How Much Do Dog Walkers Make And How To Best It

How much do dog walkers make depends on several market reasons that are not always under your control. But the simplest way to understand why the average wage of a dog walker runs at between $9.75 and $24.32, with average tips beginning at roughly $3.30 per hour, involves learning about how you are part of a local dog walkers auction whenever you offer your dog walking services.

You want to know this because there is a gap of $14.57 per hour between how much dog walkers make who have experience and those who don’t have as much experience. This translates to a difference of over $30,000 per year for dog walkers who know how to auction their services better than those who don’t. Consider that it takes an inexperienced dog walker only 5 years of dog walking to reach what a dog walker with more than 20 years of experience typically earns. Therefore, it pays to know how to overcome this 5-year learning curve to max out the compensation potential that you can achieve by becoming a dog walker right now.

So, it’s not enough to want to know how much dog walkers make but also learn how to best that wage as soon as possible. This is what you will learn to do in this article.

The Auction That Tells You How Much Do Dog Walkers Make

When you become a dog walker you are part of an economic system. You are selling dog walking services in exchange for cash. You are supplying what you believe a dog owner is in demand of. What may not be so obvious to you is that there is another principle at play besides service supply and demand. It’s a principle that affects you directly. It also governs this economic system that you’ve become a part of and it’s called “high bid wins.”

What this means is that there is more to becoming a successful dog walker than simply offering dog walking services to an audience interested in having their dogs walked by someone. It means that you are also bidding your services against another bidder – another dog walker in the area – who wants the same customer. This competition is what sets the price.

How Your Customer Plays The Auctioneer

Always think of the potential customer as the auctioneer at an auction lot. She initiates the auction at a starting price and asks you to bid the number: “I want my dog walked for an hour every day of the week,” she says. “How much do you charge?” Do you see? She is asking for a starting bid. Now, let’s say you propose $15 per hour. She turns around and asks, “Who will bid less?”

This is her question because she is not selling. She is buying. She wants the lowest price. If you have a competitor nearby and alert to this auction, you will hear, “I’ll do it for $12.” Naturally, you want to get the job. So, you bid down to $10 and so on. This is how we get to $9.75 as the lowest wage that dog walkers in the U.S. typically settle for.

But on the high-end, there have been auctions that settled at $24.32 per hour. That’s practically 50% more for walking a dog than at the low-end. What gives? Why the big disparity? How much do dog walkers make for certain if some can make only half of what others do walking the same dog?

Ah! But is that the case? Are all conditions equal between those making the low $9.75 or the median $13.14 and the high $24.32? The answer, of course, is no. Competition is different. Customers are different. Options offered to the customer are different. Dog walkers are different. Many factors are different. Some you control, some you don’t. They all contribute, however, to your final pay and knowing how much dog walkers make.

Where Is The Opportunity To Make The Most Money Dog Walking?

Where then lies your opportunity to make the most that the market is willing to pay you for delivering your dog walking services? It lies in discerning the differences between yourself and your competitors, between the customers and what they’re asking for, and between your approach to delivering your services and everyone else’s.  This last one has to do with bidding in auctions where the starting price is highest, yet you can win without having to come down too far from that initial offer. Let’s work an example.

Let’s say you’re facing one of these auctions. A customer has seen you wear your promotional dog walker t-shirt. She calls the phone number on it to starts the bidding process. In speaking with her, you first learn that she is a professional with a large law firm. You can assume titles and certificates mean a lot to her. You also know that there are no minimum educational requirements to become a dog walker. Anyone with a grip strong enough to hold a leash can call herself a dog walker. Most of your competitors fit that bill and are individual part-time contractors not working in some fixed position at some dog walking company. If you are just like them, what’s going to keep them from under bidding you and you having to bid even lower than they if you want to get the customer contract? The answer is nothing.

Winning The Auction By Making Yourself Unique

If you disqualified your competitors to set yourself on a pedestal in front of this choice customer by, for instance, indicating to her that you have a professional certificate in canine first-aid and CPR, then you wouldn’t have to face much underbidding. You can name a premium price and, when the lawyer went looking for your peers, she wouldn’t be able to find anyone quickly or easily to compete against your bid, as most dog walkers don’t have such certificates. If the customer’s budget allowed for what you’ve asked for, then you’ll more than likely get the high wage.

