Dog walking .....where do i start?

[LEMmingaround]

I want to start a dog walking business.

My initial question is insurance? Where can i find this? How can i avoid paying out for a years insurance and then not getting customers?

My experience is as follows.

Worked in a vets for ten years kennel maid/ nurse/receptionist.

Owned dogs of all shapes and sizes all my life.

Happy to walk difficult to manage dogs. (Have had rescue dogs with aggression issues and worked with lots of dogs) - would a charge more to walk a dog aggressive dog that needed walking alone?

Would only walk two dogs at a time max.

Crb checked.

Have done this short term for friends dogs.

Only isdue is no car but access to beach/woodlands.

Plan to advertise local vets pet shops etc. Will do face book page.

Am in south east - how much per dog

Would i need to register as self employed even though i don't visualise earning over the tax threshold?

Can get insurance over the phone. Don't buy it until you have clients

Excited yes does make sense but i wondered about advertising as being insured as i don't want to mislead.

Just wondering what companies offer thus -doubt i can go compare?

Have a look here NARPS

I had a look at that and not sure it is what im looking for. I run my dp's building company (well itsjust him) but am up to speed with data bases and invoicing so not sure id get any extra value from it. Its really the insurance side of things that im unsure of.

"Would i need to register as self employed even though i don't visualise earning over the tax threshold?"

LEM I can't advise with your dog walking business but yes, from what I understand, you will need to register as self employed with HMRC even though you won't be earning enough to pay tax.

You will need to register with HMRC and complete a self assessment every year even if you aren't earning enough to pay tax.

I can't help on the insurance or tax issues, but around here (Surrey) you pay about £10 per dog per walk. If you have 2, then it's usually £18 for them both.
I know dog walkers who take out 5 or 6 dogs at a time.
HTH

You need to register as self employed within 12 weeks...so as long as you do it when you get your first client that would be fine.

No clue about the rest of it.

Being honest I think your lack of a car is going to cause you problems. How are you going to get your clients' dogs from their homes to where you're going to walk and then back again in a timeframe which would allow you to make any money? Especially if you're only walking 2 dogs at a time. The only way it would work is if your clients dropped their dogs off to you but if they can do that they probably don't need a dog walker

I'm in London and there is a huge variety in the prices people charge and the services they offer. The company I use is one of the more expensive ones (£17 per walk or £30 for a full day) but they give them at least an hour's 'proper' walk in open country. Other walkers just toddle them around the local common on the lead but still charge around £15. Then there's daycare - some companies take lots of dogs to a field where they run around all day, others have clients drop their dogs to them and they stay in a big garden all day, others have the dogs in a family home and take them out for 2-3 long walks. Again prices range widely.

There's only one local walker who only takes out a maximum of two, most take 4-6 at a time in order to make it economically worthwhile

Good luck - it would be a lovely way to make a living if you love dogs!

Oh, the walkers round here are mainly members of the Pet Professional Guild

You definitely need to register - you can do this online via HMRC website, and it's actually quite straightforward.

Keep proper accounts (and all your receipts).

You can google business insurance - we ended up getting ours via our business banker who offered a very good and competitive deal. Most will allow you to pay monthly via DD to spread the cost if you wish.

I found it very useful and helpful to do a couple of free workshops via our local Business Link office - they couldn't have been more helpful and I also used them for a couple of specific technical queries about online selling - again the advice was free and very helpful.

Personally I would get all this admin stuff sorted before I take on clients - it can be more time consuming than you'd expect, and may alter some of the practicalities of how you work. For instance how will your clients pay you, and what sort of receipts will you be issuing? I'd consider setting up a business PayPal account for instance which gives you excellent record keeping and avoids the need to be carrying/handling cash. This may also be helpful for your clients. You will also need to organise your business stationery e.g. flyers, business cards, etc. - again this is an expense so it makes sense to have the bank account/accounts set up in advance.

Will you be also offering a key holding service?

