As a consumer you are best served to hire a reputable, established, locally owned dog walking/pet sitting company who has insurance to protect your interests and who has a team of educated and skilled dog and cat handlers.

There’s a lot more to dog walking than holding a leash and picking up poop. Liking dogs is not enough

Hi Jen,

Fantastic article! Would you be interested writing something about us? We are http://www.sittersforcritters.com and keyword to use “dog walker Philadelphia”

We are a small family owned and operated dog walking business and we are interested with your expertise, to make people aware of our GPS tracked dog walking service… Love for you or someone to write about it ;-) let me know?

I personally do not own a dog walking business, so I am not licensed or insured. I guess the best way to answer this is to say that there are different “levels” of dog walking. You can start your own actual dog walking business (which is to say you get incorporated and apply to be bonded and insured, etc), you can apply for a job with a dog walking/pet sitting company that is already licensed and insured and be an employee who gets the advantage of being with a company who has those credentials, or you can go at it on your own and get jobs that do not require you to be licensed and insured. Sites like Sittercity.com have background checks that show up on your profile to give you some credibility, and then you can meet with potential clients who will judge your trustworthiness, etc on their own and decide to hire you or not.

If hired by a client on your own, I’d suggest coming up with a Terms & Conditions form (I just made mine in a Word doc) that lists things like payment terms, what you are not responsible for, what you are responsible for, etc. Have both parties sign and retain a copy for yourself just in case anything does happen.

It’s totally fun and can be really profitable if your schedule and lifestyle can accommodate the most needed walking times (11am-2pm)! Good luck :)