So, the name of the game to really come to know how much do dog walkers make is called exclusivity. Exclusivity reduces competition, enhances your image and makes you more attractive to a particular type of customer. It allows you to bid high and keep more of what you’ve asked for because fewer dog walkers stand around equating themselves to you when asked by the inquiring customer about what makes them unique. The rest of this article will explain to you what you need to do to become more exclusive and make more money than even your more experienced competitors as a dog walker.

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Besting How Much Dog Walkers Make

In the next section you will learn 7 specific ways to make yourself distinct from your competitors. Below that we show you how to run your operation to ensure your distinctiveness comes through. By the end, you will no longer be at a loss on how much dog walkers make, because you will be able to go make the most that a dog walker in your local area can generate by becoming exclusive to a select type of local customer.

1. Making A Professional Impression

Dress Appropriately

• Dog walking is like an aerobic sport. But you should present yourself dressed like a professional worker at your client’s house. The client is handing you a very dear and near possession for a couple of hours. Looking like a bum won’t inspire any confidence.Too many dog walkers want to avoid liability and provide their customers with liability waivers or release form that convey this simple message: “I don’t want to be legally responsible for anything that happens to your dog or that your dog does to anyone.” But long before they even get to discuss this topic, their attire has said it all. It’s not that you should look like an FBI agent ready to impound good ole Rover. But you should look the part of someone not wanting to shun accountability.
• Present yourself to a client in clean, casual, comfortable apparel. Dress in layers so you can get down to your work clothes the moment you get the dog leash in your hands.
• Try to wear a sports jacket, sweater or cap with a label that makes it clear and loud that you are either a dog lover or a professional dog walker.
• Use durable, comfortable shoes. Your feet make you money, not the dogs. You’ll be doing lots of walking and you need to be wearing the correct shoes to keep from damaging your feet. You’re after stability and cushioning. According to the Mayo Clinic, you should look for the best kind of walking shoes by noting whether they provide Achilles tendon protection, cushioning of the ankle, mesh material that allows better ventilation and lighter weight, solid support of your arch plus insoles that can be easily washed, are gelled, foamed or air-pumped in the midsole for shock absorption, and are roomy for your toes to prevent blisters or callouses.
• Wear a watch to track your time. Some pet owners are like parents. You don’t want to return later than expected to an angry “parent” waiting for an explanation for why you had “baby” out past curfew.

Come Ready To Do Business

• • Bring a notepad on a clipboard and a working pen to take any notes or instructions from your client about the dog. Clip to it all the necessary forms that your client must sign to allow you to start walking the dog.
  • Ask the client to explain any special needs about the pet. Be attentive. Don’t interrupt. Nod in understanding. Ask questions. Write down any special needs. Repeat the client’s demands out loud to ensure that you’ve understood them before you depart.
  • Get your client’s signature acknowledging the dog owner’s understanding of what you will do and will not do with the dog while under your care.
  • Bring your calendar with you to schedule another walk date with your client before completing the one you’re on duty for.
  • Bring business cards and a promotional fridge magnet with your company name and contact information on it to leave behind. You want to be easy to call back when needed.

2. Greet and Meet: Offering An Orientation Day To Your Prospective Client

Be unique to your customer

• Prior to walking a client’s dog, meet with the client and get to know the dog indoors. Arrive on time wearing your own promotional t-shirt. It brands you. It’s part of your uniform. Demonstrate to your client from the first interaction that you take matters seriously, like a professional. Be selective. Show that you are sincere about providing a good service, part of which means that you need to ensure the dog likes you. During this visit find out if you can handle your client’s dog. Explain to the client why you can or cannot handle the dog.
• Explain in detail the dog walking services that you provide and ask your client whether this meets expectations.
• Be very attentive to how the owner treats the dog. If the dog is rather spoiled, then expect difficulty in training the dog to follow your commands and make allowance for this in your schedule. Indicate that a long walk can only happen once the dog is well-trained, and you will need to do the training beforehand, which may preclude one or two walks at first. But insist that training will involve shorter walks until the dog can graduate to longer trips.
• Ask the owner how often the dog gets out of the house. A dog that doesn’t get out often will be extremely hyper or timid while walking at first because everything is new to it. You will need to educate your client on you having to educate the dog first.
• Check out how the dog interacts with you in front of the client. You’ll get an opportunity to see how the dog reacts to strangers by its manner towards you, which you need to understand before you can take the dog out to meet other strangers because you are responsible for the strangers and the dog’s safety.
• Call the dog by its name. Bend down or kneel partially and let the animal smell your hand, then and only then pet it. Allow the owner to see how well the dog interacts with you before you schedule a time to depart together. Keep an eye open for the following:
  • Is the dog acting dominantly towards you?
  • Is the dog acting squeamishly around you?
  • Is the dog indifferent to your presence?
• Ask the client whether you will be dog walking only while the owner is in the house or during the client’s work hours. If the latter, then arrange to have a key to the property and a written permission to enter the premises for the explicit purpose of fetching the dog with its equipment for a walk on specific days and hours of the week. Always carry copies of these documents with you in your clipboard. And always ensure you stick to the area the client has giving you allowance to frequent. Imagine (not hard to do these days) that you’re being recorded. Don’t do anything that will alarm your client.

