Cannot justify dog walker's price increase

[Dogwalkissue]

Our dog walker currently charges £15 an hour walk. She has just sent a message to say her prices are going up to £20 an hour.

She said that she has researched other dog walker's prices and says they all charge a minimum of £20 and many £25. I do struggle to believe this as I did a quick local search and the most expensive I could find was £17. We are in a town in Suffolk.

Anyway, I honestly can't justify anything else going up in price. She currently walks my dog twice a week. I work full time and on the days I am in the office, she walks my dog, so twice a week meaning my weekly dog walking will go from £30 a week to £40 a week. With the cost of shopping, fuel, heating etc etc I just can't have something else going up - my own salary doesn't ever go up by £5 an hour.

I like the dog walker and feel really awkward to cancel the dog walks but I need to now as it has priced me out of the market. On the days I am in the office, I'll pop back at lunch time to walk the dog now.

What should I say to her? Be honest that I am nown prices out the market?!

Be honest with her. If you can't afford it you can't afford it.

If you can work round it yourself that's what you need to do.

X

I'd tell her i don't want to pay that much, rather than say I can't afford it. It sends an appropriate message.

With services like this, same as tutoring, care visits, cleaning and so on, the hourly rate is higher than nine to five jobs because the people providing the service can't work nine to five - they have to fit in at the edges of other people's days.

No one is forcing you to buy them and if they're too expensive just do the tasks yourself.

You are being ridiculous! You mustn't undervalue yourself like that. These are children, not shitting dogs!

Bravo x 100!

Wow. All the dog walkers I see have at least five or six dogs at a time! So three hour long walks a day with different dogs would add up.

If just tell her you are cancelling because of price increases and you will be coming home at lunch time to walk the dog yourself.

😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣

The increase is a third, not a quarter, so even more. Sounds a bit nuts.

I’m with @KittyCorncrake and @gamerchick …..you’ve chosen to have a dog, can’t walk it as much as you want to, outsourced and now can’t afford.

DIY 👍🏼

Can you not find a student or a retired person among your neighbours?

You have posted to ask what to say to her? Surely you just say you won’t be needing her services anymore. If she asks why, just say you will be walking the dog yourself and/or you can’t afford the increased price. What else would/could you say? 🤷🏻‍♀️

If she is doing it properly, then she should have insurance. Deserves at least NMR and presumably NI on top. 20 quid an hour seems cheap. I am team dog walker on this one, even though I don't like dogs as a bitten jogger.

Apologies, I did a search and found the thread. She earned £4-5000 a month 👍🏻 also home boarding, which is bigger money.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5529058-how-much-would-you-guess-i-earn

That might work. I’d happily commit , most of the time, to walking a friendly and well trained dog a couple of times a week. It’s a good way of ensuring you get exercise. My dd does it for friends when she wfh.

The thing with dog walking especially in a more rural location is the travel time and fuel costs, plus limited window of operation.

If my dog walker can’t walk my dog between 11 and 1pm she is no use to me - and I’d imagine lots of clients are the same. That means she has to squash all walking into probably a 3 hour window.

personally I (and my dog walker) don't think it possible to walk more than 3 dogs together. I absolutely hate seeing 6 dogs all with one walker, one unobseved and dawdling behind, another shitting equally unobseved etc. if they rent a field I think it is better.

Given all this and the fact a decent walker also has to pay:

• petrol
• business insurance on their vehicle
• consumables like dog poo bags, treats, vehicle wear and tear
• insurance for their business activities and public liability
• an implied cost for holidays, tax, NI and pensions….

I think £20 is not unreasonable. Having said thst, you can find a cheaper deal if you contract with an individual juat starting out or maybe a teen who is free around lunchtime.

https://www.jos-suffolkdogwalking.co.uk/about-5

It's on the high side, but I did find one walker who charges £20.

I think you just need to be honest. It's not worth that much to you and you can't afford to prioritise it, so you will find a different solution.

Just tell her you can’t afford it so won’t be able to have any more dog walks with her and wish her well.

She might receive several messages saying the same

I don’t understand why you can’t just say to her it’s too expensive?

I’m a dog walker. I have charged £20ph for the last 2 years and I am making so little profit from this that I will have to increase my prices.

You’re not taking into account that an hour’s walk also includes the travel to get to you, get the dog out of the house, drive to somewhere to walk it (possibly, my walks usually involve this), walk the dog, drive back to you, clean and dry the dog if wet/muddy, and then travel to the next place or home. All of a sudden actually your one hour dog walk is more like 2 hours of actual time.

And that’s before you take into account the increased cost of fuel, time spent record keeping, doing accounts, social media and marketing, responding to messages from clients and new enquiries, planning routes and diary, paying first aid training, DBS and insurance costs, consumables like poo bags and treats…

Being a dog walker is exhausting work, not just the walking but all of the above, and having to be on high alert when dealing with people’s precious four legged family members, you have to constantly scan for dangers. Trust me, at £20 your walker will be leaving with a lot less than minimum wage in her pocket once her own time and costs are covered. But if you don’t think she’s worth that, that’s up to you.

And to add to that, yes £20 an hour sounds a lot, but you’re not getting that for 8 hours work consistently like in employed jobs, there’s a lot of driving around and gaps in between jobs. And of course you don’t get any sick or holiday pay, or any pay at all for months when there’s extreme weather like there was this summer.

Just change your custom to a cheaper local person, if you can find one. If you can't, well that tells you something.

Our dog walker charges 13.50, that buys you a 30 min solo walk or a 1hr group walk. Fortunately DDog loves the group walks.

Also dog walking is like cleaning, short jobs are much less efficient than all day work so it will always be more per hour, because they can only fit in 2 or 3 sessions a day with drop off, pickup and travel.

£16 for an hour, we're in London