Do you like this story?
If this were your dogwalker, wouldn’t you want to know?
By Christie Keith
August 12, 2008
So I’m at the park with Rebel a couple of weeks ago, and a guy comes in with a dozen dogs of various sizes, from toys to retrievers, leashes trailing. It’s a designated off-leash dog play area, but it’s not fenced, and it’s separated from the street by only a row of trees and some shrubs.
He throws the ball for the dogs, and they race around joyfully, and Rebel and I head out towards the street, and home.
And there, in the shade of one of his tires, huddled under his SUV on the asphalt, is a little toy dog, leash trailing.
Dog walkers are a part of life in the city. I love my dog walker, Courtney Gunter, although I only use her when I’m out of town or, you know, have whooping cough. I pay her quite a bit extra, too, to give Rebel and Kyrie solo walks, and not just take them in a gang to the dog park.
I’ve been at the dog run in Golden Gate Park when a dog walker pulls up, unloads ten dogs, and then sits in her car drinking a latte and reading the paper while her charges race around the fenced area, doing whatever they do. I’ve been there when irate dog owners have marched over and hauled her out to pick up the dogs’ poop or stop a dog from picking on another dog.
There are good and bad dog walkers just as there are good and bad auto mechanics and pinball machine repair people. The thing is, when my mechanic screws up my car, well, it’s just a car, but when I pay someone to walk my dog and they leave him lying in the road and don’t even notice he’s missing from the pack?
I have to wonder how many people, if they secretly followed their dog walker one day, would be both surprised and disturbed at what they saw.
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I never understood how those big groups of dogs worked. The dynamics of different personalities/needs would be overwhelming to me! I’d be watching everyone’s body language like a hawk…
And what happens when something goes wrong within the group? That could go very bad very quickly - especially with differently-sized dogs.
If I had a dogwalker, I’d definitely want my dog(s) to be walked separately from anyone else’s dogs.
And yeah, I’d secretly follow some days just to see what’s what. I did the same with the kids in daycare when they were little - surprise visits, lurking in a car near the playground to see how the kids were handled, etc. It’s good to be able to trust people with the care of your pets and kids, but it’s foolish to hand over that trust before it’s earned.
Did you say anything about the little dog under the car?
Comment by mikken — August 12, 2008 @ 7:38 pm
Thats disgusting! I would be sooo mad if that was my dog left behind or unsupervised at a park…. the nerve of lazy people.
Comment by Saint Lover — August 12, 2008 @ 7:56 pm
What I did was I carried my camera with me the next several times I went over there at the same time, trying to see if I could catch it again, or even just get a photo of the guy’s car or something. There was no sign on the vehicle, so I had no idea who he was, or if he had a business name.
I haven’t seen him again yet.
Comment by Christie Keith — August 12, 2008 @ 9:47 pm
Twenty-twenty hindsight: You could have walked up to him, said hello, and asked if he had a business card, because sometimes you need a dogwalker… No, actually, I don’t think I’d have had the presence of mind to do that.:)
Comment by Lis — August 13, 2008 @ 4:27 am
So Scary! Thank goodness my mom is my dogsitter.
Comment by Lori — August 13, 2008 @ 6:07 am
Thank you for clarifying that there are good and bad people in all professions. I am a professional dog walker and this story horrifies me. I have also been “spied” upon many times by new clients and am fine with that as part of my business ethic is to never do anything I wouldn’t do if every single client were there with me. More to the point, I am in this business because I adore dogs and would venture to say that I would be just about as devastated if anything happened to my charges as their owners would be. I would like to believe these horror stories are exceptions, as this profession is certainly not the best paying nor the easiest, so I would venture most people are motivated by their love for the animals to do a good job, but I would completely advocate checking out a new walker very thoroughly before leaving your loved one in their care.
Comment by Tam — August 13, 2008 @ 6:58 am
Aat 10:00 mountain time, Dr. Narda Robinson will host a live chat about animal acupuncture with the Washington Post.
The website is http./csuvets.colostate.edu/news/index.htm
She is my daughter and is a veterinarian.
Comment by Colorado Transplant — August 13, 2008 @ 8:56 am
Christie: I think you should have said something to him about the dog back by the car. For the dog’s sake, not his. Its sounds like he didn’t have a clue that someone was missing from his pack. And if it were your dog, wouldn’t you want someone to say “excuse me, but I think you left something by the car.”
Comment by 2CatMom — August 13, 2008 @ 9:10 am
2CatMom, yes, but I had to also contend with Rebel, and leading him into a large pack of strange, off leash dogs, some of them toys, two of them retrievers, and a whole lot of little terriers, with their leashes winding around his legs, to talk with a man I didn’t know and basically tell him he was doing something I didn’t approve of, didn’t strike me as a great idea at the time. Plus, you know, the brain freeze. I did take Rebel home and come back right away with my camera, but he was gone.
20-20 hindsight.
Comment by Christie Keith — August 13, 2008 @ 10:15 am
The pro dog walkers and the dog owners get into arguments quite often at one of the dog parks I frequent. It’s usually about not picking up but it’s also because it’s a bit of a cop out for the dog walkers to use that park and I guess the dog owners feel somewhat antagonistic about that. If someone’s getting paid to walk a dog for an hour then they should be walking for an hour, not just depositing the dogs in a fenced in area for 10 - 15 minutes while talking on a cell phone and munching on an egg mcmuff. Sure some of the dogs run around and have a great 15 minutes but there are the other ones, say the ones that prefer human interactions, who don’t quite know what to do with themselves and just lie down beside the yakking dog walker.
My own dog walker, and I’m not going to say who she is because I’m selfish and don’t want anyone stealing her, takes my dogs out for a full afternoon, sometimes morning as well, through wooded trails which is not an easy thing to do considering we live in the city.
Comment by Fred — August 13, 2008 @ 11:42 am
I have showed up at the doggy day care unexpectedly just to make sure the dogs are always supervised.
Comment by kb — August 13, 2008 @ 10:32 pm
A mere shout to the dog walker or another within the sound of your voice, to be sure someone noticed the little one.
Comment by cocomama — August 14, 2008 @ 3:56 am
cocomama, I hate it when people add self-exculpatory details after they’ve told their story, but here I go: there was no one else around, and I was much too far away from the dogwalker for him to have heard me if I’d shouted. I came back after I took my dog home, and his SUV and all the dogs were gone. In hindsight, there were other things I could have done, including marching back into the park and telling him one of his little dogs was under the vehicle, but at the time, it seemed logical to get Rebel home and come back.
Comment by Christie Keith — August 14, 2008 @ 7:44 am
Christie,
Don’t worry about it too much. We’ve all been in circumstances where when we look back we wonder what the other options were. Making us aware of the issue was worth the story.
Comment by kb — August 14, 2008 @ 12:53 pm
Don’t you have ordinances against pack walking?
And Fred, either you or your walker must be a millionaire. How does she make a living off of a single walk in the afternoon? That just seems like an unrealistic expectation.
I’m fine with walkers going to the park. I don’t pay them to get the walker to walk. My pup needs all the exercise she can get and she’s a must run, not walk kinda girl, so for her its great. I understand that for some others, not so much. It’s nice when a walker can tailor to a pet’s individual needs, but I’m flexible as well. I can’t fork over enough dollars to ask a walker to strap on an odometer, eat her wheaties, and give me the mileage.
However, I do expect that a walker is not sipping lattes a good distance from the park.
Comment by Amy — August 14, 2008 @ 10:51 pm
Understood and appreciated, Christie. Thank you for taking the time to respond my thought, and for not kicking this dog lover.
Comment by cocomama — August 15, 2008 @ 12:20 am