• • • Ask the client if the dog has any medical conditions. Injuries? Ailments? Allergies? Handicaps? Make a note of any such information and whatever the vet may have instructed the owner always to be ready for. Keep it in mind in case of any emergencies.
    • Ask the client where to find the dog’s leash and collar for walking whenever you need to pick up the dog when the house is empty. This is on the assumption that you will not bring your own professional dog walking equipment, which is the best option since you never know whether you will find the right accessory (or any instrument at all) available with the owner at the time of the walk.
    • Ask the client where in an empty dwelling the dog should be housed after you return from the walk with it.
    • Ask the client whether you should feed the dog after a walk, what type of treats, if any, you can use to train it, and what toys the animal has to entertain itself when alone.
    • Take the dog out for a short 5 to 10-minute trial walk during the client interview and report back to the client the results to help her make an informed decision about contracting your services.

3. Proposing A Dog Walking Service Agreement To A Prospective Client

Make it a pleasure to close the deal

Once your client has answered all your questions, attempt to seal the deal. Propose the following:

“I’m always focused on making sure that I can provide the best possible experience for the dogs that I walk. I believe that dogs can have very enjoyable and healthy walks. And every owner can tell this the moment the dog is back home.

“If I’m not doing my dog walking job right, then the dog will let you know. So, before I begin taking any dog out for walks, I’d like for both the dog and me to get a feel for each other, and for you to witness how well this goes.

“Now that we’re back from our trial 10-minute walk, I can tell you the following about your pet’s behavior…”

Proceed then to list the impressions of the animal that you wrote down on your clipboard. Point out the problem areas where you believe you can make a difference in the dog’s behavior and health, also based on what you may have heard the client mention earlier as worrisome items.

Then ask whether the client is interested in hearing about your customized service plan for the dog. Notice how you’re not selling dog walking. You’re selling dog health and behavior improvement. Mention the dog by name from then on and point out all the benefits that the client will gain from the dog receiving your customized service.

Convert these benefits into very personal rewards for the client. For example, if you propose that hyperactivity will decrease as a benefit of walking, then formulate it in terms of something that the client will personally gain from it. For example, instead of saying “Your hyperactive dog will be calmer when you return from work,” say “You won’t find your kitchen garbage all over your bedroom again, because I would have walked all those willies out of him by the time you’re back from work.”

4. Settling On A Dog Walking Service Plan

How much dog walkers make is a factor of how often you walk a dog. Find out how long the dog walk will take. At what time will you be coming to walk the dog? These are all components of a well-thought out service plan. Take down the information and draft terms of service for the client to review.

Preempt the question of safety. How will your customer know to trust a member of the family to your care outdoors? Where will you take the dog? How will they know you’re really walking and not just loafing on a bench texting your buddies? Speak of your dog tracking system that will let the client know at all times where the dog is at via GPS. You can either sell GPS Trackers to your clients or lease them as an add-on service to your walks for their peace of mind.

Get a key to the house if you need to get into the house to take the dog out for a walk in the absence of the client or learn where it will be left for you to access according to the service schedule.

Agree on how you will receive payment for dog walking. Will the money be left in an envelope someplace in the property? Will you be paid upfront when you pick up the dog? Will you invoice and receive payment by mail? Will you swipe a credit card to your cell phone? In the event that you get advance payment for your services, remember that all it takes is for you to fail 1 time in delivering them and your business can be ruined if the news gets out that you stiffed your customer. Don’t get cash advances if you don’t want to run this risk!

Live up to you commitments!

The following are standard walking services provided by most dog walking businesses:

30-minute Walks

• These walks tend to be for the dogs that can’t hack prolonged walks. That includes small, feeble or fat dogs that need to work their way up to longer outings.BEWARE: If you push a dog too far in one direction and it doesn’t have the stamina to return with you, either you will have to wait until it is rested enough to return walking home with you or somehow you’ll have to haul it back with you!

