Justice for Winnie
Donation protected
We need your help. Our family is broken. We are seeking justice for our best friend; our pomeranian, Winnie. We believe that our Winnie was killed while in the care (or lack thereof) of a “5-Star”Rover.com pet sitter one month ago on August 16th 2018. #JusticeforWinnie
Winnie meant everything to our little family. She was a kisser, a hugger, a supporter and lover of naps and food. She was caring and filled with nothing but pure love for everyone she met. Her birthday was 8/9/10. She did not deserve the tragic end that she got a month ago and we will forever mourn this deeply, heavy loss.
What we think happened:
In our opinion Winnie died between 1pm-2pm on August 16th 2018 from heat stroke. Heat stroke is completely avoidable and a 5-star Pet Sitter should be capable of cooling a dog down.
What we know:
We left Winnie and our other Pomeranian Sonic with a 5-Star Rover.com pet sitter on August 15th 2018 at 5pm. Winnie, being a black, furry, short snouted pomeranian can naturally, of course, get hot as we stated to the sitter verbally more than once. It’s also in Winnie’s Rover.com online profile that she can be prone to overheating. We even provided a privacy play pen for Winnie. We were guaranteed our dogs would be safe while we were out of town.
We were called at around 6pm the following day by our friend and emergency contact who told us that Winnie was dead. Rover.com left a message telling us to contact the sitter.
We called the sitter’s husband who knew little to no details other than they took her to a crematorium! Without our consent!
We instantly called the crematorium, which was closed. We had to painfully wait until the next day.
We called our vet about a necropsy the next morning, who mentioned that Rover.com called them at 2:56 pm on the 16th. Rover.com mentioned that Winnie was having trouble breathing and vomiting before she died! The sitter claimed they were trying to call us but we never received calls or texts from them at that time. Why were we not called by Rover for another 3 hours? Wait it gets worse --
As soon as crematorium opened, we called. They froze her overnight without our permission. So, we paid to transport her to yet another facility to have a necropsy, because we knew our healthy 8-year-old did not die of natural causes.
The necropsy came back inconclusive since she was frozen overnight, but it did show that her organs were healthy and no signs of any underlying disease, no intestinal obstruction, no signs of trauma and no free blood in any cavity. Again, she had just turned 8 and was healthy!
Add insult to injury: Rover.com did not fire the sitter, charged us for Sonic’s pet sitting visit (even though my friend picked him up immediately and he was only with the sitter for one night) and charged us for an unnecessary vet visit! See pic below.
Why we are asking for your help:
We have retained a lawyer and are trying to come up with the additional retainer costs to move this to litigation. We want Rover.com to make policy changes to try to prevent this from happening to another family.
If you can’t donate, no worries, we get it, but please share. Our goals for litigation are simple.
· Rover.com should change their marketing of “Safety Guaranteed”to be more truthful. Winnie was not safe - so “Safety Guarantee” should not be claimed.
· Rover.com needs to strengthen their sitter vetting polices.
· Rover.com should publically put on the sitter’s profile that a dog has died while in their care.
· Rover.com needs a section for customers to fill out personal instructions for what to do if their dog has been killed / or has passed while in a Rover.com sitter’s care before you book.
· Rover.com needs to adjust their email blasts – they have asked us multiple times to rate their service. We feel our dog was killed by the sitters’ neglect, we don’t want to keep getting survey emails from them. See pic below.
· Rover.com should fix their app texting blasts – We feel like we’re being harassed, and bullied. Once a tragedy has happened maybe take us off your mailing, or texting list?
· They actually sent us a message as “Winnie” (Yes, as Winnie) asking us to reuse their Rover.com service!!! This was just on September 10!
#justiceforWinnie #wefeelRover.comkilledourdog #standupfordogs #dogsarefamily
Thank you for reading – please share Winnie’s story. We need your help! We will give updates along the way.
Please post pics of your fur babies! It gives us joy.
