Dog walkers

[jibbe]

Is it time to review the amount of dogs a walker can walk all together?
its 6 where I live

I know, I don’t see how they don’t get tangled up and I think a broken leg is very possible

Probably depends on what is worth it to make it a job, although 6 does seem a lot to be able to control of walking. My friend has one and they're not actually walked I don't think, but driven to a park to run around

No different really to using a long line

You don't understand the costs involved if you think that would be profitable

Using a long line is fine when you’re out walking your one dog. Using long lines on several dogs at a time, playing and jumping all over each other would not be ok at all

I think there should be a limit of 3 dogs, either off or on lead. Any more than that is irresponsible, you can't possibly be in control all of the time, whether you are the owner or a trainer walker.
The poster above who says she walks 6 dogs off lead. I'm sorry but you can never be 100% sure that you will always be in full control. If something/someone unexpected appears, the time it must take to call all 6 dogs back, assuming even that they come straight to you on first call, and then to still be in control of six leads with two arms? No chance.
There are several dog walkers around where I live, who call themselves professional and claim to be trained. Yet my dog is constantly harassed by several of their dogs, daily. I'm sick of it.
Group, pack, whatever you want to call it. It's irresponsible to be out with so many,

@AnotherSpare ,
yes your very correct as you can never control 6 dogs off the lead as then they become a pack as in pack of wolves.

I follow this woman on Instagram- she’s in Alaska and runs a dog walking service that collects the dogs on a bus. She’s very experienced and familiar with her dogs and can walk nine on leashes at the same time and has great recall with them all as a group. I imagine she’s an exception though. Actually she’s a dog trainer as well as a walker.

www.instagram.com/reel/ChtO81oMhp6/?igshid=NTdlMDg3MTY=

www.instagram.com/reel/Cnmo3KLKQCy/?igshid=NTdlMDg3MTY=

I think one dog has kicked off, the walker intervened and the dog turned on her. I think her screaming had made it worse and predatory drift has kicked in. I think the other dogs may not have been attacking her but more over her worrying. Licking blood and wounds maybe.

I was a dog walker for almost a decade, gave up due to niggling long term injuries and family commitments. I agree with all your posts and this in particular. I was aghast when I read her practices - a Leonberger with two dachshunds for example, 8 dogs etc. I read that they needed a helicopter to find them all which indicates they all scattered in panic as soon as they were able, other walkers saw the several of the dogs running away in panic. She’d been seen several times with that many dogs prior to that day and had seemed overwhelmed and stressed. It is not possible to say that she was attacked by “the pack”. There was one witness, who turned away within seconds due to wanting to get her horse out of the situation, so she couldn’t have seen enough to see which dog was doing what. They were all still on leads when the attack happened and those not involved in the actual attack would have been desperately trying to free themselves and get away which would have added to the impression that all the dogs were involved.

It's a tragedy and she certainly paid the price. Assuming what's printed is accurate it seems she did not have control and agree 8 dogs is too many at once. I think 3/4 would be a reasonable amount. My dog walker chargers £12 an hour and walks max 2 at a time but she walks dogs in a smallish area so petrol costs aren't too high. There's insurance, advertising, supplies costs as well though.

YANBU 6 is far too many, max should be 3

We occasionally use a local dog walker and she doesn't do group walks. I wouldn't use someone who did. I'm happy walking our two dogs but dislike being approached by groups of dogs off-lead.

There is a lovely local dog Walker here who I have seen with a max of 3 dogs, some are kept on lead and others he lets off. Occasionally, I see him walking in pair with another dog Walker so they have 4-6 dogs between them.

However, I have also seen a couple of other dog walkers at the local country park with 6 dogs each 12 altogether running around off lead all over the place - mix of size labs, spaniels, cockerpoos, mini daschunds! They bounded over to my dog totally not under control. Luckily I am not scared of dogs and my dog is very friendly so was delighted to run around with all these new friends but it was a lot of dogs and we soon moved on although some dogs did try to follow us. I then met an older lady walking a small nervous looking dog and warned her there were 12 off lead dogs further on and she was very grateful for the warning and avoided that route as neither her or her small dog would have appreciated 12 boisterous dogs running at them!

There is only one dog walker in my area who I would trust to walk my dog. She has a maximum of 4 and often not that many. She assesses the dogs thoroughly before taking them on and is very, very choosy.

The day care I send my dog to twice a week has an outdoor and indoor area for agility etc and only walk the dogs in twos off the premises (and only if the dogs are matched in temperament, lead training etc, otherwise it’s one at a time).
My dog was assessed for offlead behaviour a couple of months ago but the owner felt her recall isn’t 100% yet, so she will not be offlead off the premises yet. This is more than fine with me. We will keep training and he will assess again in the future. She has the agility area and the outside area on the premises as well as an onlead walk twice a day there, so she won’t be underexercised.

