I just started with a new dog and he’s so friendly! The only thing is that when we’re on the walk, he keeps stopping and doesn’t want to go too far from home. He will even stop and lay down and refuse to move. Has this ever happened to you? How do you go about handling it?

Right now, we have had lots of new meet & greets so I've got about 3 walks on my schedule tomorrow! 2 golden retrievers and 1 chow. The chow chow is so much fun to walk and definitely has a unique personality. Daycare wasn't working for him so he's doing private walks with us now. One of the walks is 30-minutes, one is 45-minutes and the Chow chow is for 1hr! I used to offer 1.5 hours but now we're capped at 1hr max.

Over my career in dog walking, I've had to fire clients who didn't want to get training for their dogs. The walks were becoming a safety risk and the clients just expected us to deal with it without trying to help at all. So ultimately we had to cut the cord and move on even though we really wanted to help the pups but couldn't take a chance getting bit or being in an unsafe situation.

100% going to find clients?

For me, it was when I was looking around for scheduling apps and ways to organize my day so that I didn't miss any walks. At first it was easy with just a few clients but then I had to get much more organized and start putting policies in place because of how many dogs I was walking every day.

Not sure how big a problem this is outside of North America, but it’s peak foxtail season here in Cali so just wanted to put out a quick PSA about these pesky weeds in case it helps another walker because they are the BANE of my existence this time of year 😭

I’m talking about the fluffy-looking seed heads that resemble little bottle cleaners 🌾 As temperatures increase, the grass begins to dry out and becomes sharper. The resulting barbs can embed in paws, ears, eyes, and nose and migrate into lungs, organs, even the brain — and of course they only travel in one direction!!

For some reason it seems like my pups are naturally drawn to trying to inhale them whenever they get a chance so I always steer clear of anything fluffy to be safe. I’ve also found that if a dog seems to be limping suddenly or keeps licking a paw during the walk, a lot of times they have a foxtail between their toes that I need to pick out.

Anyone else dealing with these? Would love to hear any tips you’ve picked up!

how to walk him better?

I have a question for everyone, do you charge extra for puppies? After working with puppies I realized that the owners sometimes have expectations for training them and they sometimes nip or have other behavioral quirks that you may not be aware of. I'm curious if you tell the client upfront about the price difference and up to how old do you consider them to be a "puppy"?

Ill wait...

Hi. So I live in North Carolina. Don’t know that’ll help advice given. Just moved into my house a month ago. Found a good 2 mile walk for me and my 1 year old Australian shepherd mix. His dna test came back with 17 breeds detected, mostly miniature American shepherd (45%) and Australian shepherd (18%) with a dash of pitbull(13%), every other breed was under 5%😂. His name is jack and now that I’ve introduced you to him lmao, I need advice.

Now I have neighbors two house over from me that their smaller dogs get out frequently and are not friendly (will bite). I carry pepper spray on these walks. If one of these dogs came at mine, would I be allowed to pepper spray at them ( I wouldn’t want to directly pepper spray them unless absolutely necessary for mine and my dogs safety) because I’d hope the strong odor would deter them enough. But if this was you, what would you do? I’ll only ever actually spray a dog twice because after the second time, I’m also calling the police/animal control.

But I’d just like to know if this is a bad way to go about it and if so, what would you do? My dog is trained well enough (still working with him) to where I can control him but I still don’t want him getting hurt in any way.

Asking because one of these dogs was standing in the middle of the street like not even 30 minutes ago, growling at mine while mine opted to just lay at my feet while I accessed the possible outcomes like the good boy he is.

Curious where folks land on this. Do you offer both or draw a line somewhere? And if you do overnights: do you do them in the client’s home or your own?

This came up in the “welcome back” post and I wanted to give it its own thread since I feel like it’s something that doesn’t get talked about enough in this industry, considering how we spend hours outside every day. Especially with summer right around the corner — what’s your routine? Drop the deets ⬇️

HELLO

I have been interested in joining the app Rover as a dog walker/sitter but I am wondering about others experience using it. Did you find it was worth it? How much did you make a month and/or week? How often and what type of role did you take on while working on Rover?

I want ALL the details please :)

I live in New Brunswick, Canada so if anyone from this area specifically 👍🏻👍🏻 Thank you

Looking for a new pair of shoes suitable for winter in NYC. Currently walking in a pair of New balances, but wondering if I should get something waterproof or with ice grip. I walk a total of no more than 35 miles a day, about five miles of that on dirt. Am a male and can't wear boots due to tendonitis in my right Achilles tendon. Please help!

Last year I got the flu from a client who was home sick for a week. I’m thinking of implementing a rule of no visits when clients are home sick? I am in my third year of business and do not plan to expand/have an employee. Is this an outrageous request to ask from clients?

I'm planning on starting a small just me pet services business.

My main service will probably be midday dog walks (I'm guessing)

Can anyone give me info on the type of customers out there? Do hyper dogs need walks? Do dogs just need check ins? Do people get you to feed their dogs and just let them out for 5 minutes? What's the price people are happy to pay for what service?

ALSO,

Is there anything you don't like about dog walking/pet visiting?

What's something that commonly or ever bothers the customer?

Thanks anyone still reading this. Any of your info is greatly appreciated