What to Ask Before Hiring a Philadelphia Dog Walker
Hiring a dog walker is a strange transaction. You give someone a key to your home, and then they’re alone in it with a member of your family. Most people do this after a ten-minute phone call and a look at a website.
We’ve been walking dogs in Center City and South Philly since 2018. These are the questions worth asking whoever you hire, and a good company will have ready answers to all of them.
1. Are your walkers employees or independent contractors?
This question shapes most of the others, and almost nobody asks it.
An independent contractor generally decides how to do the job: their own methods, their own safety practices, their own way of handling your dog. They pay their own taxes and usually carry their own insurance, if they have any. A company can tell a contractor what result it wants, but not how to get there. The IRS treats training and detailed instructions as strong evidence that a worker is really an employee (IRS). So a company built on contractors has little room to train its walkers or hold them to its own standards. That isn’t a loophole. It’s the trade the company made to keep costs down.
An employee can be trained, held to standards, supervised, and covered by the company’s insurance and workers’ compensation. It costs the company considerably more.
Neither answer rules a company out. But if the answer is “contractors,” ask two more things: who trained the person walking my dog, and what happens if they’re hurt in my home?
Every one of our walkers is a W-2 employee, trained by us.
2. Who will actually walk my dog, and what happens when they’re off?
Be wary of “the same walker every time.” People take vacations, get sick, and change jobs. A company promising perfect consistency is either very small or not being straight with you.
A better answer describes a system. Ours: with regular walks, your dog has a primary walker who does most of them, and over time usually a small group of people who know them. When your walker is out, another trained member of our team covers, ideally someone who has walked your dog before.
What you want to hear is a company that has thought about coverage. What should worry you is one that hasn’t, or one that promises something no company can deliver.
3. Will my dog be walked alone?
Ask directly, because the answer isn’t always volunteered. A walker holding several leashes can’t give any one dog much attention, and for a reactive or nervous dog, a senior, or a puppy still learning leash manners, that matters.
Ours are always one-on-one. Your dog is never walked with dogs from another household.
4. What does “insured” actually mean?
Nearly every dog walking website says “insured and bonded.” Far fewer can tell you what the policy covers.
Things worth asking about: damage to your home, injury to your dog while in their care, injury to someone else if your dog bites on a walk, and whether the walker is covered if they’re hurt at your home. That last one matters more than people realize. If a walker without coverage slips on your steps, the question of who pays could end up involving your homeowner’s insurance.
We carry business insurance, and because our walkers are employees, they’re covered by workers’ compensation.
5. How do you vet and train your walkers?
Background checks are the floor, not the ceiling. Ask what training happens after hiring: leash handling, reading a dog’s body language, what to do in an emergency, and how walkers learn your dog’s routine.
Our hiring includes reference checks and a background check, and every walker completes our in-house training on safety, procedures, and client service.
6. What do I get after each visit?
A good answer is a report: when the walker arrived and left, where they went, how your dog did, and photos. A GPS-mapped route is now standard among companies that take this seriously, and if it’s missing, that tells you something.
The photos are nice, but they aren’t the main point. A company willing to send you a timestamped record after every visit is confident the walks are happening as booked.
7. How do you handle keys and entry?
Ask where your key is kept, who can get to it, how it’s labeled, and what happens to it if the walker who had it leaves. A key should never be stored with anything that identifies your home. Lockboxes and electronic locks make all of this simpler.
8. What’s the full price, including what isn’t on the price page?
Ask about holiday and weekend surcharges, last-minute booking fees, cancellation windows, and what happens if you’re away and need longer visits. A company that publishes all of this is easier to budget for than one that quotes you a headline rate. Ours are all on our prices page, and our guide to what a dog walker costs in Philadelphia walks through weekly examples.
9. How do I reach a person?
Not a chat widget or a help center, but a person who knows your dog’s name and can change tomorrow’s schedule. Ask how quickly they respond, and during what hours.
One more thing
Our own answers to these questions are on our website. But the reason to ask them of anyone is simpler than a sales pitch: this is a person in your home, with your dog, while you’re somewhere else. Ten minutes of questions is a small price for knowing how that works.
A note on our walks
Our walks are one-on-one, for 20, 30 or 60 minutes, and you get photos, notes and the GPS route after every walk. Read more about how our dog walks work.
Every new client starts with a free meet & greet at home, where a manager meets your dog and answers all of this in person. Book a free meet & greet or call (267) 571-9373.