There are loads of FB pages and little cards pinned to trees near me advertising dog walkers and ‘home day care’. I wouldn’t touch them with a 6m long line. I saw a video from one where her dog and a client dog were shoving an empty ham packet around the floor. Apparently they “luv their treats!”

Thing is, if the PP can apparently do it safely and effectively that doesn't mean other people can.

Some people are gifted. You can't write legislation/organise based on them. You have to write it based on the reality of it. Like childminders. Mary Poppins may manage to take kids to random places with weird people very safely. Most nannies should exercise better judgment!

YANBU. I'm a vet nurse, we have walkers bringing in injured dogs all the time, usually due to a fight because they have too many dogs. No one can control several medium/large breed dogs.
I've had many discussions with highly regarded clinical behaviourists on the topic of dog day care and pack walking and they've all said the same thing to me. None of them would ever use these services. They are highly stressful environments for the dogs.

Four here too

Agree though how you would achieve this I don't know.

I note the point that the collective noun for dogs is group, not pack (though it is a pack of hounds). If the implication is that dogs never attack together, then that is not true. We need to be careful not to get too hung up on language or we might find ourselves discussing what pronouns we should use for them.

Yes I agree, that it would be difficult to make it worthwhile at that rate even with minimal costs. But the answer isn't to walk 6 plus dogs, it's to charge maybe £20 each for three dogs.
I see some with 6-8 dogs, possibly charging upwards of 10-15 a dog , that could be over 120 for what would often be a 35 minute walk and toileting. As for costs..a cheap van, vehicle and liability insurance, petrol, poo bags, some towels and cleaning materials. can't think of much else.

I'm a dog walker - my maximum is three dogs, but I'd say 99% of the time I walk in pairs. Three dogs is only when they're same household or I know they're all excellent both on and off the lead, and get on well together too.

I don't charge the earth and make a perfectly decent income - around £80-100 a day, so just under 2k per month for about 30 hours a week.

You don't need to walk massive groups of dogs to make money, you need to manage your service area and travel time, and be willing to do multiple walks to keep the dogs safe.

I cringe when I see walkers with 5-6 dogs all running about off the lead - there's a man near me who often has ten! It's ridiculous and if one of them got injured or a fight broke out he would be in real, serious trouble.

I had a dog cut his paw on some broken glass once - it was hard enough getting him and his brother back safely - I can't imagine doing that with another 4-5 dogs too.

This!

I don't know how it currently works but perhaps insurance companies should insist that dog walkers have a minimum level of training before being allowed to do this as a job?

I have a friend who's also a professional dog walker and he does a great job. He has several regular clients and has organised the dogs into packs who all get along really well. He wouldn't introduce another dog into a pack without careful thought and observation first. If you know what you're doing, it's entirely possible to walk/exercise multiple dogs at the same time.

I have two terriers, they can be a handful at times, but they aren't strong enough to overwhelm me.
I don't like seeing dog walkers coming toward us with a pack of half a dozen or so dogs. I know mine will react to so many together as they'd perceive them as a threat, and there's no way a dog walker could control the situation properly if any of the dogs tried to have a go at mine.
While I'm sure there are plenty of good dog walkers out there, it seems in some cases they are in it for the money and safety is an afterthought.
I don't use a dog walker because I don't need to, but the practice of group walks puts me off.

I don't know how licensing would be done, dogs can be very different. Managing a group of well behaved dogs is very different to managing even one difficult dog. I think dog walkers have a duty of care to the owners, dogs, and themselves to ensure they have the capability to handle the animals in their charge.

Yes , where I live you get 2 or even 3 dog walkers together and they might have 18 dogs mostly off lead but one or two on lead. There’s no way in hell they could control those dogs if they decided to attack a person or other dog.
and there might be 2 or 3 groups of dog walkers especially at lunch time. In the summer I sit there on a bench and watch them all, I counted 41 dogs in one hour all in same park area once. They gone in vans from all over west london and the dogs go wild when they first get out of the vans

I was a dog walker for years. I still walk my own dog every day. I have never, ever seen a dog walker with more than four dogs in all those years. I’ve seen walkers together - total 12 dogs and I agree this is too many being walked all together, too many opportunities for personality clashes and power struggles, but four, carefully assessed and walked with similar temperament dogs with one walker is fine and perfectly manageable. I do not believe half the claims on here. Hence why these incidents are so rare. If it was all so problematic we’d be hearing of many more dog walker involved incidents.

Some of you avidly read and absorb the comments on the DM and it shows.