If you have a question not addressed here, please contact us
- Are you insured?
- Are you bonded?
- Do you work outside the District?
- I don’t see my neighborhood on your list. Will you service my neighborhood?
- How long will you spend with my dog?
- Will you walk my pitbull-boxer-akita mix?
- Can I cancel a walk? Will I be charged?
- Are you available 24/7/365?
- Will you leave a note about my dog’s day?
- How will inclement weather affect my dog’s walk?
- Can you walk my dog at 12:37 every day? 12:38 would be good too.
- Can I work for you?
- Do you take care of cats? Other types of animals?
- House-sitting read-me
1. Are you insured?
We are! Although we have never had to use it, we carry the most robust plan offered by the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters. It would protect against the unlikely event of any harm coming to your dog or property while under our care.
2. Are you bonded?
We are bonded! We have never had to use it and never expect it to be necessary, but bonding is a protection against theft by dog walkers (or other service providers) while they are in your home. We vet any collective members and ensure that only trusted, reliable walkers enter your home.
3. Do you work outside the District?
No, due to the distances have to cover to mutually support collective members, it’s just not feasible. Sorry DMV! Its just the D for us.
4. I don’t see my neighborhood on your list. Will you service my neighborhood?
For mid-day walks, we are interested in expanding our services to any neighborhood in the city as long as there is enough work to make it feasible for us to send a walker there every day.
For short-term house sitting, we are a bit more geographically flexible.
Interested in getting some neighbors together to try and initiate a new route where you live? Email us!
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5. How long will you spend with my dog?
Our basic billing block for a visit is 30 minutes. With the usual routines of getting dogs in and out of houses and apartments, you can generally count on a walk of 20-25 minutes. Sometimes longer, depending on routing.
On days that are too hot or too cold, we shorten walks a bit to spare the dogs, and limit our personal exposure to excessive cold. To see our entire weather policy, go here.
6. Will you walk my pitbull-boxer-akita mix?
We don’t discriminate based on age, size, or breed. Shih-tzus, pitbulls, old beagles, and new golden-doodle puppies. Rescue dogs and pure breeds. We walk em all.
However, we have to make exceptions of uncontrollably dangerous ones – that’s it. It’s important to us that the situation is safe for us and for the dog, as well as other people and animals.
As long as we can walk them safely, we are glad to do so!
7. Can I cancel a walk? Will I be charged?
Our cancellation policy is very flexible. We understand that even for the most organized person, last minute changes are unavoidable at times.
As long as you contact us before we are at or en route to your home, you will not be charged for the visit. However, like you, we are contentedly busy people, and always prefer as much notice as possible when your schedule changes. Similarly, we are flexible about scheduling additional visits for your pet. We are often able to do this with less than 24 hours’ notice, but it’s not something we can guarantee (though we’ve all picked up walks on an hour’s notice at one time or another). If you give us a full day’s notice or more, we should be able to take care of you.
8. Are you available 24/7/365?
In theory, yes. We will do our best to accommodate your pet sitting and off-time requests, and almost always we do.
But although we don’t like to turn down work, occasionally none of us is available. We all keep pretty busy schedules, what with work and our various avocations. We love walking dogs, but we also love eating, sleeping, and spending a reasonable amount of time with the people we care about. The more notice we have, the more likely it is we can accommodate a request on any given day. Don’t hesitate to ask!
For regular walks, we do not schedule on weekends or evenings after 6 pm.
9. Will you leave a note about my dog’s day?
Upon request, we sure will write a note about your dog’s day (walk time, business achieved, anything out of the ordinary) on a pad you provide.
10. How will inclement weather affect my dog’s walk?
For the dogs’ welfare and our own, we shorten walks in very hot and very cold weather. If we are able to spend the visit’s remaining time with your dog inside the house (e.g. playing with a ball), we will gladly do so!
Under the following conditions, we limit walks to 15-20 minutes:
- EXTREME COLD: daytime temperatures below 30° F or wind-chill below 20°
- EXTREME HEAT: daytime temperatures of 90° F or Heat Index above 100°
- ICE: Dangerous sidewalks/paths; ice that prohibits safe walking,
- AIR QUALITY: AQI over 100 (code “Orange”), which is considered unhealthy by the EPA for sensitive groups, such as people who work outdoors.
