Pet walker awkward situation

[Anonymous]

Wait.. I pay $15/walk in Fairfax. Where did you get 30$ a walk?

I never left my 6 month old alone for 8 hours.Thats asking for trouble.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$30 is not high for dog walking. How much is carpet cleaning?

$30 a day adds up. If you have a full time job that usually requires a person to work five days a week, that comes to $150 a week. Let's say you take four weeks vacation a year where you then have the time to walk your own dog everyday, that still leaves forty eight weeks that you have a walker. 48 x $150 = $7200 a year, or $600 a month.

ps. I've never spent $7200 in one year for carpet cleaning.

Dog walking doesn’t cost $30/day.

NP. It absolutely does.

Where? The average in DC is $18-20 for 30 minutes. Is your dog getting hour long walks?

[Anonymous]

NP here. I'm still trying to get over the PP that equated dogs with cats. Completely different species and not even in the same family! it's worse than comparing a human to a baboon...it's like comparing a human to a bear. Like saying, "Leave the human out in the freezing snow overnight, bears survive it all the time."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$30 is not high for dog walking. How much is carpet cleaning?

$30 a day adds up. If you have a full time job that usually requires a person to work five days a week, that comes to $150 a week. Let's say you take four weeks vacation a year where you then have the time to walk your own dog everyday, that still leaves forty eight weeks that you have a walker. 48 x $150 = $7200 a year, or $600 a month.

ps. I've never spent $7200 in one year for carpet cleaning.

Dog walking doesn’t cost $30/day.

NP. It absolutely does.

Where? The average in DC is $18-20 for 30 minutes. Is your dog getting hour long walks?

Where did you get that average price? And I'm not interested in a service like Rover where it's some random person getting access to my house vs a known/trusted dog walker. Maybe it's more like $20-25/day for a 30 minute walk with the services we've used in the past. Using $20/day, that's still $400/month or $4,800/year. My dogs are 50+ lbs, they can hold their bladders for 8 hours. Maybe if we had little dogs with little bladders, we'd make a different calculus. It's a non-issue for us anyway because they usually aren't home for more then 4-6 hours at a time with the way our work schedules stagger, but I don't worry when it is 8 hours.

Anyway, I just don't buy the argument that if you can't afford $400/month, you must not be giving your pet a good life with regular vet care and good food, preventatives etc.
My dogs are happy, thriving pups that get a 45 minute walk in the morning, let out just before we leave, and are lazy sh-ts all day long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here. I'm still trying to get over the PP that equated dogs with cats. Completely different species and not even in the same family! it's worse than comparing a human to a baboon...it's like comparing a human to a bear. Like saying, "Leave the human out in the freezing snow overnight, bears survive it all the time."

I got their point. Clumsily made but I got it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$30 is not high for dog walking. How much is carpet cleaning?

$30 a day adds up. If you have a full time job that usually requires a person to work five days a week, that comes to $150 a week. Let's say you take four weeks vacation a year where you then have the time to walk your own dog everyday, that still leaves forty eight weeks that you have a walker. 48 x $150 = $7200 a year, or $600 a month.

ps. I've never spent $7200 in one year for carpet cleaning.

Dog walking doesn’t cost $30/day.

NP. It absolutely does.

Where? The average in DC is $18-20 for 30 minutes. Is your dog getting hour long walks?

Where did you get that average price? And I'm not interested in a service like Rover where it's some random person getting access to my house vs a known/trusted dog walker. Maybe it's more like $20-25/day for a 30 minute walk with the services we've used in the past. Using $20/day, that's still $400/month or $4,800/year. My dogs are 50+ lbs, they can hold their bladders for 8 hours. Maybe if we had little dogs with little bladders, we'd make a different calculus. It's a non-issue for us anyway because they usually aren't home for more then 4-6 hours at a time with the way our work schedules stagger, but I don't worry when it is 8 hours.

Anyway, I just don't buy the argument that if you can't afford $400/month, you must not be giving your pet a good life with regular vet care and good food, preventatives etc.
My dogs are happy, thriving pups that get a 45 minute walk in the morning, let out just before we leave, and are lazy sh-ts all day long.

Barkly, Wag, Patrick’s, Wagamuffin, Walks With Renzo and Ruby, District Dogs, and more charge 18-20 for 30 minutes and are all quality services.