If you can, I'd really rethink the access to a vehicle - it will make yours/your client's lives much easier, and allows you to offer extra services such as taking animals to vets for routine appts. e.g. vaccinations or to groomers. You should also consider your emergency procedures - how would you get a dog to the vet if it became seriously ill while on a walk?

Maybe ill just give up..i can't drive and can't afford lessons. I live near the sea and woodlands. Would take me 15 minutes at most to walk to these places so what if it doesn't fit into an hour ill tag them.

Two dogs to start with until they get to know each other.

But if people wont want me because i can't give them a proper walk then it seems im wasting my time :(

The business side of it doesn't flummox me as i do dps tax returns.

Its hard to be positive when thete are so many with yeah but.....

Im sorry i don't mean to sound snarky nit was really hoping for some encouragement. There has been some useful advice. I am aware that being unable to drive is an issue but it is something i feel i can get around to start with.

Im not looking to be earning loads of money from this just something for me. To make myself feel worthwhile.

My biggest strength is my affinity with animals and this business would allow me to build on it.

I hadn't really considered the daycare as dd is only 9 and i have two dogs. I have had my friends dog for the day a few times and it worked well but i don't really have the space. It is a possibility.

I am lucky that i live rurally and don't have to travel far to the areas to hive the dogs a proper walk. The biggest issue would be collecting digs but i would start the hour ftom the last dog to be collected. I wouldn't just offer street or park walks. They need to be let off although until the dog is used to you its lead only. One dog i walk was off on day one as knew him.the other dog is never off as i just know he wouldn't cone back to me.

It is something i want to start small and build on. Am also thinking about small furry sitting and helping with administration of medication. But for now just dog walks.

Do people go for separate key insurances?

Sorry LEM - didn't mean to sound negative but transport is going to be your biggest issue. While I would love my dog to be walked by someone with your experience through woodland and on beaches, I wouldn't be happy with him then having to walk maybe as far again on pavements to get back home

How about offering a service like doggy day care with people dropping their dog to you in the morning and picking up in the evening and you taking them out for lovely walks during the day - you'd need to think about what you'd do with your own dogs though and might well need to take on more than 2 dogs at a time

Not having transport wouldn't necesarily put people off...I mean if I used a dog walker I'd be more than happy with my dog being walked near where I live.

But, it's really going to limit your business as you'll have to get from house to house.

As a minimum, you will need very good public liability insurance. You will also need health cover (in case you break your leg). I would talk to a good insurance broker about your business idea and ask their advice about what other insurance might be useful - legal cover could be a good one to go for. I would also check VERY carefully about indemnity for the dogs while they are off lead. There has been a very high profile case on FB recently where two sighthounds were off lead, and managed to do a runner and ended up in a car accident. The insurance company refused to cover the costs, and the owners have had to put the begging bowl out to help cover the massive vet's bill. Fortunately, people rallied round but it was a big shock for them.

To be honest, this is all part of setting up your business plan - and again, this is where it's useful to pick up on the free and very helpful advice offered by the various business start up advice services. Once we'd got our business bank account sorted, they also provided us with lots of very useful info on stuff to consider.

As a rough guide, get out a map of your area and draw a boundary round the streets you can get to with 10 -15 minutes walk from your house. Now work out how many houses are in that area (probably no more than 2000, tops, and possibly a lot less.) The dog owners will be approx. a third of these so there are 700- 800 of them potentially though really you should have a good understanding of the demographics of your area. If it's all retired couples then they might not want yr services - ideally you need an area with high numbers of people working outside the home. You can get this sort of demographic data either from your local Council or again form the business start up people. It can be useful if like you, you are running a business which is locality based.

Could you research other doggy businesses in your area (vets, groomers, training classes) to see if you can mutually help each other? Joint advertising/recommendations etc.

For me as a client, it would bother me that you couldn't get my dog to the vet in an emergency, rather than the locality issue.

It took me approximately six months of planning, preparation and research between the definite idea for my business and actually "going live". That included issues like research, insurance, building the website, financial planning, getting advice, opening the bank account, setting up card payments, getting stationery printed, thinking about packaging, logo, marketing etc. etc. The more time you spend on this now, in the research stage, the better.

