We first began using Rover as pet sitters in 2019, before we had launched our own pet sitting business, and it’s the one website we still always recommend to pet owners when we’re fully booked! Rover is a fantastic website for both pet owners and pet sitters – essentially it facilitates match-making between those in need of pet care for their furry friends, and pet sitters, boarders and dog walkers who can advertise their services on the site. We’ve had so many wonderful experiences with Rover, but if you’re new to the site you might be unsure about what to look for on a sitter’s profile. In this post we’re highlighting some red flags you might not be aware of when browsing pet sitter profiles on Rover, and giving you some food for thought when looking for the perfect Rover sitter for your pets. Of course these are our own observations and it is ultimately up to you to do your own due diligence and ensure the person, or couple, you’re hiring to pet sit for you is well suited to the job. In this post we’ll focus on pet sitters only, though you can find out more about Rover boarders and dog walkers on our Rover FAQs post as well as our full Rover review. Here’s what to look out for on a Rover sitter’s profile:
Table of Contents
Written profile information
Rover gives sitters ample space to write information about themselves and the services they provide, including details of their pet care experience, their schedule and how pet care fits into their routine, what a typical day looks like when they’re pet sitting, and any information the sitter would like to know about pets ahead of booking. This is the sitter’s opportunity to stand out from the crowd, so look for those that take the time to fill in their profile with thought and care. We’ve seen profiles where the sitter has filled in the bare minimum character count, or focuses on how pet sitting benefits them instead of what they do to provide the best care for your pets. A mention of why they love pet sitting can help you get to know what led them to get started in the first place, but too much emphasis on the perks and bonuses for them is a big red flag.
Similarly any short profiles that only read something along the lines of “Pet sitting on Rover is a good way for me to make extra money” should be treated as a red flag – these sitters will not have your pets’ best interests at heart. A passionate pet sitter’s profile will explain why they love pet sitting, while talking about why choosing them as your sitter is beneficial to you and your pets.
Another point to consider is any conditions to their services. This isn’t necessarily a red flag, depending on your circumstances, but something to consider when deciding if the person in front of you is the best suited to care for your pets and home. For example if the sitter states they have another job working from home, but your dog is used to lots of attention throughout the day, they simply might not be the best match for your pets. Taking the time to browse Rover further and find a sitter who is better suited for your pets’ needs will be worth it ten times over in the long run!
Our biggest pet peeve on Rover profiles concerns the ‘years of experience’ section. This is where sitters choose a number from a dropdown list to display how many years of pet care experience they have as a sitter. We’ve seen sitters cite 20 years experience, only for us to read on and realise they are 20 years old themselves and simply grew up with family dogs or cats at home. Unless the person was, from the age of 0, in charge of feeding the dog, walking the dog, and making decisions about the pet’s welfare, living with a family dog for 20 years does NOT equate to 20 years experience as a pet sitter in someone else’s home! While growing up around animals is a solid foundation for a job in pet care, it’s very different to the huge responsibility of looking after someone else’s pet, settling into their routine and caring for the home as well as being professional, organised and reliable at their job. Make sure you read all profile information thoroughly to get the full picture of someone’s experience.
Photos
Rover suggests sitters upload 5-10 photos to their profile showing them with pets, for example on a walk or playing together. On our profile we currently have 22 images, each from a different house sit. We like to use photos of us together and separately, with a variety of different dog breeds and animals, to show potential clients that we can handle anything! When searching for your sitter on Rover, we’d consider it a red flag if a sitter has only chosen to upload 1 or 2 photos to their profile. Depending on how many years of experience they cite in their written information, a sitter should at least be able to upload 5 photos of themselves with pets to show that they have cared for animals.
Another aspect of the photos section we consider to be a red flag is images that only show pets, and not the sitter. While it can be difficult for a solo sitter to take good photos of themselves with pets they’ve cared for, everybody knows how to take a selfie! A sitter should be able to take at least a few photos of themselves with pets – after all, a photo of a dog or cat could be from anywhere, especially if there is no caption.
Which brings us to – photo captions! It baffles us how many profiles we’ve seen with countless photos, but no captions for any of them. It’s worth noting that when a sitter sends on-sit photos to the owner via the Rover app, there is an option to have these photos automatically added to your profile, and there is no option to add a caption for them. We understand when a sitter has a handful of these photos on their profile, but at the very least the first 5 photos that a sitter has uploaded themselves should have captions explaining what’s happening in the images. We’ve added captions to every single one of our images, such as ‘Walkies with Macintosh and Biscuit while at a housesit near Bristol’ on a photo of us both with two Dachshunds, or ‘Cuddles with Wolfie the Irish Wolfhound at a housesit near Chichester’. This lets a pet owner see that we’re experienced with breeds of all sizes, that we always go on walkies together, and we love to give pets lots of fuss at home! Consider these details in relation to your pets’ care requirements when you’re scrolling through profile photos.
