Stories From The Sidewalks - Dog Walking

Welcome back to my blog! My journey of dog walking and dog sitting has made me realize how many different breeds of dogs we have out in the world. I am lucky enough to say I have had quite the opportunity of taking care of several different breeds. Let's take a look at some of my furry friends! The biggest dog I have the pleasure of taking care of is Walter. Walter, a one and half year-old Great Dane, already weighs 135 pounds! Walter is projected to weigh 215 pounds by the time he is three! CRAZINESS. When he stands on his hind legs he stands around 6'2. Even when he stands on all four legs, he is as tall as my waist and I'm 5'6. Until you see a Great Dane in person, pictures do not compare to the actual size. The first time I met Walter I was amazed. He is HUGE! Walter standing with his owner Walter over the kitchen table The smallest dog I have ever watched is a five-year-old Chihuahua, Beagle mix named LuLu. LuLu's owner found her in a dumpster abu...

It's Wednesday again! Welcome back to my blog. Have you ever heard of Invisible Fence ? If not, you will today! Before I started dog sitting, I only knew about Invisible Fence and was not familiar with how it works. Thanks to my clients, I can tell you all about it and my experiences with Invisible Fence . Invisible Fence  is an underground fence that is invisible to everyone including pets. The Invisible Fence uses digital radio frequencies to work. The invisible system is controlled by a panel that broadcasts the signal just like a radio station. The panel also known as a transmitter is usually installed in the basement or the garage. The signal travels through the insulated cable buried around the home. The pet receives a collar with a computer system attached to it. The collar acts like a radio and picks up digital signals transmitted by the control system. When the pet gets close to the boundary, the collar will first make a noise to notify the pet it is near the line. I...

Welcome back to my blog! I will be giving you advice and information on how to prepare for your first meet and greet with a client. Meet and greets can be overwhelming at first. You are going to meet a stranger and their pets for the first time. So many questions run through the mind. Is this a set-up? Are the clients nice? Will the dog(s) get along with me? Are the clients understanding of other commitments and school? Those are just some of the many questions I ask myself. When a client messages you on Rover , the initial request will be about your availability of the service. If you are free, you will go about and schedule a meet and greet with the client. The app shows the clients approximate address on the profile so ALWAYS ask for the exact address before you go. For my first ever client meet and greet, I showed up at the next door neighbors house. Thankfully they were extremely nice about the confusion. So I finally arrived at my clients home, what's next? When ...

Welcome back to my blog! I am excited to share my experience about my first Rover client! Like I mentioned in my first blog , I joined Rover about 3 months after my experience with Wag ! Rover allows pet owners to look through all the available walkers and sitters in the area and find the perfect fit. After I was cleared for the background check, I was able to create my profile. Rover allows the walkers and sitters to set their own pricing. Here is a screenshot of my profile. My game plan was to set my prices cheap to attract pet owners. I thought I would get business right away but learned that was not the case. Dog owners really care about reviews. Since I had no reviews on my profile, dog owners were skeptical. It took about 3 months before I received my first message about my services.  My first Rover  client was an 8-year-old lab mix named Lani. The owner, Tony messaged me saying "She loves people, but is not very good with other animals. We boarded her prev...

It was the spring of May 2018 and I was finally approved by Wag to begin walking. I was very hesitant at first to do my first walk because the app does not allow you to see any information about the dog until you get accepted. I always thought to myself I would hate to get accepted for a walk to see the information about the dog to not be good. Walkers have the option to leave notes for other walkers but every walker will have a different experience and perception of the dog(s). In my opinion, Wag is very difficult for walkers to understand how the dog really is. In other words, walkers really won’t know the “truth” unless they try it for themselves. All walkers have the option to cancel but I would feel bad for the owner if the dog really needed to get outside. So after a few weeks of watching dogs come and go on the app, it was too good to be true that there was an available walk four blocks away from my house. I was really nervous to send the request to walk the ...

Dog walking is a business? That's the question I asked myself when someone recommended me to join an app called Wag where dog owners can request a walk for their beloved pets. After some consideration, I decided to give the idea a chance and it turned out to be one of the best decisions I've ever made. 2 years ago I joined Wag and now have successfully started my own pet care business. If you have never heard of Wag it is an application that offers on-demand dog walking and sittings for dog owners. Wag hires independent contractors who are sent to walk the owner’s pets. But before you can just download the app and start walking, you have to go through a background check. Once you are cleared through Wag you can immediately start trying to find clients. In other words, Wag is basically Uber but for dogs. Thanks to Wag , I was able to gain my first dedicated dog clients. After about 6 months into Wag , I heard about another pet service application called Rover . ...