Mad Paws Reviews 209

Madpaws is a great and easy to use platform to advertise my services

Tyler is really lovely and great with the dogs he looks after.
Him and Shady have made our little puppy Stellar very welcome. And put up with the naughtiness that comes with a young dog. He makes the whole day about the dogs and keeps it fun. I'd recommend him.

What fun! Looking after someone’s precious pet and getting paid for it seems ridiculous BUT I used to house and pet sit for Trusted Housesitters and often travelled long distances without even a small contribution towards my petrol! Madpaws has changed my world! I am doing something I love AND getting paid! Thank you Madpaws!

I booked 4.5 weeks which was almost $2000 worth. Unfortunately 6-days into my work away I received bad news and had to return home. There was still 28-days left that I'd paid for but their T'& c's don't allow for altering a booking once it has started.

Dealing with customer 'service' was a nightmare. I believe it was a bot as everytime I responded to misinformation re: dates or correspondence the clock reset on my refund due date. For what I paid out, the refund amount for the remaining 28-days was ludicrous!!!!! Next time I'll do as I've usually done and leave them with the kennel and cattery. At least you deal with humans there and they understand if life happens and plans change unexpectedly through no fault of your own.

Pet sitter was good however.

I think mad paws needs to do a huge review of there sitters.They accept jobs then cancell .Sitters profiles all look amazing but they really arent .I would not leave my dog with them .

Pet sitter, failed to follow my written instructions, that 1 of my dogs was on bed rest and was NOT to be left outside, SITTER left my dog outside for 4+ hours.

Never notified us our dog hadnt eaten for 2 days, it was only close friend called past to pick something up that she saw his un eaten food that had been left out.

He then deteriorated due to her not following our strict instructions and had to be put to sleep.
She also let house in absolute disgrace and didnt clean our cats kitty litter tray out and than had the Audacity to take photos and report us to the RSPCA for negligence to our animals.

Will never use nor recommend MADPAWS again!!
Worst Pet sitting service ever

My experience is with 3 Mad paws dog walkers. All made solid commitments in the first instance. I gave all of them an extensive briefing of my needs and the profile of my GSD (puppy 8 months old). I have injuries and unable to walk my dog alone. I informed them I needed them to walk with me and participate in training on these walks. There was not any indication of a problem at the time. Two of them (female) came to my house and met my dog and the other (male) was briefed by sms. All three were enthusiastic. One lasted around 17 days and then disappeared without a trace. As a rule, she was chronically late for walks which was tedious for me and my dog. When she failed to completely turn up, she did not respond to my emails, texts or phone calls as to her state of health or future intentions regarding me and my dog. I informed Mad Paws and they were only concerned with the money she had earned and failed to inform them. I told Mad paws that was not my responsibility and refused to be drawn into that abyss. The second woman was full of enthusiasm about starting a new career with dogs and delighted to be working with a GSD. I walked my dog with her and informed her about technique and other related details. The next morning early she phoned me to say she had a sore shoulder and arm and could not continue walking my dog with me. I had used two leads and she was a much younger and stronger woman than me. As well, she did not have any physical injuries (as I have). I complained to Mad Paws customer service about the flakiness of its dog walkers and the only issue they were concerned with was this woman's shoulder pain. Once again, I told them to ask her not me. The male was a no-show. I waited 30 minutes before sending him a text asking where he was. Soon after I received a response from the website stating that he had just turned down the job. He had been pro-active over several days prior to this in getting the job and committed himself to being at my place (2 ks from his) at the required time. I guess he had a better offer or preferred to sleep in. None of these people had any idea about communication or responsibility. Mad paws does not provide training or insist on a Police Check or Working With Children Check. I believe sites such as these (and the world is full of them) offer small change to people who are out for a quick buck. I suspect also that hanging out with a German Shepherd appeals to their social media image but the reality is radically different. They get that when expected to participate and take for the hills. Ignorance of the breed and the responsibility it represents is not what these folk have in mind. After mad Paws, I prefer to walk my dog myself (injury and discomfort included) rather than spend an hour in the morning with people such as these. There's nothing in it for me to educate them and provide them with hands-on experience however there is much in it for them. I would not recommend Mad Paws under any circumstances.

Really easy to get bookings! Love that I can get bookings in my area and keep to my normal routine with the doggos.

Found Mandy via the Mad Paws website and she has been so amazing. Because I travel for work, I sometimes even have to ask for last minute help and itss always been so easy. Bonnie pup loves going to stay at Mandys.There are always other dogs to play with so she gets a good dose of social interaction too.

