Houston woman has warning after pet sitter loses dog

Spend a few minutes with Boomer and you will fall in love with him.

"He's confident and loves to bark and play and bite and just this overall sweet natured dog. We really love him," Rachel Stanley says.

But right now, Rachel is in a slow burn panic over the 11-week-old  Shar-Pei  pup. She and her boyfriend left Boomer with a pet sitter for the weekend who lost him. The sitter claims the pup wandered out of an open gate.

"I'm afraid someone stole him. I don't know if someone wants him for ransom. And my fear is he'll be used for breeding,” she says.

Pups like Boomer go for $1,000 and up. The sitter works for a service called Rover. He told us over the phone that he and the company are doing everything they can to find Boomer.

"We're on the hunt and we're asking everybody. We have been putting up fliers and going on quite a few web pages," said Jose Morerro.

Rachel's posts on social media platforms have been shared thousands of times, attracted calls from as far as Canada, and inspired people like Morgan Evans to patrol the neighborhood handing out pictures.

"I personally really want to help find this dog," she said, her voice cracking.

So what can she do if nothing works? Not much. In Rover's terms of service it says explicitly:

"We hereby expressly disclaim, and you hereby expressly release us from, any and all liability whatsoever for any controversies, claims, suits, injuries, loss, harm and/or damages arising from and/or in any way related to your interactions or dealings with other users and the acts and/or omissions of Service Providers and Pet Owners, whether online or offline."

The sitters are basically contractors and company puts the liability on the individual sitter. That doesn’t sit so well with Rachel.

"We lost a family member of ours. He's not a child. I know that. He's not a human. We understand that, some people don't. He's still part of the family. We still love him very much," she says.

Rover says they’ve suspended Morerro while they look into the matter.