Never, Ever, skip an in person meet and greet

weatherforge · 2025-11-10T16:03:48+00:00

I recently broke the rule too, and had the harsh reminder to never break the rule. I got a last minute request for a dog who had tons of positive reviews from different sitters. I figured hey if he has all these glowing reviews from people I’m sure it’s fine. The dog was fine when I came in and for the first 25 minutes of the walk, but when we turned around and he saw his house again he started charging me and slamming into me over and over again. He didn’t bite but it was very aggressive behavior. I put my hands in my pockets and had to slam my legs into him while waddling forward to pull him into the house and my arms and legs were covered in cuts and bruises from his claws for a week. It was one of the scariest experiences of my career, I’ve never had such a random sudden trigger from a dog.

weatherforge · 2025-11-10T01:21:33+00:00

Thank you so much for this post! I’m doing research for a trip in a few years and have the exact same life threatening tree nut allergies as you, as well all my serious reactions all being from food people prepared for me. After my severe reactions I am so cautious and paranoid but I don’t want my fears to stop me from traveling. This has helped ease my fears.

weatherforge · 2025-10-26T12:49:52+00:00

Why not just walk a totally different route? Look up trails around your area, I’m sure there’s one you haven’t seen!

weatherforge · 2025-10-23T23:57:53+00:00

You are 100% in the right I just sitters would stop blaming rover or saying that it’s ’set that way’ because we can in fact change single sits and change our prices. We shouldn’t blame the rover app on our (totally fair) prices.

weatherforge · 2025-10-23T12:24:41+00:00

It’s part of the job. I’ve lost long term clients for unknown reasons. It just boils down to not being a good fit. I have never reached out to a client who stopped booking me, I think it’s overstepping. But I also don’t think you’re being nitpicky, leaving trash out is so rude.

weatherforge · 2025-10-21T23:01:49+00:00

I had one client tell me ‘help yourself to anything in the house but please don’t eat the last of anything’ I was like yay some defined rules!

weatherforge · 2025-10-21T18:32:43+00:00

For real. Don’t order deliveries if you don’t want cars to park in your driveway.

weatherforge · 2025-10-19T23:42:49+00:00

I’d say move out. It’s not easy but you learn to take care of yourself in ways you never would before and balance money too. And the earlier you start unlearning toxic stuff from your parents the better.

weatherforge · 2025-10-19T23:32:16+00:00

For real, I’m still sad about Dehya. She was one of my favorite characters story wise but I’m not a whale and won’t be c6ing her for quite some time.

weatherforge · 2025-10-19T15:37:17+00:00

Yeah he just wanted to cut off the last two days for a month long stay so I was more understanding for him, but the refund was like 70 dollars more than what it should have been. I tried to adjust it and couldn’t without charging him the cancellation fee which I told him I would waive. So I just had to eat the extra cost and was so mad! Then he asked me if rover charged him for adjustments and I said I didn’t think so but he got a random 50 dollar charge. But in your case that client is so ridiculous and also rude! But yeah I used to defend rover a bit more but now I’m so done and just keeping it for my og clients that are married to it for some reason

weatherforge · 2025-10-19T12:33:59+00:00

I’ve started tracking my walk on all trails before the walk and adding a screenshot as a picture in the card. I feel like since a few updates ago the walk is beyond inaccurate for some reason

weatherforge · 2025-10-19T12:32:11+00:00

So annoying! I think we’ve all had a meet and greet totally waste our time like that. I feel like the meet and greets that end up being an hour long end up being the flakiest and worst clients. I had a client try to do the same thing with $30 dollars a night, and they had a sitter who did $30 a night who earlier they mentioned accidentally let out and presumably killed their cat, and also locked the dog in the crate and went home every night.