Another potential red flag is a profile with dozens of images of the same dog. We’ve seen a fair few of these, where we’ve discovered upon further reading that the dog belongs to the sitter and is not one they’ve cared for in a pet sitting capacity. This is similar to the ‘years of experience’ on a profile that we touched on in the previous section – it’s one thing to comfortably care for your own dog, in a routine you’ve set in your home, but it requires another level of care, experience, professionalism and organisation to learn to care for someone else’s dog in their home and routine. If the photo captions don’t explain what the image is, make sure you read any written information thoroughly to make sure the sitter has cared for dogs other than their own. Don’t be afraid to ask any questions about a sitter’s profile if you do choose to contact them for a job – more general tips at the end of this post!
Rates
Probably the most controversial topic on this list, and one where ultimately you’ll have to decide what cost is right for you. There are, however, a few things to consider about a sitter’s service rates no matter your budget. It’s worth knowing that Rover does not suggest service prices to sitters – each pet care provider chooses their own service rates based on what they believe is fair for them, and there are many factors that contribute to the wide variety of rates available when you browse Rover sitters. For example, we charge a higher rate than others in our service radius simply because we always pet sit as a couple. When pet owners book us, they’re getting two pairs of eyes watching out for their pets and two pairs of hands to take care of everything! For this reason we often receive requests for multiple dogs in one household, or more nuanced responsibilities like caring for dogs with separation anxiety who can’t be left alone. Depending on the pets you have, the rates will differ. If you’re looking for care for an easygoing cat, you might be able to find a sitter with a low rate as the pet care is more straightforward, whereas the rates for three dogs will be higher. Rover includes the care of 1 dog in a sitter’s ‘base rate’, so if you have 2 dogs be prepared for a sitter to have an ‘additional rate’ for the second dog.
Nobody wants to pay a higher price if they don’t need to, but we’d recommend considering whether going straight for the sitter with the lowest service rate is worth it in the long run. This is major red flag territory – if it looks too good to be true, it usually is! It can be tempting to choose the sitter with the lowest service rate in your area, after all they may be equally as experienced as others and have simply chosen to undercut the competition. However, it’s vital to do your due diligence and make sure that the reason they’re the cheapest isn’t because they’re the least experienced, or because they’re using pet sitting as a quick side hustle instead of a career path or passion.
Having said this, the solution isn’t to choose the sitter with the highest rate! As we’ve mentioned, rates are determined entirely by the sitter and don’t necessarily reflect their level of experience. The majority of pet care providers on Rover mainly use the site to offer dog walking services, and might post rates for pet sitting as a secondary way to earn money on the site. In these cases they may have a family to care for at home, and choose to post a higher service rate than average simply to cover having to spend time away from their life at home. It’s always worth checking if they’ve actually completed pet sitting gigs in the past – more on how to do this in the next section!
Our top tip regarding rates on Rover is to take the time to have a good browse. If cost is one of the determining factors in who you book as your sitter, be sure to read through multiple profiles with varying price points and read all the written information given to learn more about what you’ll be getting for your money. Being extra considerate with who you book as your sitter, instead of basing your decision mainly on cost, will avoid any unexpected surprises or stress further down the line.
Reviews
We’re sure that reviews have played a huge part in our success on Rover, as they give insight into how a pet sitter performs from those who’ve experienced their services firsthand. Reading reviews on a Rover sitter’s profile carefully is incredibly important – you only have yourself to blame if you willingly ignore a warning from a previous pet owner! You may think that a profile with no reviews would be an instant red flag, but we wholeheartedly believe that a profile with 0 reviews should not necessarily get disregarded straightaway. After all, every new sitter on the site has to start somewhere! They may have years of pet sitting experience under their belts, but as they’re new to the site will not have the verified Rover reviews to show for it.
On a profile with no reviews, the key is to look at other sections to ascertain whether they are proficient at their job, including any testimonials. Testimonials differ to reviews in that a pet sitter can request feedback from a client whose pets they cared for prior to joining Rover. The form is sent straight to the client and will automatically upload to the sitter’s profile when complete, so, as with Rover reviews, the sitter cannot edit them. These testimonials show up in the reviews section on a sitter’s profile, but are distinguishable as testimonials as the type of service (e.g. house sitting, dog walking) will not show up, and there are no icons with photos of the pets. Sitters can request up to 15 testimonials to appear on their profile, which is a great way for those just starting out on the site to show firsthand feedback on their profile.
