In Seattle, it can be harder to become a dog walker than a babysitter

(Photo via Joseph Pearson, Unsplash)

There are various dog fanatics available in the market who, for no matter reason why, can’t have a dog and KIRO Nights communicate display host Zak Burns is one in every of them. So he determined to fill the dog sized hollow in his center via taking up a facet hustle as a dog walker and sitter via Rover.com

“Rover is the nation’s largest network of pet sitters and dog walkers,” defined Rover’s director of on-demand dog strolling operations, Jenna White. “We allow pet owners to go on our website or use our app to find a five star sitter anytime they need someone to take care of their pet.”

So Burns went on-line to get started the approval procedure.

“First time that I contacted Rover about being a dog walker was in September of 2017,” he mentioned. “I got approved to be a dog sitter about three months later. What I really wanted to do was be a dog walker. That process took, in total, eight months. Eight months for me to get approved.”

Burns wasn’t frustrated or making an attempt to bash Rover, however he used to be lovely amused that the approval procedure to be a dog walker used to be see you later and hard.

“Bryan, one of the guys in management here, sent me an article from the ‘Wall Street Journal’ that said it’s actually harder to get approved by Rover…less people get approved than people who apply to Ivy League universities,” Burns mentioned.

So because the months went via, and Burns waited to be licensed, he determined to behavior an experiment.

“This is how much more thorough Rover is for pets than some sites are for babysitting. Just to compare the two, I decided to apply to a babysitting site. It took six days. Six days to be approved and I spoke to no human beings whatsoever to get approved to watch human kids.”

White mentioned Burn’s 8 month wait used to be extremely bizarre however Rover is the primary to admit that changing into a Rover dog walker is a very thorough procedure.

“Dogs are family,” White mentioned. “You see that in Seattle and around the world. So at Rover we take safety really seriously. You most likely won’t meet the dog or the owner before hand. So we really want to make sure to set the walker up for success when they go to meet that dog.”

“Especially because with the dog walking, I’m going into people’s apartments without even meeting them,” added Burns. “So they are putting a lot of faith into Rover’s process. I know if I was going to let someone into my house, I’d want to make certain this was a decent person.”

So let’s communicate in regards to the means of approval. First, the potential dog walker creates a web-based account. There are movies to watch and quizzes to take. Then there’s a telephone interview and a background test.

“After that we meet you in person,” mentioned White. “That’s done for every single on-demand walker across the country.”

There’s additionally an in-person harness take a look at. A Rover worker watches every applicant put the 5 maximum usually used harnesses on a filled dog.

“I failed the harness test!” laughed Burns. “I got two wrong out of five. Had to go back, retake the harness test, finally passed.”

“What we find is almost a quarter of them are not ready to properly put on a harness when we meet them in person for the first time,” mentioned White. “So we do allow a second take but after that you are not currently eligible to become a walker on Rover.”

Lucky for Burns, he handed the second one spherical and used to be licensed to be a walker and a sitter.

“Only about one in five [people] who start the process to become a sitter end up going live on our platform,” mentioned White.

While Burns is taking part in his dog walks, he has retired as a dog sitter.

“I had a dog that was with me for four days,” he mentioned. “It was a one year old Husky and it did not come as described. The dog exclusively pooped inside the house, despite that I was taking him on hour long walks. As soon as it would get back [in the house] it would look at me, bark and then just poop. My laptop was sitting on the floor open and it pooped on the keyboard. The worst one square foot in the entire apartment to poop and these were colossal, colossal poops. Like, you would weigh them in terms of pounds.”

In the Seattle space, about 80,000 persons are signed up on Rover, both as shoppers or dog walkers.