1-hour Walks

• These are for the more energetic and fit dogs. You need to train these animals to abide to your commands, else those 60 minutes can be a major work out for you more than for the dogs!

Group Walks

• This is where you take out many canines walking all at once. How much do dog walkers make walking a pack of dogs? Far more than walking single dogs! That’s for sure. This is where you find the big bucks.

INSIGHT

Although group walks are definitely more profitable because you get paid by several clients for a single walk, it requires permission from the owners to allow their dog(s) to walk with other people’s dog(s). And you must be very confident that you can control every animal in the pack to heed to your commands.

In other words, you need to limit your liability of damaging someone’s dog, in case of fights, runaways or third-party property damages by knowing what you’re doing.

It takes more skill to walk several dogs in a group than just 1 dog. But it is safer. You’ve got to be a very effective and experienced dog leader, which requires understanding some fundamentals of applied animal psychology to take on the risk and responsibility of walking several animals together in public.

Adventure Walks

• This is for the advanced dog walker. It’s basically an all-day hike for dogs to a suitable location where they can romp and explore without use of a leash always. As you mature your relationship with your client and develop greater trust, it may make sense to upsell this service as an option to pet sitting during a client’s vacation. If the client finds someone to care for the dog overnight, you can propose taking the dog for an all-day hike to join in the family vacation from a distance.

Schedule Walks On A Weekly Basis

• Get your clients to schedule walks ahead of time. This gives your clients a sense that your services are more than just one-off events. It will persuade them to schedule multiple walks before the following week arrives. This also provides you with a steady stream of business every week.

INSIGHT

Include dog cleanup at no charge in the dog walking service, also feeding and watering the dog. It is basic courtesy to leave the house in order, and the dog fed and watered before you leave. But if you wish to make extra money, offer to wash the dog once a week after a walk or to walk it to be groomed if the service provider is near by.

5. Drafting Your Professional Dog Walking Service Plan

Here is a sampling of dog walking service plan items in use by various professional dog walking services. These service plan items are basic to dog walking. Depending on dog size and breed you can:

• • Offer a 20- or 30-minute individual walk for a day

• • Offer a 1-hour individual walk for a day

• • Offer a 30-minute individual walk twice a day

• • Offer a 1-hour individual walk twice a day

Notice how not every item specifies the number of days in a week when you’d provide the walk. This is because frequency of walks depends on your client’s needs. Look at these service plan items as guidelines to build your own service schedule with your own client.

6. Creating A Dog Walking Agreement Form

Follow the next link to learn about what to include in a Dog Walking Agreement.

7. Servicing An Area Within Comfortable Driving Distance

How much do dog walkers make is also a factor of not having to travel too far to pick up a dog before starting your walk. The money you earn on long distance visits will not compensate you for the time, effort, and mental energy that you exert on the walks. So, stick to clients who are near one another. Once your business begins growing, consider expanding to further locations where you can concentrate on clients who live near each other and will schedule walks around a midway point that you can easily launch from and return to without using too many resources.

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Running The Dog Walking Operation Like A Professional

How much dog walkers make depend on whether some behave like professionals and others like amateurs. To run your operation in such a way as to ensure that you look singularly unique, you need to start with the following. Here are the dog walking business objectives to focus on.

A) The Dog Walking Business’ Weekly And Monthly Goals

1. Ask yourself what you want your dog walking business to look like in a month’s time.

• How many dog walking clients do you want?
• How many walks do you want to be conducting in a month?
• How much money do you want to be earning?

2. Ask yourself what it’s going to take on a weekly basis for you to meet your monthly financial goal.

• How many dogs will you need to be walking?
• How many clients will you need to acquire?
• How much marketing will you need to do?
• How many cities/neighborhoods will you need to be servicing?

Your Client’s Security

• • Since most dog owners are working out of the house during the day, you’ll have to get a key from them to enter their house and go dog walking with their pets. So, it’s important that you have a reliable key storage and tracking system.
  • Find a secure location in your house to place your client’s keys. Make sure that it isn’t reachable by children, and it’s not in a place that people frequent. Inform your client that this is how you care for their safety.
  • Label your client’s keys. Write some symbol, name, or number on a small piece of paper and tape it to your client’s key. Make sure that whatever you write reminds you that the key belongs to that client. You don’t want to find yourself calling your client one day saying, “I lost your key and I can’t walk your dog.” That might be the last time you walk that dog.
  • Purchase a key safe and place it in your secure location. These are relatively inexpensive tools depending on the style, and often can hold several keys at a time. Place your client’s keys inside the safe whenever you aren’t using them. This way you don’t accidentally misplace them.
  • If a client is unwilling to let you keep a key, then be prepared to give ideas to the client about ideal locations where to leave it available for you to access during the days that you need to walk the dog, such as by placing it inside a door knob key lock box. Else, arrange a location where to pick up the dog for the walk.

