Everything You Need to Know to Make Some Money by Walking Dogs
As amazing as it sounds there are a lot of people making a living by walking the dogs of home families across the US. The basic rule of niche business such as this is finding the demand for a service and set up an operation to cover it.
Many families’ loves love the company of dogs. However, the current demands of our world require that both partners in a household take a job to earn some money.
Covering for this need may neglect some basic tasks at home such as taking the dog out for a walk during day time. That’s when the services of a dog walker come in to cover for this.
Doing a quick search for dog walking jobs in your area reveals how much of this service is on-demand near you. The numbers are actually surprising once you learn just how many people are willing to pay to have someone else take care of their dog in their absence.
Getting started on this niche is not as hard as you think, but as all occupations, it requires you to have some basic skills, a lot of patience, and to know your way around some tools that can help you make your job easier. You may just need to go online and search for “dog walking jobs near me” or “how to become a dog walker.”
In the following lines, we are going to run some basic questions about things you need to know before taking on any dog walking jobs. Let’s read on:
How much should you get paid for dog walking?
Before answering this question, let’s clear up some numbers for you. The Pet industry in the US alone has earnings that rise well above $53 billion a year alone. At least $4 billion of that money go straight to services such as grooming, or you are probably guessing, walking pets around.
It is not a bad chunk of cash, but getting a piece of the pie is not as easy as it sounds. For starters, if you want to be a professional in the field, you need to build a network of clients that trust your ability to provide good service by offering feedback.
Finding the best dog walking jobs near me is no longer as difficult as it used to be. Thanks to the internet, there are a lot of apps that can help you keep track of each walk you have with a dog such as Rover or Wag. These utilities allow you to collect info such as the duration of the walk, the places you visited an the time spent with the dog.
There is also the numbering. If you are strong enough, you can walk around four to five dogs with no problem. Logistics can be a little tricky on this side, but if you are organized, you probably can pull it off without any problems.
The last factor we can mention in this regard is the location. If you live in a rural area, your rates can’t be as high as they are in a city. The average figure is usually collected by the number of hours you spent on a walk, so the range can be placed from $15 an hour to $100 depending on your reputation.
What is the average salary of a dog walker?
There are a rather large number of factors that affect this particular inquiry, some of them have been already mentioned in the past question, but we can expand a bit more here. First off, it helps to know that all dog walking jobs don’t pay the same.
A simple thing such as the city where you live affects the final rate you can collect for walking a dog. A city such as New York is the bread and butter of dog walkers.
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Many people spend some heavy cash to have their pets trained in proper social behavior and care, sadly most of these owners also don’t have the time to care for their dogs properly, and they pay a lot to have someone else watch for them.
If you manage to build a reputation using one of the many sites offering dog walking jobs, your income can be large enough to provide a living for you. If you get some certifications that enhance your profile you can boost up your clientele.
You probably should consider a few courses on first aid for pets to offer some security to potential clients. On popular apps and websites, there is no range on how much the dog walker should collect; it seems however that the basic figure for everyone seems to be $15 an hour.
At the time of research for this piece; however, there seem to be high ranked people in these platforms that can make up to $2500 a month of these services. While that’s not big money on cities, it certainly can help a lot to make ends meet
What do I need to do to be a dog walker?
There is no law stating what you need to take dog walking jobs anywhere across the US, but the increasing number of services and people willing to provide these services has created an unofficial sheet of requirements you should fulfill before embracing this line of work.
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Here are some of them:
- At least a high school diploma on the academic front
- A lot of empathy towards animals, especially to dogs
- A few courses under your belt, especially anything referring to animal care, grooming, behavior, obedience, nutrition or disease prevention.
- While this may seem redundant, you need certification in each of these courses. Potential clients might want to check them.
- Business awareness on your end. This is especially necessary if your services become famous, you need basics on how to manage schedules, how to say “no†and how to collect your payments.
- Get some insurance, bad things happen, even when you are careful, and you need to be prepared for them.
- Learn as much as you can about the regulations regarding your new line of work. There are a lot of rules regarding dog walking in some areas, some of them are strictly aimed at dog walkers such as the ones limiting the number of dogs you can walk at any given time or waste disposal.
- Get your driver’s license up to date if you plan to use your car to take your “clients†from home to a near park or your preferred spot to walk dogs.
How to find dog walking jobs near you?
The short and easy answer is by building a network. Getting there is probably the hard part of it. First, you need to understand is that dog walking jobs are very much in demand in big cities, and as such you will be playing your cards in a very crowded field. Here is what you need to do to get more work in this niche:
- You rely mostly on your reputation, so the best you can do on your end is to manage your time and skills properly, don’t take more jobs than the ones you can handle and be mindful of the regulations of your new line of work. Greed can fire back to you terribly in this niche.
- The best place to build your network is with the people close to you, sing up in one of the many websites and apps offering these services and offer them to your family and friends. You can get word-of-the-mouth to do half the work for you.
- Another good way to make people notice you is the parks or open spaces where you take your dogs to stretch out. Try to have some business cards with you to hand them out with your contact information. Be mindful of competitors.
- It’s always a good idea to expand your services beyond your initial offerings. You may begin as a dog walker, but if you manage to score additional certifications, you might want to offer other services based on your skills such as behavioral courses or grooming. Make them on-demand services with specific dates if you’re going to focus on a single task alone.
- If you plan to stick with dog walking jobs, in the long run, it would be a good move on your end to set up a website or at least a blog where people can find you and contact you directly regarding your services. The internet is a very powerful tool for nearly every business niche and dog walking is no exception.
Last but not least, is the matter of marketing your services. Even with so many websites and apps set and ready to cover the needs of clients everywhere you probably will reach a point when you build your own reputation outside of these platforms.
Setting up a marketing effort on your end is perhaps the best course of action after this happens. Make contact with the sales department of every popular social network out there and do your best to get noticed.
Getting dog walking jobs is not a hard as it sounds, but it is a demanding occupation, especially if you become good at it. Even if you love animals, this can be quite troublesome if you are not organized.
Do your best to follow these steps and make the most out of your new line of work.