We trusted our cavoodle with a Mad Paws petsitter who, we later found out, had multiple jobs on the go - uber driver being one of them! Our dog became very ill on day five of his seven night stay. The sitter took him to the emergency vet where his condition rapidly deteriorated. A scan was done and we were told (whilst on our cruise with our two children) that we had to make a decision on whether they operate to see what was obstructing his bowels or to put him down. We couldn't afford the $10k additional vet bill - the bill was already at $4k up to this point and we had to make the agonising decision to have him put to sleep. The whole family spent the rest of our holidays mourning the loss of our beloved family member. When we tried to claim on the insurance (that Mad Paws and the pet sitter so readily claim to have you covered), we were told that the onus was on us to prove it was due to the pet sitter's negligence! How do you go that when you're not there to witness anything? In the end we were thousands out of pocket and without a dearly beloved member of our family. What a horrendous end to a family holiday. To add insult to injury, the sitter still works for Mad Paws and I have even spotted numerous posts on social media where they have recommended themselves for petsitting and driving services! Who is actually looking after your pets whilst they're driving people around? This in itself demonstrates highly negligent behaviour. Do not trust these people with your animals!

As a sitter I took care of a daschund. I set up a meet and great and asked the owner ample questions. Within hours of the booking commencing, the 4yr old daschund had caused over $1000 damage to my apartment. It was clear he had severe separation anxiety and no matter what I did he wouldn’t stop howling, destructive behaviour and foaming at the mouth.
The owner did not care and on the second day I unfortunately had to insist the dog be collected.

Mad paws took 2 weeks after the booking concluding to tell me that mad paws ‘protection’ does not cover damage! HAHA!!!! The owner had ghosted me and I was footed with $1000 of repairs.

Not only that, but Mad paws REFUNDED THE OWNER. I received $25.

And yes, I supplied Max Paws with countless photos, communications screen grabs and evidence that the dog owner lied about his dogs behavioural issues AND was avoiding responsibility for the damages.

It seems ridiculous that a company claims to make it ‘easier’ for dog owners & sitters to manage bookings. Please tell me how… this has been an absolute horror story.

And yes, I have reported the mad paws policy to the ACCC. It’s very clear the pet sitters are not covered in any way despite max paws advertising that ‘owners are protected’

One of the pet sitters I booked when I had to urgently go overseas was very unprofessional and didnt looked after my pet. I mentioned it to her that my pet has never been left alone for more than 6 hrs and she left him for 12 hours straight without water and didnt even bothered to inform me. She didnt even made efforts to play with him or walk him or even making sure that he ate his food. One of the worst experience and a nightmare if you have to leave your pets in these pet sitters hand.

There were some issues with being over charged but they have been sorted out. As long as you monitor the service I’d say they’re ok.

MadPaws scammed me out of $170.

Never paid for a sit.

Absolutely disgusting

Weeks ago i made an account as dog sitter.
From that moment on, i never received a message, i have a lot of experience, i had pets, i live in a big area, so it should be easy for me to get jobs on this website.
However, i never had a single job here.
Maybe i'm not advertised enough? maybe a small user base?
Who knows, i'll probably stick to other sites.

Customer service is poor. Can't update bookings via the bookings page. The sitter and i have both tried to cancel bookings three times and the money has still come out of my account and been paid for the job not done. Their system won't work on my phone via the app.

Awful response when a pet attacked it's sitter.

Have used Mad Paws on several occasions and found the sitters to vary quite considerably. It is impossible to make contact with their office other than by a Bot which is basically useless. Their website is frustrating in that you refine your search to only get sitters close to where you live and then by page 3 you are getting sitter profiles that live 20kms away and on page 24 getting profiles that are 2kms away. The website only lets you assess 10 sitters at a time before having to go onto the next page and there is no facility to save a "library" of preferred sitters that you can access without having to go through all the profiles again. They are definitely set up to look after their Sitters / Walkers rather than the customer.

Never use this service for your pet.
Terrible. We ended up with organising our friends twice while on holiday to take care of our dog.
Pet sitters are not properly trained.
Anyone can sign up for pet sitting.
If you love your pet do not us them.

We left our maltese Cross with Aussie . She was fantastic ,the perfect perfect pet sister for our special pet Max. He was very well looked after, went for his walks and we received daily messages and photos as to his wellbeing . Fantastic job by aussie we will be using her again, thank you aussie