B) The Dog Walking Business’ Communication Plan

Setup a business email account

1. Using a personal email address for business purposes looks very unprofessional. Plus, using your personal address may lead you to lose your client’s emails amongst all the personal emails that you receive.Note: If at first you do not wish to purchase a domain name for your email address, then do the following:
   • Use Gmail to setup a designated business email address. It’s free and integrated to Google Docs, which can help you run your business effectively, also for free.

1. • • Assign an abbreviated business name to your email alias. Example: yourbusinessname@gmail.com, or firstname.lastname.yourbusinessname@gmail.com

1. • • Obviously the shorter your email address, the easier it will be for your clients to type it.

Designate A Phone Line

1. Carry a cell phone with you. Know how your client prefers to be contacted by you, whether by a direct call, voicemail, text message, audio message, social media, email, etc.
   • When called, answer professionally always using your business greeting. Example: “Thank you for calling Wagging Tail Dog Walking. This is John speaking. How may I help you?” It matters not if you’re walking in the street on a job or at a party. Be professional. It’s your business.
   • Keep your scheduling calendar with you at all times to know when you’re open to schedule jobs if you receive a call.

Setup An Appropriate Voicemail Message

1. The voice message for your dog walking business should sound professional to make the right impression on prospective clients, and it needs to attract them to your business over competitors.
2. In your message let your clients know about a benefit that your dog walking provides that they cannot find anywhere else. Grab the opportunity to display what makes you unique. Your message could sound something like this:

“Thank you for calling Wagging Tail Dog Walking Services, specializing in bullies and woolies. If you have a big dog, I’m its match!

“This is John Doe and I guarantee that within 1 week of walking your strong-willed dog, life will be more chilled, cheerful and civilized for you and your pooch.

“Please leave me a message with your name and number, and I’ll return your call within 24 hours. I look forward to speaking with you.”

C) The Dog Walking Business Structure

Start out as a Sole Proprietorship

Until you are ready to pay fees to incorporate as a business entity, you should run your business as a sole proprietor. A sole proprietorship is just you doing business as yourself. It’s self-employment at its simplest. Usually you don’t need to file any paperwork with the state to work as a sole proprietor, if you’re going to do business in your own name or if you’re not selling goods for which you must collect sales tax or use a tax certificate and a seller’s permit from the state. You can have a fictitious name as a sole proprietorship, just don’t plagiarize the name of another business.

Not Naming Yourself as The Business

But if you decide to name your business something other than your own name, you may have to register a Fictitious Name Statement (aka Doing Business As) with the state.

The disadvantages in operating as a sole proprietorship is that you pay more taxes and are personally liable for any damages that your business operation might cause. This means that if your business doesn’t have the capital to pay for damages, then your personal assets will be used to make payment.

This is why even as a sole proprietorship you need to consider buying dog walking insurance.

Incorporating as a different business entity eliminates this personal liability issue. But it requires more out of pocket cash to cover legal fees and get the venture started. You trade off upfront cash for less liability risk. Our recommendation is that you start as a hobbyist and graduate up when your confidence and market demand justify a more significant investment.

Incorporating can cost several hundred dollars. So, unless you don’t mind the possibility of being held personally liable for unexpected damages to your client’s property or someone else’s, then incorporate right at the get go.

Still, test the waters of your local market conservatively as a sole proprietor. Be picky about your selection of clients and dogs. Take a chance. If things pick up, then invest in becoming a limited liability company.

Use your early cash to plough it back into the business to cover for the risks that your growing operation will be taking on. It’s part of becoming your own boss and learning how much dog walkers make.

Avoid registering as a fictitious business entity for as long as you can.

Until you’re ready to pay the fees for incorporating, put your cash into your operation and not into legal fees. You can start this venture without having to register with the state a fictitious business entity, if you simply use your personal (legal) name as the company name. Example: There is no need to register a business if you name it “John Doe” and your name is John Doe.

