When Anna O’Sullivan retired, she got to spend a lot more time with her foxhound at home, but knew she needed a friend.
O’Sullivan considered buying a second dog – but found a way to make sure her pup had a constant rotation of dogs to play with by registering as a Rover host.
Rover is a platform like Airbnb for dog sitting. Users can board or host their dogs with one another while they are out of town, or for the day.
“I was watching a YouTube video on different ways to make income at home without leaving the house, and one of them was dog sitting,” O’Sullivan said. “I thought it was interesting, so I Googled dog sitters around me and found Rover. I didn’t realize there are so many people with so many dogs.”
Rover started operating in Canada in 2017, and is available in 10 countries in North America and Europe. More than 4 million pet owners have used the service, and approximately 870,000 hosts have kept the dogs in their care.
For O’Sullivan, signing up for the site required providing ID and a background check that lasted about a week. She is available to host dogs in Burlington.
“The most important thing is I need to know the dog is safe with other dogs,” O’Sullivan said. “The safety of myself, people, and the dogs has to the the priority. If I sense an inkling of aggressive behaviour, I decline because I don’t want that dog.”
In June, two dogs died in the care of a dog sitter who was registered on Rover – but those bookings were made outside of Rover, according to Dave Rosenbaum, senior public relations manager.
The host – Kippen Cares – is no longer on the platform.
“Those stays were not booked on our platform, so when we learned about it we obviously took actions immediately to suspend the sitter’s account,” Rosenbaum said. “Once we were able to identify them as someone offering care through Rover, we cancelled all of their future bookings and reached out to pet parents to say this sitter is no longer offering care through Rover.”
Dogs on Rover can be cared for for weeks, and it can be hard to make sure the pets are happy and excited while their owners are leaving them.
O’Sullivan knows those first days are key for keeping canines content.
“I have someone dropping off a dog tomorrow, they’re going on a trip,” she said. “I try to give it some time to get to know my place, if I have other dogs, and do so very slowly so it doesn’t feel uncomfortable. The dog is used to a totally different environment with a different person. It doesn’t know if mom or dad is coming back, so it’s very stressful.”
She added many dogs neglect eating the first day due to stress, but their survival instincts take over soon after and they look for a meal.
“I try to incorporate the dog into my life, because they become part of the family,” O’Sullivan said.
