’ve been very happy with Rover!