But you will have to register your business if you name it, “Wagging Tail Dog Walking Service”, because this is not your legal name. If it is, your parents never loved you…

Some states may not require persons to file a DBA so long as their legal name is part of the business name. Check with your county clerk to verify specifics for your area. Example: You may not need to register your business if your name it “John Doe’s Tail Dog Walking Service” and your name is also John Doe.

Drawbacks to not filing to become as a fictitious business entity:

• • If you don’t file for a business entity, you will be unable to open a business checking account. But when you start out, a business checking account isn’t necessary. Buy your supplies with cash.
  • Your own name might not be a very attractive name for any dog walking business.

Drawbacks to filing to become as a fictitious business entity:

• • You do file for a business entity, then you will have to spend money registering the new entity, whether as a limited liability company, partnership, S-corporation, etc. However, nobody should have to ask permission of the state to attempt to make a living. It’s immoral. So, don’t let this dissuade you from venturing out and finding out if you can make dog walking stick as a business for you to establish.
  • Try for a few days to determine the viability of operating a business if you think it might work in your area. Do your research. Make a few pennies. Then, when you see evidence of sound potential, prepare to invest in your business by filing for a fictitious entity.
  • You will trade lower liability risk for cash. If you tend to be risk-averse, then you will need more cash up front to eliminate what you consider to be the risk of starting an operation without being “fully government compliant.”

Just know that you’ll be going in cold. You might lose more time and money trying to play it safe than by having tested the waters to adjust your course while en route. All it takes is embracing a little more risk upfront.

Again, your behavior will depend on the nature of how you view the role of the state in your life and its moral limits in permitting you to make a living.

Remember: Might does not make right. Be enterprising. Take educated risks!

Some states don’t require persons to file a DBA regardless of what they name their business. Go the USA Gov Small Business site to learn whether your state offers this option.

D) Investigate Dog Walking Business Licensing

Generally, you don’t need a contractor’s license to work as a dog walker. At a certain point, however, your local government may require you to have a business license to identify you as a taxable private business endeavor. You can check with your county clerk to make sure what the definitive point is for your locality.

INSIGHT

Micro-business owners often run their businesses from home without a license until they have the money to subject themselves to one without a problem. Make sure you are not in the meantime provoking your neighbors to question the legitimacy of your situation, so that they won’t raise questions about your compliance to local zoning regulations. If you conduct yourself professionally, there is no reason anyone should question you regarding a business license before you’re ready to afford paying for one, if required by your local government.

When Licensing, Investigate Dog Walking Business Insurance

It’s not essential to get insurance before starting a dog walking business. Most startup micro-businesses don’t go with insurance until they have several clients and can afford to pay the premiums. Consider the cost of insurance. Ask yourself how many walks it will take to pay for insurance. Also consider that every walk that you make does require a substantial amount of physical energy to complete. If you twist an ankle, scrape a knee, break a finger while chasing after a dog, you may want coverage for injuries to yourself.

To find out the quantity of dog walks required to cover your insurance cost, take your Annual Insurance Premium ÷ (Your Average Dog Walking Fee – Your Average Costs for Dog Walking).

Example: If you pay $299 a year for liability insurance and on average you charge $25 for a thirty-minute walk with a cost of $2 per walk, then you will require 13 thirty-minute walks ($299 ÷ ($25 – $2) = 13) to pay for your yearly insurance premium.

Ask yourself if the amount of business that you plan on doing justifies having to pay for insurance.

If you only plan on working for 3 clients in a year, then it would be pointless to expect a large profit if you pay for insurance. Just do your work carefully. Continue to increase your customer base until the revenue volume is sufficient to cover the insurance premium that matches the higher risk of damaging someone’s property because you now have so many more dogs to walk.

Insurance for the Risk-Averse

• Ask yourself every time you commit to walk a new dog whether you can handle that dog’s potential for injuring itself or someone else while you own no insurance.

If you cringed after reading that statement, then getting insurance saves you from anxiety in the future. But be reasonable or you’ll never get a business going. Again, take calculated risks. How much dog walkers make involves having to do all these calculations.

Do you have a prospective dog walking client with a sickly or an aggressive dog? Don’t walk the dog.

Set a policy that says you won’t walk dogs with physical ailments or attitude problems, unless the owner takes full responsibility in writing for whatever happens while you’re out with the dog, which means the dog owner’s insurance policy covers you and the dog from damages. This will reduce the number of clients you can get because most dog owners don’t carry insurance for their dog walks. But it is no less an alternative to you having to carry it instead.