There is potential for a red flag here – if a sitter has no Rover reviews but a handful of testimonials, it’s vital to read the details of these carefully. Not only because they are the only client feedback on the profile, but these testimonials could have been written by a sitter’s friend or family member who will of course look to give a positive reference. Look for testimonials that mention the sitter as the pet owner’s regular pet care provider, or those that cite experience working with the sitter in an animal care capacity. If a sitter is serious about finding success on Rover, and has the required experience to care for pets, they should be able to find at least 2 or 3 previous clients to provide a testimonial. Tread carefully if there are no testimonials or reviews to view, especially if you can’t see evidence anywhere on the profile that the sitter has actual experience in pet sitting.
When a sitter does have reviews on their profile, there are a few things to be aware of – so no matter how many reviews a sitter has, look over each one and pay attention to the details! A listed sitter may have 10 glowing reviews, but if they are all for dog walking services you may want to consider if this person is right for the job. Taking a dog for an hour’s walk will give the person a certain level of animal care experience, but it’s vastly different to having full responsibility of a dog’s wellbeing for a week or more, as well as the care and security of your home. We say this from experience, as our journey from dog walkers and boarders to full time pet sitters involved a steep learning curve.
Equally, if reviews mention pet sitting for cats, small dog breeds or single pets, consider whether this person could handle pet sitting for your three large Labradors, or dogs of mixed ages that require different care. If you own a large, strong dog, or one with reactivity issues or special needs, it’s in your best interest to look for the reviews that mention the sitter being able to handle these circumstances. Doing this in conjunction with looking for photos of the sitter with large dogs will help back up any reviews and give you an overall assessment of the sitter’s abilities.
General tips
A few extra tips that, from our experience on Rover, will help you find the best sitter for your pets and have a smooth, stress-free experience:
- Get £15 off Rover bookings! Use our Rover discount code SUZES72456 when booking any pet care service to receive £15 off the cost of the booking.
- Book in advance. Sometimes you might find yourself having to look for a last minute sitter due to unforeseen circumstances. However, if you’re able to, our top tip to find the right sitter is to give yourself as much time as possible to browse the profiles on Rover. This means you’ll be able to sift through the hundreds of profiles at leisure and have time to spot the red flags. If you’re pressed for time before the start date of the sit, you’re more likely to ignore warning signs out of desperation or need. Payment is made upfront when booking a sit on Rover, however the payment funds are held by Rover until 5 working days after the sit has ended. If you do need to cancel the sit ahead of time, Rover will process a full refund – so there’s really no need to wait to book until the last minute! See our Rover FAQs post for more information about sitters’ cancellation policies.
- Arrange a face to face meeting or video call before booking your sitter. If a sitter is local to you, and you’re able to, we’d recommend meeting them face to face before you book them in. As we travel all over the UK as pet sitters, we can’t always meet owners in person before a sit, so we arrange a video call before booking in every single pet sit we take on. A meeting or video call will allow you to ask any questions you may have, including anything you’ve seen on their profile – it might be a good idea to write some questions down before you chat. The sitter will be able to clarify any responsibilities you’ve outlined too, and ultimately you’ll all be able to decide if they’re the right person to care for your pets and home. Take a look at the Questions we ask pet owners for an idea of things your pet sitter may need to know.
- Take the time to fill in your profile. Every pet owner is given a profile on Rover that is visible to a sitter after you’ve contacted them. It helps with a smooth and quick booking process when, as sitters, we can see photos of the owner’s pets and can read any important information about their temperament or routine. This is especially essential if you have any special requirements or your dog needs extra care, as a sitter will have to decide if they can take on these duties. We always feel that it shows an owner cares about our experience when they’ve taken the time to provide information and photos of their pets.
- View a sitter’s profile as a whole. It can be easy to be bowled over by a sitter with 10 glowing reviews when every other sitter in your area has just 2 or 3, but it’s still important to assess the rest of their profile! As we’ve mentioned, they may have racked up hours of dog walking or cat care without any actual house sitting experience. Checking the overall vibe of a profile is how you’ll be really able to decide if a sitter is the best person for your needs – take the time to make sure all their information adds up.
- For more of our top tips, head to our How to find your perfect pet sitter blog post.
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