Love,
Lauren, Jason, and Sonic
Winnie meant everything to our little family. She was a kisser, a hugger, a supporter and lover of naps and food. She was caring and filled with nothing but pure love for everyone she met. Her birthday was 8/9/10. She did not deserve the tragic end that she got a month ago and we will forever mourn this deeply, heavy loss.
What we think happened:
In our opinion Winnie died between 1pm-2pm on August 16th 2018 from heat stroke. Heat stroke is completely avoidable and a 5-star Pet Sitter should be capable of cooling a dog down.
What we know:
We left Winnie and our other Pomeranian Sonic with a 5-Star Rover.com pet sitter on August 15th 2018 at 5pm. Winnie, being a black, furry, short snouted pomeranian can naturally, of course, get hot as we stated to the sitter verbally more than once. It’s also in Winnie’s Rover.com online profile that she can be prone to overheating. We even provided a privacy play pen for Winnie. We were guaranteed our dogs would be safe while we were out of town.
We were called at around 6pm the following day by our friend and emergency contact who told us that Winnie was dead. Rover.com left a message telling us to contact the sitter.
We called the sitter’s husband who knew little to no details other than they took her to a crematorium! Without our consent!
We instantly called the crematorium, which was closed. We had to painfully wait until the next day.
We called our vet about a necropsy the next morning, who mentioned that Rover.com called them at 2:56 pm on the 16th. Rover.com mentioned that Winnie was having trouble breathing and vomiting before she died! The sitter claimed they were trying to call us but we never received calls or texts from them at that time. Why were we not called by Rover for another 3 hours? Wait it gets worse --
As soon as crematorium opened, we called. They froze her overnight without our permission. So, we paid to transport her to yet another facility to have a necropsy, because we knew our healthy 8-year-old did not die of natural causes.
The necropsy came back inconclusive since she was frozen overnight, but it did show that her organs were healthy and no signs of any underlying disease, no intestinal obstruction, no signs of trauma and no free blood in any cavity. Again, she had just turned 8 and was healthy!
Add insult to injury: Rover.com did not fire the sitter, charged us for Sonic’s pet sitting visit (even though my friend picked him up immediately and he was only with the sitter for one night) and charged us for an unnecessary vet visit! See pic below.
Why we are asking for your help:
We have retained a lawyer and are trying to come up with the additional retainer costs to move this to litigation. We want Rover.com to make policy changes to try to prevent this from happening to another family.
If you can’t donate, no worries, we get it, but please share. Our goals for litigation are simple.
· Rover.com should change their marketing of “Safety Guaranteed”to be more truthful. Winnie was not safe - so “Safety Guarantee” should not be claimed.
· Rover.com needs to strengthen their sitter vetting polices.
· Rover.com should publically put on the sitter’s profile that a dog has died while in their care.
· Rover.com needs a section for customers to fill out personal instructions for what to do if their dog has been killed / or has passed while in a Rover.com sitter’s care before you book.
· Rover.com needs to adjust their email blasts – they have asked us multiple times to rate their service. We feel our dog was killed by the sitters’ neglect, we don’t want to keep getting survey emails from them. See pic below.
· Rover.com should fix their app texting blasts – We feel like we’re being harassed, and bullied. Once a tragedy has happened maybe take us off your mailing, or texting list?
· They actually sent us a message as “Winnie” (Yes, as Winnie) asking us to reuse their Rover.com service!!! This was just on September 10!
#justiceforWinnie #wefeelRover.comkilledourdog #standupfordogs #dogsarefamily
Thank you for reading – please share Winnie’s story. We need your help! We will give updates along the way.
Please post pics of your fur babies! It gives us joy.
Love,
Lauren, Jason, and Sonic
Fundraising team: Team Winnie - Lauren, Sonic, Jason (1)
Lauren Astore
Organizer
Stevenson Ranch, CA
Jason Richardson
Team member