• Ask yourself if your dog walking target audience is prone to suing. Work with workable customers. Be selective. Not everybody willing to hire you is worth being hired by. Develop a relationship with your customers and make sure they are people with integrity, just as you ought to be.
• Learn whether your dog walking client base will require that you have professional liability insurance to do business with you. If not, keep it cool at first and just go without insurance if under the following conditions:
  • You have very little cash to start and think you can handle walking a dog without any problems.
  • You don’t think you can spare the money for insurance, but you’re willing to hedge your bets by select only small, docile animals to walk.

• If you decide to go with insurance, then here is some helpful and brief information. (For a more thorough review, see our article on dog walkers insurance.)
• Business insurance is usually classified into four types. All are valuable, but not all are necessary for a beginner to have.

General Liability Insurance

General Liability insurance covers claims of bodily injury or other physical injury or property damage. Like car insurance, the higher your deductible, the smaller the premium. An average deductible for general liability insurance is about $1,000. The higher your coverage (e.g. $100,000, $500,000, $1,000,000, etc.), the higher the premium.

INSIGHT

Here is a website that compares the most popular general liability insurance providers for dog walkers and pet sitters in various countries. You can also visit our page on dog walker insurance and see links to dog walking insurance policy reviews.

Commercial Auto Insurance

Commercial auto insurance covers any claims of bodily injury or other physical injury or property damage resulting from an accident involving your car. Your personal car insurance WILL NOT cover any claims that occur against you for damages caused by your car while on business.

If you’re carrying dogs to a site in your pick-up and one of them flies out the window causing mayhem on the road, your personal auto insurance will not cover the dog owner. It may not even cover you unless you’ve ensured the fine print says so.

Equipment Floater Insurance

This covers any theft or damage to your professional equipment.

Worker’s Compensation Insurance

This only applies for businesses that hire employees. Contact a local insurance agent to have your specific questions answered.

E) The Dog Walking Business Operation Schedule

How much do dog walkers make depends in how they manage their time. Establish time blocks for your days. It’s easier for your clients to schedule walks within those time blocks than allow them to pick random times in the day when to they prefer their dogs walked. Besides, it gives your clients consistency in their scheduling.

• Give yourself buffer times within each time block. Dog walks don’t start until you get to the place where you pick the animal from to get going. You need to estimate this period and ensure you’re including it in your pricing as part of the cost of doing business. Example: You set 100-minute time blocks knowing that you will not spend more than 60 minutes walking during that block of time. The remaining 40 minutes can be used as two 15-minute periods getting to the pick-up site and returning to your home base, plus one 10-minute period resting up during the dog excursion or yet another 10 minutes driving to your next dog walking job.
• Save time and money by scheduling jobs in similar locations
• Schedule jobs in the same area on the same days. Example: On Mondays and Tuesday you only do jobs in the city of San Francisco. Wednesdays you only do jobs in the city of Alameda. Fridays you only work the city of San Mateo.
• Schedule your services by regional blocks in a city. Example: Mondays you do jobs in West Smallville from 9 AM to 1 PM. From 2 PM to 6 PM you cover East Smallville.

Your main objective is to reduce the amount of time spent driving from one job to the next. Traveling doesn’t bring in any money. While walking in these regions, advertise your services. Pass out flyers. Wear your promotional dog walking services t-shirt. Always carry your business cards. Get prospects to know you around that area so you can expand your customer base and make the most of those days that you frequent that region.

• Be consistent in your schedule. This way your clients know that you are disciplined, reliability and available only when in their area. Likewise, if you do this, any prospective clients who you offered dog walking services will know when to expect you in their area.
• Give yourself enough time between dog walking jobs to travel from one dog walking location to the next. Track your time once you schedule your week. If you have a cancellation, make the most of the time by completing a dog obedience training course online. Invest in yourself to improve your business.
• Use Google Calendar. It’s an awesome tool that can sync with your cell phone, plus it allows you access to other Google application that can track other aspects of your business operation and that you can access remotely, while you’re away from your desk walking somewhere.

At the beginning of each day, print out a copy of your weekly dog walking schedule and carry it around with you in your clipboard always in case you get a call from a client who would like to schedule a job or change schedule.

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F) The Dog Walking Business Growth Strategy

Nurturing Your Customers To Make More As A Professional Dog Walker

It’s your business. But the customer is the business. Without customers, you got nothing. You must therefore nurture your customers. How much do dog walkers make? They make nothing if their customers are unhappy with them. So, keep the following tips in mind.

