Starting a dog-walking business is trending

[Ozzy]

Every few days it is part of my job to analyse what is trending across Google searches and social media so that UKBF can publish relevant editorial to meet the market trends, that change from day to day.

Over the past seven days, the fourth top search on Google in the small business category is how to start a dog walking business. What are your thoughts on this @BustersDogs as you shared your journey and how you turned your hobby into a business as a previous Member in Focus article?

 

[fisicx]

Also get in contact with @mugatea. He ran (still runs) a dog walking business and had loads of advice on his website about doing the same.

 

[Mark T Jones]

I'll be interested to hear @BustersDogs reply.

When I was running courses for the NEA there were several wannabe dog walkers.

The general conclusion I reached was that its easy to earn few bob walking dogs, but the jump to making it a real business (or even a full time job) was pretty big.

 

[BustersDogs]

Every few days it is part of my job to analyse what is trending across Google searches and social media so that UKBF can publish relevant editorial to meet the market trends, that change from day to day.

Over the past seven days, the fourth top search on Google in the small business category is how to start a dog walking business. What are your thoughts on this @BustersDogs as you shared your journey and how you turned your hobby into a business as a previous Member in Focus article?

There are a lot of articles posted in the newspapers over the years giving totally false indications of how much dog walkers can earn. They look at the charge per hour, times that by 6 dogs, then times that by 8 hours a day. It can take 3 hours to walk 6 dogs for one hour, and usually you can't find 6 dogs after 2/3pm who want to wait that long for a walk anyway.

But mainly I think it's a couple of things - dog ownership has changed since covid. The demand for dogs went up very high, and the quality of commercial/mass breeding in general went down even further, so I am seeing a lot more dogs with behavioural problems, and owners of these types of dogs do struggle to find dog care. Most experienced dog walkers won't take reactive dogs, or dogs with separation anxiety if it's bad. So owners post all over social media looking for dog walkers, which then looks like an increase in demand - or they decide to start up their own business so they can keep their dog with them. Which is kind of what I did.

The other thing is the rise in dog walking/pet sitting apps. They seem to be everywhere, and what's worse is they push boarding, without being bothered about local laws - ie the requirement for a licence. So I think it's people coming in from these angles who are then searching for more information, usually when the get fed up with paying commission to the app.

And finally - the weather is getting better, so people are thinking of being outside.

I would like all these people to please find my website with dog walker training on it.