[Anonymous]

Come on, people. I have always left my dogs alone all day in the house (8.5 to 9 hours) starting at 6 or 7 months. First, a German Shepherd we got from a breeder as a 12-week-old puppy. Next, a border collie mix that we adopted when he was 5 or 6 months. But they got an hour of hard exercise before I left for work, and then several hours of hard exercise (running with me, playing fetch, dog agility, hiking, etc.) when I returned home. My BC mix is now 12 and only requires 1 hour of walking in the morning and 1 hour of walking or hiking with a little fetch in the PM. He seems pretty happy with life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My dog is just fine all day without a mid day walk. Has been since he was 1 year old.

Reading comprehension isn't your strong suit I see.

Did you miss the part where the OP says that her dog is 6 MONTHS old??

What exactly does that have to do with a one year old dog being "just fine without a mid-day walk"??

So, yippee for you and your ONE YEAR old dog, but your point is completely irrelevant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dog is just fine all day without a mid day walk. Has been since he was 1 year old.

Reading comprehension isn't your strong suit I see.

Did you miss the part where the OP says that her dog is 6 MONTHS old??

What exactly does that have to do with a one year old dog being "just fine without a mid-day walk"??

So, yippee for you and your ONE YEAR old dog, but your point is completely irrelevant.

What are you some sort of nuclear scientist where everything has to be so precise?

[Anonymous]

For the PPs that leave their dogs all day, just because they CAN hold it doesn’t mean they aren’t uncomfortable doing so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dog is just fine all day without a mid day walk. Has been since he was 1 year old.

Reading comprehension isn't your strong suit I see.

Did you miss the part where the OP says that her dog is 6 MONTHS old??

What exactly does that have to do with a one year old dog being "just fine without a mid-day walk"??

So, yippee for you and your ONE YEAR old dog, but your point is completely irrelevant.

What are you some sort of nuclear scientist where everything has to be so precise?

New poster. Because it matters, PP. 6 months is developmentally very different from 12 months.
Hopefully you are more precise in your life...

[Anonymous]

Back to the original question:
Pay the walker and say, "We must have gotten our signals crossed on resuming visits. Daughter has indeed left, but we've decided to try to go without a dog walker for awhile to see how the dogs do. If we decide that we need a walker again, I'll definitely give you a call. What's your rate for two dogs?"

It's called a civil conversation. No need to make it a bigger deal than it has to be.
(Be nice to her, because I have a feeling that you'll soon be crawling back after cleaning up after your poor puppy every afternoon.)

[Anonymous]

OP here and I decided not to make a big deal about it and see how the walking goes. I wish I had more options at the time because the puppy has yet to defecate on the midday walk(I get a post-it), so I know when I arrive at home that is the first thing I have to do is walk them both again. The more I think about it since I was paying double, perhaps the better approach would have been to have the walker walk one dog, and then the other. Funny with all the replies I received no one suggested it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hmm, plenty of people can't afford grooming, expensive veterinary care, pet walkers etc but they still have dogs and give them a good home.

Dogs need veterinary care, period. I don't know what you mean by "expensive veterinary care."

Dogs also need to go outdoors to pee and poop, and they need exercise. Puppies in particular cannot go for eight hours without that. No dog should have to do so, but a puppy absolutely needs that break.

People who cannot take care of their pets should not have them.

NP here. I can give you an example of expensive veterinary care. Six months after we got our dog (he was a rehome), he blew his CCL. The vet said he could get by without surgery, but we chose to do it. $3500. We also chose to fix his luxating patella, which is was not a must, which added additional costs to the surgery. He then tore his meniscus in the same knee several months later, resulting in another surgery. Then he hurt his neck and we chose to do $120 acupuncture sessions (which worked like a charm, highly recommend acupuncture). All expensive veterinary care, most of which was optional, which many, many people can't afford or choose not to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here and I decided not to make a big deal about it and see how the walking goes. I wish I had more options at the time because the puppy has yet to defecate on the midday walk(I get a post-it), so I know when I arrive at home that is the first thing I have to do is walk them both again. The more I think about it since I was paying double, perhaps the better approach would have been to have the walker walk one dog, and then the other. Funny with all the replies I received no one suggested it.

Because that’s not how that works. I would not take a clients with multiple dogs that requests I walk them separately. It is a huge time suck. Besides that, your walker is ripping you off by charging double.