- OTHER: We will evaluate any case of extreme rain, wind, hail, or other weather to best ensure the reasonable care of pets and walkers. This may also effect travel time, and time windows.
During incidents of even more extreme weather, walkers may need to further shorten walks.
How you can help:
- We ask that clients make all reasonable efforts to keep their sidewalks, stairs, and entry-ways clear and safe. Icy stairways pose a particular risk to walkers, more so with a leashed dog that may pull.
- We also ask that owners provide towels to dry off pets, so that we are better able to keep your pet and home clean and dry.
Thank you for your consideration and support.
11. Can you walk my dog at 12:37 every day? 12:38 would be good too.
While we respect you and your pet’s need for a certain level of predictability in your daily routine, we also require a degree of flexibility in scheduling walks. Managing a busy dog walking route is more art than science. We’d guess that anyone who promises a narrow time window every day is either a) not a full-time walker or b) just not being real! So we require a minimum two-hour time window to arrive for your dog’s walk.
However, we can work with a one-hour window in exceptional cases: for young puppies, dogs with specific medical conditions, and dogs that we walk more than once a day.
Also, please keep in mind that with 9am-5pm being the most popular work hours, we get a disproportionate number of requests for walks between 12-2pm. More often than not we can honor those requests. But if a walk at 11 or at 3 is feasible for you and your pet (and his or her pee-pee bladder) that helps us spread out work and makes our lives so much easier!
12. Can I work for you?
Maybe! Only, you would be working with us, not for us. We’ve done away with the old-hat, tried-and-untrue position of “boss.” If you are interested in learning more about employment opportunities, please write us an email and tell us more about yourself.
13. Do you take care of cats? Other types of animals?
Do you take care of cats?
Yes! We do a lot of cat sitting. Not so much cat walking.
Do you take care of other types of animals
Not usually. But we’re willing to try most any kind of pet that doesn’t begin in “ti” and end in “ger.”
14. House-sitting read-me
We are happy to care for your pet(s) during times that you are away from the house for more than just a work day. We don’t board, but we can visit cats once or more a day and dogs up to four times a day, including overnight stays if you wish.
Non-Overnight Sitting
Our standard non-overnight sitting includes a morning visit, a mid-day visit (if needed), a dinner visit, and a late night visit. This includes meals, meds, and 20-25 minute walks. If we are not able to replicate your dog’s normal routine in terms of exact walk times, we will at least make sure that the visits are spaced out as evenly as possible. We are happy to bring in/pick up your mail and water plants for no extra charge. Unless you request otherwise, our time in your home will be limited to these activities.
Overnight Sitting
When we do overnight sitting, we essentially move into your home for the duration of the stay. Rather than leave to chance that your assumptions about what that means match our assumptions about what that means, here are some guidelines we’ve established. Please feel free to discuss details with your sitter.
Services:
As with non-overnight sitting, we will walk your dog 3 or 4 times a day, bring in your mail, and water your plants if requested. We will also spend the night with your pet and will usually end up giving him or her some additional in-home hang-out time. We’ll do our best to adhere to any additional guidelines you provide.
Our needs for a comfortable stay:
We will treat your home as we would respectfully treat our own. Our aim is to leave it in the condition in which we find it. That said, here are the things we require:
- A proper bed to sleep in, assuming there is at least one in the home.
- Clean sheets and at least one towel.
- Full use of the bathroom.
- More or less full use of the kitchen. We do not expect you to leave any particular food or drink for us, but we will consider most of what is there to be fair game for consumption. If there are particular items that are off limits, just let your sitter know.
- Use of TVs, radios, and video players.
- Access to wireless internet if you have it.
- Room to store a bike indoors if available.
Negotiable things that will make our lives easier:
- Access to a computer. It beats biking around with a laptop, but we understand if you’d like us not to use yours.
- Access to media collections. We all love books, music, and films to varying degrees and enjoy checking out what items others own. If you’d rather we didn’t, just say so.
- A guest or two.
Fear not, we will never do the following:
- Give out your keys to anyone else, with the exception of coworkers in emergency situations.
- Host large gatherings in your home.
- Smoke in your home without your permission.
- Bring illegal substances into your home.