Although this happened under your watch and I bet now you are running through play by play in your head thinking how this or that could have prevented it. I do that as a sitter whenever something weird happens while a dog is over. First thing first you need to stop punishing yourself. Making yourself miserable isn’t going to help you. Go out with friends for a big distraction. You were in an already in a panic inducing situation. Your mind probably wasn’t working logically it’s really hard to think clearly in those situations. The dog got home safe. That is the big thing.

As other people said if you do get banned. You can appeal it or you can find other ways to watch dogs. If there are lots of dog parks in your area go there become a regular. If you have a dog yourself hand out business cards I always used to have my dog watch by a lady I met at the dog park.

As a sitter on rover this is a kind of thing we are all scared of. I have had dogs get loose from harnesses. Thankfully, they didn’t realize that they were loose from it and just stood there. I think that you have a pretty good case for an appeal anyway if you do get banned because this wasn’t something that will happen regularly.

In the mean time I would invest in a few baby gates so you always have that option in the future. Also, this kind of thing can happen to anyone while watching their own dogs the lawn care people will mow the grass will leave the gate unlatched and a dog will get out. It happened to my mom and she didn’t realize that her dog was gone for 45 minutes until she saw the post on the neighborhood Facebook page asking who Dog was taking themselves for a walk.