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?!

Ridiculous comment 🙄

In an area like yours with high poverty, I would expect to pay minimum wage for a dog walker, simply because as you said, it's a low skilled job, that pretty much anyone can do. When I was younger I did child minding for a while, and was paid a ridiculously low wage when worked out at an hourly rate. That DID need to be increased to a sensible rate, simply because of all the responsibility you take on when caring for another person's child.

That's pretty cheeky.

Also in Suffolk. My dog minder charges for walking services have also gone up. Travel costs are on top so we don't ask them to do walks any more. As you say, it was a luxury option so we could both work in the office on the same day. Now we split the week so that someone is always at home to walk the dog. If you are ten mins from home, I'd walk at the crack of dawn or in the evenings and pop back for a quick wee break mid day. Though if it's a greyhound you could probably stash him under your desk all day snoozing and no-one would be any the wiser.

30 minute walk
£16.50 standard rate

60 minute walk
£25.00 standard rate

Either look for a cheaper walker, or walk your dog yourself. That's all you can do. 🤷‍♀️

Around here in SE dog walkers do charge that much, however they are also keen to point out they have usually done a degree in animal behavioural sciences, know animal CPR, have insurance and other attributes like own van for collection/option to look after overnight or groom as well as always telling you how many are in the group on each walk - after the local FB group had a lot of complaints from seeing "dog walkers" with 10 dogs all on leads struggling around local parks has increased demand for smaller personalised doggy day groups.

If it is just someone who likes walking a dog I think £10-15 is more than enough.

I charge £17 an hour in Cumbria for a solo walk. £15 for 45 minutes.

Group walks are only £10 an hour as I can take multiple dogs and have a small service area.

Rubbish

What is?

WOW. If only the OP had thought of this. Excellent advice @Boomer55 👏

I was responding to ForestHog's comment that dogs shouldn't be left alone for more than 4 hours etc. Obviously I've not quite got the hang of responding to comments but I'll persevere.

‘Thanks for letting know your price increases. I will have to stop using your services unfortunately as that’s a bit out of my price range. Thanks for all your time over the years and good luck in the future :)’

Ahh, thank you. x

Do this. Gets you exercise and fresh air in the middle of the day. Spend the saved £30pw on treats for yourself - good trainers for dogwalking for a start.

I'd just tell her: I understand you need to increase, but that's above my budget so I will have to cancel from the time when the price increase begins.

You have to remember that she is self employed. This means no holiday pay, no sick pay.

She also has to pay for her own vehicle, her fuel to get to all clients homes and then to the walking destination.

She will be having to pay for insurance and a first aid certificate that needs refreshing.

When you take all this into account, she’s not left with £20 PH in her pocket.

Depends on the dog walker. Mine is a lady in the village who walks dogs. No insurance, no dbs, no dog first aid, etc

when she was off for a couple of months due to bereavement I carried on paying her. Same in covid. I appreciate not everyone would have.

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.

Also, I’m not sending my dog out to be walked by any walker who takes more than 3 dogs together. I absolutely hate seeing 6 dogs all with one walker, one unobseved and dawdling behind, another shitting equally unobserved.

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 that, you can find a cheaper deal if you contract with an individual juat starting out or a local young person. You can decide if being insured and trained is important to you. For me, it isn’t, very, as some of the worst walkers and carers I have had have had all the paperwork but no idea.

AN UPDATE!!

I sent her a message and said that unfortunately I will need to stop the walks as I can't justify spending an extra 30% on what is in reality, a luxury so I don't need to come home at lunch. I said going from spending £120 a month on dog walks to £160 is too big a leap for us as a family.

Our darling greyhound doesn't even like walks 🙄🤣 but it is so she can have a wee! Only greyhound owners understand greyhounds aversion to anything active 🤣

Anyway, she replied pretty much straight away and said that she understood and would we keep up with the walks if it raised to £16 for the hour which I agreed to. She said my greyhound is her favourite and we are loyal customers who she wants to keep (!!).

This makes me wonder if she has had push back from other people too.

When people say that she has to pay tax, pension, fuel etc etc on her hourly rate- that is the same for all of us surely! Whatever I earn hourly isn't what I actually take home, and most people (me included) have to pay fuel to get to work, so I don't really get this argument. Also, she only walks dogs from 2 large villages and drives a maximum of 1.5 miles

The argument is that her hourly rate needs to be enough to cover this. £15 per hour is just above minimum wage when you take that into account. Well done on saving a few quid though.

It’s not the same as a self employed worker though. You are paid monthly by your employer including sick pay. If it’s very hot or very poor weather you are still earning where she would loose income if she can’t walk the dogs. You don’t loose income from clients cancelling and you aren’t paying business related overheads on top of standard tax, living expenses etc.

Being self employed us a completely different financial situation to being employed. Yes you both pay tax. Your pension contributions will include an employer contribution, hers don't. She she needs to contribute more for the same value. You will also get sick pay, even if only statutory. She gets nothing. Holiday pay is accrued with time worked for you, any time off she has is with no pay, so a little needs to be added to every hour to compensate. Fuel is a business cost for her, so is rising, reducing any profit she makes, along with most other business costs. £16 an hour is not much above living wage, with travel time between unpaid as well so she isn't getting paid for 8 hours a day if she works 9-5, probably only 6ish of those she will have customers for.

Obviously a 25% increase is a lot, and a luxury service as you said so needed to be something you reconsidered. She probably needs to consider smaller incremental rises more regularly. And obviously if it prices you out of the service as it no longer represents value to you, that is understandable. But please consider that you can't directly compare an hourly wage at an employed role to your dog walkers hourly rate

No you’re not in the same boat, Yes you pay your fuel to drive to work but not if you had to drive places whilst at work.

If you need training for your job, your work place is paying for that. She has to continually pay for insurance and first aid training and I’m sure her car insurance is more due to using her vehicle for business purposes.

You also get holiday and sick pay being employed, she doesn’t.

I think the people we trust with our pets and in our home like cleaners etc are worth their weight in gold if you find one you trust and they’re worth every penny.

You are showing a massive amount of ignorance around the reality of being self-employed.

My Grandfather happily took a neighbours dog on his daily walk after he retired.

Greyhound owner too!! They need toilet breaks not long walks. I would just tell her a 10 min walk at lunch will suffice she must know that hence she happy to keep them at lower price. We pay £15 for 1/2hr. Ours gets longer walk in morning. Then 3 x short walks rest of day. Theres no way in world the previous greyhound would walk 4 times a day 🤣 get whiplash when they stop to turn back round. Thats why we have this breed they suit someone who hasnt got all day for parks & stick throwing. Its about researching your breed against lifestyle

See when she replied dropping her prices I would have said ‘nah, you’re alright, I’ll leave it’ but I hate CFs and would happily cut off my nose to spite my face!