June 4th, 2021 was the most painful night of my life.
I had dropped off my dog, Lucky, the night before with a dog sitter I hired from the Rover App. Within a few hours the Rover sitter misplaced her, and 18 hours later, I found her on the side of the road. She had been struck by a car and killed. She was the love of my life, as well as a registered Service Animal for my personal needs, so I am starting this petition to prevent this from happening to other families.

Before hiring the Rover sitter, I did a meet and greet with Lucky to meet her and her dog to make sure I had felt comfortable leaving Lucky in her care. Everything seemed great so I decided to trust her. 5 hours later at 1:30am the Rover sitter called saying Lucky had gotten out and after looking for an hour they could not find her. My boyfriend and I immediately rushed over to find them sitting on their porch having already given up searching. We were completely unfamiliar with the area and despite needing the Rover sitter’s help to find Lucky, she stated she was tired and went inside to sleep. We proceeded to search the area throughout the night searching every possible place as we had no information to go on. When stores opened, we printed flyers, went door to door and continued the search till 8:30 PM the following evening when we found her body 2 miles away.

Almost nothing about how Lucky got out, how long the Rover searched before calling me and how Lucky managed to get so far made any sense. After speaking with her neighbors who reported seeing Lucky, nothing about this timeline fit with the Rover sitter’s story. So many questions went unanswered as we searched for 18 hours in an unfamiliar area without the person that misplaced her. This Rover sitter’s extreme level of negligence in both the acts of losing Lucky and the failure to render aid in finding her has no place in animal care.

This has caused me the most pain in my life and I know Lucky would want me to do everything I can to prevent this from happening again. We need to improve the qualifications on becoming a Rover Dog Sitter. They need to have at least a virtual home check with specific security measures on all exits. They need a mandatory course on what to do IF a dog were to escape. There needs to be some set of procedures Rover sitters must agree to follow to use the Rover app. They are responsible for a LIFE, there needs to be an established standard of care or shut the business down.
I believe if I were there even 30 minutes earlier Lucky would be in my arms right now. No one wants to lose their family member the way I had to. Lucky didn't deserve to die this way. I could not even hold her or kiss her goodbye because of the condition she was in.

So PLEASE HELP me with this change!  We need to PREVENT this from happening again!
#ChangeforLucky