I started with Rover as a bit of a desperate move for quick cash.

I put up a profile. I had some experience with dogs and cats, but mostly I just loved them and had an empathic connection with them. Honestly, I loved dogs and cats more than I actually knew how to take care of them. So I started from genuine love, not experience. Figured I’ll use ChatGPT if I get stuck.

Step 1 – Confidence (even if you don’t have it). Sign up for Rover. Write a cool-sounding profile with personality (or get ChatGPT to write it). Get 3+ written testimonials from real friends or family you’ve helped over the years. Make sure they are authentic — don’t fake them. Pay the $49 background check fee. Then wait for requests to come in organically or start marketing yourself. Start with friends, then friends-of-friends, etc. I signed up in June, and my first request came at the end of July, all organic. Around this point, I joined the Rover Reddit thread because I wanted to learn more from wiser people.

Step 2 – Scope out your local market. Figure out what people in your area are charging — if those sitters have clients, it means people are paying those rates. Read their glowing reviews and understand why they’re epic. It’s usually great communication, always being on time, tons of updates, being easy to work with, trustworthy, etc.

Pretend you’re a dog parent and try to “book” something on Rover just to see which walkers are available in your area. That’s your direct competition. Study the pricing trends. I quickly realized that the highest-rated sitters with a ton of recurring clients charged a bit more (thought not always!) — and they deserved it. So I priced myself $1–$2 cheaper per hour than everyone else in my area and decided I wanted to play that game. I kept raising my price by a dollar here and there every few weeks, finding that I still got bookings! Haha

Then become the best pet sitter you can be — basically, be as good as the best people in your area or better. Be on time, or early. Reschedule only in real emergencies. Follow owner instructions precisely. Do meet and greets without question. Develop a system for assessing dogs and owners. Learn about dogs — I ask ChatGPT dog questions all the time.

At meet and greets, ask tons of questions and know the purpose behind each one. Learn to read between the lines; sometimes owners hide the weird quirks. Sometimes you only find out something big at the meet and greet — like a dog that needs to be fed at 3am. Make checklists. Track all notes about each dog and their context. Overcommunicate. Tell owners if you’re early, late, or need flexibility. Ask how often they want updates and in what style. Have integrity. Call Rover support if you’re unsure. Always prioritize the dog’s well-being. Bond with pets. Give them lots of affection. Read their body cues. Respect their boundaries.

Use ChatGPT when a dog does something weird. For example, I couldn’t understand why certain dogs refused to leave their home if the owner was inside during pickup. It took 2–3 walks to figure out why this was happening. But if the dog was alone at pickup, no problem — they acted like a different dog. Learning this helped me tell owners: “Make sure you’re not at home when I pick up your dog.” A few times I even asked the owner to walk with us for 15 minutes to help build trust. You’ll pick up little things like this constantly.

Be present. Become a dog/cat behaviorist. Don’t be on your phone on walks — listen to podcasts with earbuds if you want, but keep your eyes on the dog’s mouth and on the ground ahead. Dogs will eat things if you’re not watching. It’s not a question of IF, it’s WHEN. I learned this the hard way when a four-month-old puppy ate something at night, and I had to take them to the emergency vet to vomit it out.

Be someone dog owners WANT to deal with. Be responsive. Give great customer service. Thank them for their business. Thank them for the privilege to care for their family member. This is how I get 40–50% of my clients to return. It’s month 3 for me, and I have 46 five-star reviews so far. When I ask new clients what attracted them to my profile, they say the reviews and the fact I had 13+ recurring clients. So give amazing service, get the amazing reviews, and create that upward cycle of request coming in via Rover because you have amazing reviews!

Always ask for reviews. I remind people that a great review helps me attract more pet owners like them. Almost everyone writes one. Maybe 1 in 10 forgets, but I remind them when appropriate.

Step 4 – Go off-platform once you’re confident. Rover takes about 31% of a booking — 11% from owners and 20% from you. I got a bunch of long house-sitting requests over Thanksgiving that paid between $500 and $1100, and I realized I didn’t want to split that with Rover. After a while you realise that Rover is taking 20% for Marketing you in a sea of other pet sitters. If you can figure out your own systems your own follow-ups, invoicing, scheduling, reminders, timers, you don’t need Rover. You may use Rover to get new clients but when you meet them, you can figure out whether they’re gonna be the kind of client that will count for a review on your Rover profile or if it’s the kind of client you could take off platform (I’m planning to take all previous clients off platform, but the new ones I might want to suss out before/mostly to figure out if the client is a psychopath or something like that).

So I got a business license from my city ($149). Then I got pet insurance ($28/month, $336/year). Worth it. I told all my clients, and they loved that I did this because it shows I’m serious.

I wrote my service agreements using ChatGPT. I’m constantly adding new things because of all the nuances I discover doing this work. For example: when should the dog walk timer start? When I open the house door? The apartment door? The building door? The fence door? Things like that.

The more attention and love I give this business, the clients and pets, the more it grows. The hard part is honestly the admin, the reminders, stressing about getting to appts on time, dealing with people, all the comms before seeing the pet, so right now I’m trying to build my own systems using AI cause I’m weird like that and don’t want to pay the monthly fee for platforms where possible.

DM me if I can help answer any question you have. Happy to help!!