I'm in the south east and my dog walker charged £7 per hour and my dog adored her ...

I'm looking for a new one as she's moving! Where in the south east are you?

Curious i am in boden on sea ;-) (begins with w)

Scuttle that is a really good point about the off lead thing.

LEM I made a thread just for people like you! Here it is - www.mumsnet.com/Talk/the_doghouse/2096707-Professional-Dog-Walkers-Corner-Muddy-pawprints-and-poobags-a-speciality?msgid=47467917

It all seems like id have to invest quite a bit up front. Ill talk to some insurers. It doesn't look like its a case of sticking up a few fliers. I sort of wish id remained ignorant.

Curious please pm me if you are local.

Alpaca thanks for your link. Ill take a look. The narps thing looks expensive and something id want to think about if i wanted to develop past something very part time. Do you find you get value from it?. Cliverton is the company i googled and will give them a call. As i say i the accounts side of things don't worry me too much as i do all of dps accounts for his building form.

I'd say that apart from insurance (and in that line of work, you really do NOT want to skimp on that) your main expenses are going to be stationery (flyers, business cards, maybe a small leaflet etc), plus a simple website. The printing/stationery is a VERY competitive market - start with Vistaprint - they usually have loads of offers for free business cards, and their other stationery prices are a good intro to what's around. Just by googling you could get something cheaper locally. If your DP is self employed, it's worth asking him who he uses for things like stationery, website, insurance broker etc.

You can usually pick up a domain name cheap as chips and there are lots of good low cost or virtually free website packages around. You usually get several email addresses FOC when you set up a domain, and it's easy to add more. PayPal for businesses is easy and cheap. As I mentioned the insurance can be paid monthly by DD. As a business idea, this is possibly one of the lowest entry costs you can get.

Oooh i think i can add a website to dp's. As we have his on a package that can have five sites so can possibly get away with just buying a domain name. I do his marketing which to be fair is minimal as he gets his work through word of mouth so the website is all we pay for. We use a website for idiots host and i designed it myself. To be fair we just use it as something we can show people his work rather than advertising. So SEO not an issue, that might be a problem for me as that is time consuming. I generally produce our own flyers so would need to weigh up printing costs. Vista print for business cards. I know my old boss would recommend me too.

Am thinking of targetting specific areas do can have say dogs i walk on the beach and others on the downs.

Do people have contracts?
Do you insist on dogs being vaccinated? This wouldn't be an issue for dogs being walked individually.
So am thinking a contract and data sheet of some sort - vet details. Pre existing conditions. Good recall? How they are with other dogs?

I agree with the insurance i really want to make sure im covered. What if a dog im walking gets in a fight or gets hurt - do the clients claim on their insurance or mine?

I am happy that i can get a dog toa vet in an emergency as dp works locally so could take me. This would be no different to someone walking a dog in the woods etc and having to get back to the car. In some ways id be better than if i had to get dog back to car as dp would come to me. I cant let not having a car stop me or j will never do this. Ive wanted to do it for some time and have been put off by the insurance issue.

For pure insurance, Cliverton.

NARPS offer additional services such as dispute resolution, which I've only used once but my god they were good.

Usually a dog's own third party liability, which very often comes with medical insurance plans these days, is invalid when the dog is in the care and charge of a professional person, eg groomer, walker, kennels - so the claim would be against your policy.

Yes we do have contracts. Ours are based on a template from NARPS although we've tweaked them a bit. They're part of the data sheet, we call them the Booking In forms.

We don't insist on vaccinations although we always recommend them.

Good luck and feel free to pm!

I'm linking this thread to my own old one btw, for future reference.

My wife has a small dog walking business - keeps her busy and does ok from it. Obviously, one thing to bare in mind is that although you might be paid cash most of the time, you must declare income and need to submit a tax return (even if you are earning less than the current threshold). Recently sent this blog to the wife: www.allaboutaccountants.com/tax-advice-dog-walkers-dog-sitters/ and we thought it was pretty handy. Hope this helps some of you! thnx, Steve.