Is anyone a walker on Borrow My Doggy?

[thenightsky]

I've had dogs all my life (shift work and SAHM). I've just retired and would dearly love another Lab, but not possible due to my love of lastminute dot com holidays. Does anyone know if its okay to sign up, but bugger off at a week's notice? I don't want to join if I'm going to end up letting dogs down.

[rookiemere]

I'm a dog owner on borrowmydoggy and as no cash exchanges hands I wouldn't expect a walker to be like a professional one as each side is doing the other a favour. In our case I just wanted someone to have rookiedog on the odd weekend day so we could have a full day out and a lovely young lady takes him to her flat for cuddles and walkies.

Having said that I did have another lady walk him a couple of times, but she only wanted to walk him not have him for longer and was so busy it didn't work out in the end. So it's about finding the right dog walking fit for you.

[thenightsky]

thanks Rookie. I just missing have a dog in my life. But scared of letting dogs down.

[2isabella2]

We are owners and have two regular walkers we met via borrowmydoggy. They both just text me to arrange to walk them, sometimes at very short notice. We don't have a weekly arrangement or anything, it's all very informal. Helps give me a break and both of them really enjoy their time with our dogs!

[WSPU]

Go for it. We also have two lovely women who walk our dogs as and when. It works for all of us and gives DDog some variety. Just be honest from the beginning. Both walkers have told me about people who basically use the site to get free walkers 7 days a week and can be very demanding.

[Gingerkittykat]

I had thought about signing up as a walker but it looked like the limited number of owners on the site in my rural area were the demanding type, looking for dogsitters for holidays etc.

I can't have dogs in my house (one cat is terrified, one would attack them) and just want to take a dog for a regular walk to the beach or park or something.

[thenightsky]

Gingerkittykat I'm in a rural area too, so limited numbers of dogs.

[skywolf]

Yes. In my case I stated my 'terms' clearly at the outset - availability on certain days only and specified mornings/afternoons/evenings. Also made it clear that I was prepared to host overnight/weekends only very occasionally. Even so, I was initially inundated with requests for weekends and 2-week holiday periods which told me that people just didn't bother reading my information and just wanted to offload their pet without paying for kennels when they went away. The handful of pets I now walk/host are delightful, as are their owners, and nothing is ever done at short notice just for the sake of it - we are respectful of each other's time and the owners really do have their pets' interests at heart. I have one lovely little French Bulldog on Tuesday afternoons as his owner works late on that day every week and he was frantic about leaving him for longer than necessary so for a few months now he's been coming to me and has company and walks and his owner collects him on his way home. Because of this arrangement I don't walk or host any other dogs on Tuesdays. You should always meet the owners before making any decision about walking or hosting the pet. When I first started with BMD, a couple of owners messed me about and I should have listened to my gut because I had a feeling those particular people would do that, still you want to believe the best and give people a chance. But now I base my decisions on my gut feelings and so far, for many months now, we've all been fine. I encourage you to give it a go as there will be pets who would love your company and any exercise you can give them instead of being in the house alone all day, and their owners will find you a godsend.