Always Be Ready

• Have your professional dog walking equipment always with you. You never know when you’ll get a referral, or someone might see you working and ask you to visit right after to do business with you.

Always Be Friendly

• Grouchiness makes for bad business. Imagine having to deal with a disgruntled waiter at a restaurant. It can ruin your dinner. The same happens to your customers if you’re unfriendly to them while on the job. Even if the weather is rotten, find the good in it and share that with your customers. Go lick your wounds away from your customers. They’re paying to be pleased and delivering pleasure to them should be your satisfaction. Set limits. If you need consolation for some reason, find it elsewhere. Save your customers for business not friendship.

Always Fulfill Commitments

• I’m sure you know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a person who doesn’t follow through on promises. You don’t want your clients to feel the same way about you. Show up or call in advance. Deliver the service completely or come back another day. Under promise and over deliver. Don’t do the reverse if you want to stay in business long.

Always Be Honest

• Don’t be afraid to tell your customers the truth. They will respect you far better for telling them what’s real than if you spoke falsely to give them a temporary boost into a world of fantasy. Customers can be very forgiving, but not to shirkers.

Always Communicate Openly

• Ask for feedback to eliminate confusion. Express yourself constructively. Enable your clients easily to approach you with any questions or concerns. Provide them with multiple ways of reaching you. Recommend services from others who can make life better for your customers. Become a trusted resource and go-to person. Be an expert in your field. Serve.

Always Make Everything Easy For Your Customer

• Your customers are too busy to be asked to do anything you can do. They want things simple and smooth. Deliver a smooth-running service and they will call you back even if they decide to try someone else. Not everyone will be as good as you.

Always Listen To Your Customer

• Listen to what’s not being said. This is a perfect opportunity to learn where you should improve. Ask questions but listen carefully to the answers. Then act on them to the benefit of your customer.

Always Pay Your Customers For Their Loyalty

• • There’s nothing like being made to feel that you’re special. So, give a reason to your customers to feel special. Gift them for allowing you to be of service to them. Occasionally send them thank you cards and gifts on holidays. Speak highly of them in public. Refer business to them. Make them never regret having hired your services. Give them more than dog walking as a reason to keep you nearby.

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Watching for Seasonality

Dog walking is a seasonal business. Usually it slumps right at the end of the year. But there is no reason to think that you cannot deliver services even during its normal seasonal lull.

Year Round Service No Matter The Weather

Obviously during colder months you may have clients who would rather not do any dog walking. However, many dog walking clients are content to have their dogs exercised during the fall and winter months, if they’re dressed up for it. This gives you an opportunity for promoting dog gear that prepares your client for those off-season months.

Dogs need exercise no matter what the climate, right?

If you decide to carry out walks during colder seasons, then consider purchasing water-proof and weatherized equipment for yourself and the dogs. Also consider that you will have to keep the dog from returning into the house full of mud and grime. Purchase wipes and brushes to return a dog ready for the indoors to your thankful and admiring customer.

Seasonal Opportunities Because Of The Weather

During the fall and winter months also some couples tend to leave on vacations to warmer climate areas. This is tremendous opportunity for you to offer pet sitting services to these individuals. This service is an excellent way of supplementing your dog walking income during the slow months of the year.

Conclusion

You started this lengthy article with wanting to know how much do dog walker make. We’ve shown you that. Plus, you’ve learned how to best the typical wage of any dog walker by starting a dog walking business. In this guide we’ve shown you how to price your dog walking services according to the concept of an auction to make the most money if you stand head and shoulder above you competitors.

To accomplish that we showed you how to make a professional impression to a select group of customers, by offering an orientation day to your prospective clients and proposing a Dog Walking Service Agreement that concentrates on personalizing the service while owning up to the liability of handling someone else’s property. We showed you how to settle on the terms for a Dog Walking Service Plan and how to draft one like a professional, pointing you to instructions on how to create a dog walking agreement form.

To ensure growth for your business, we showed you the importance of servicing an area within comfortable driving distance from your home-base and how to run the dog walking operation like an expert, by setting specific dog walking business objectives, namely

• A weekly and monthly goals schedule
• A dog walking business communications plan
• A dog walking business structure conducive of growth
• A dog walking business operations schedule, and
• A dog walking business growth strategy

Lastly, you learned also about how to nurture your customers and how to deal with seasonality in the dog walking industry. This full coverage should give you a profound understanding about how much do dog walkers make and how to be among those who make the most doing it, because you now know what it takes to be at the top of the dog walking profession.