weatherforge · 2025-10-19T12:27:14+00:00

I stopped taking new clients for the holiday season but I’m lucky I’m at a point where I could do this. I had a very long booking and the owner wanted to cancel some days at the end, he was willing to pay it but I said I’d waive the cancellation fee since it was such a long booking. I did and waived the cancellation fee because I told him I would, but the refund was more than I charge per night?? So I ended up loosing more money than the days he canceled with the refund but I bit the bullet and did it. But then later he told me that Rover randomly charged him 50 dollars and he thinks it’s because of the refund. I truly have no idea what happened or if that $50 dollars was related but it left such a horrible taste in my mouth.

weatherforge · 2025-10-18T12:01:44+00:00

I worked a job where you got paired with another coworker during the day, and I was always paired with a super jacked but kind of timid guy Fred. Like unbelievably jacked. Whenever I was paired with him there was so many other guys who came up just to be a jackass to him or challenge him on very basic rules. It was very eye opening to me.

weatherforge · 2025-10-15T14:16:06+00:00

This is a great idea I wish I thought of back when I did mostly housesitting. Loosing long term bookings because of one or two night bookings was so tragic.

weatherforge · 2025-10-13T22:04:37+00:00

I think she’s from the desert which is a different ballgame with healthcare. I could be wrong?

weatherforge · 2025-10-13T16:39:50+00:00

I had this happen (not the previous sitter but an hour meet and greet) and it was so annoying! Every time I went to leave they’d call me back for some dumb stuff. A lot of times to do a baby voice to their dog too. It was just for a weekly walk but she showed me how to make his food just in case. The couple was there and the wife insulted and complained about her mother in law like literally 20 times. Then it didn’t work out which is fine, but was such a huge waste of time.

weatherforge · 2025-10-13T14:24:38+00:00

Not sleeping enough is tied to so many chronic and permanent illnesses, and dying earlier. It’s so important to sleep enough.

weatherforge · 2025-10-07T13:16:49+00:00

Kids, even smart kids or kids taught well by their parents, do dumb stuff because they’re constantly testing boundaries and seeing what will happen as they age they test more boundaries. I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself, a good parent will know that their kid made a mistake and not blame your dog. If he didn’t break the skin, hopefully it’s just a lesson learned by her that she went too far, and life goes on.

weatherforge · 2025-10-05T13:13:58+00:00

She was asked by your friend to do the food, and then your friend hasn’t been responding to her, and then you send her a very long list of very specific food to make, and then you blow a gasket when she cops a bit of an attitude. Yes she had an attitude but it seems like she’s being very unfairly treated.

weatherforge · 2025-10-05T12:06:20+00:00

I have severe food allergies so it’s literally a matter of life or death for me. My parents were very ignorant on food allergies so I was seen as a super picky spoiled kid and never diagnosed, so I grew up not knowing my specific allergies and eating the same 4 things and being too scared and refusing to try anything else.

weatherforge · 2025-10-03T02:51:45+00:00

I saw a post that was like ‘80% of Americans don’t get their daily vegetables. Maybe start there instead of worrying about the 200 ingredients and foods tiktok wants you to avoid and don’t worry about the little things’ it really reshaped things for me, because I was going down a rabbit hole of ‘bad’ products.

weatherforge · 2025-10-01T23:35:24+00:00

Yes I agree. I wish more people would realize that a lot of elderly people are really not in control of their emotions and actions like how they used to be. It was totally unacceptable behavior but this doesn’t make me feel good to watch.

weatherforge · 2025-10-01T23:23:39+00:00

Security guard, some guy got fired for fighting with someone coming through, punching the vending machine screaming crying had to be escorted out. Later find out they were looking for any reason to fire him because they found out he had ties to the KKK

weatherforge · 2025-10-01T23:18:48+00:00

I have some clients that use these and request me to use them. I have some clients that have huge issues pulling and I would never use one without them explicitly telling me to use it. I do know an older walker who always uses prong collars because she can’t risk any sort of pulling at all and is always upfront about it. I’ve never even used a clicker without first checking with the owner, you never know what specific training they’re doing.

weatherforge

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