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The San Francisco Dog Walker · Aug 9, 2020 ·

Posted by The San Francisco Dog Walker

YELP is not going away any time soon and it is probably the #1 way people compile a list of names of companies that provide a specific service in their geographic area.

So, for example, if you are wanting to know the names of all the dog walking companies in San Francisco all you would have to do is type in “Dog Walkers, San Francisco” in the YELP query box and up would pop a list of dog walkers that service your area.

How YELP decides which dog walkers are at the top of the list is a science called algorithms, which magically chooses who will be first on the list. It is basically a pretty simple concept, but to be at the top of the list, you must have a lot of positive reviews under your belt.

At first blush, this may seem like a good way to find the best dog walker in your area, but think again.  All it really says is that you have identified a “large COMPANY with positive reviews”.  They have more reviews because they have more employees providing service.  So is bigger actually better in this type of service?

Just because a San Francisco dog walking company has hundreds of positive reviews on YELP, doesn’t necessarily mean they are actually the best dog walking company for your particular needs.  Big does not always mean best in the dog walking world.  Sure, they have a lot of customers and they are a big company with many dog walking employees or contractors, but they may actually have a high customer turn over rate if they are marketing to a younger demographics. If they have a lot of YELP reviews, their target market is most likely the young, shakers and movers who relocate often and never look back, which just happens to be YELP’s target market.  These people are known as YELPERS.

So lets take a look.  What do young people that relocate often actually look for in a dog walker?  I would say that they are probably really price sensitive and are looking for a low rate because they are mostly single and are a one income household wanting to move up financially.  Two, they are probably swayed by charming, athletic looking, equally young dog walkers that they can relate to.  

Are these really the factors that make up a good dog walker?  In San Francisco, dog walking employees can find it very difficult to make ends meet.  There is a high turn over rate in employees because they take these jobs as summer jobs or just until another one comes along that pays more.  Often this means they are not completely focused on their work, but rather on their money worries. Is this who you want walking your dog?

Just because a dog walking company has hundreds of positive reviews on YELP and they are one of the first to come up in your search, it does not mean that you have found the best company.  It just means that you have found either a big company or a company with a high customer turn over, which often means that you have not found the best dog walker after all.  In the dog walking business, small usually means more because the dog walking companies can be focused on keeping the customers happy, rather than on how fast their drivers can get to the next house to keep to the companies scheduling goals.

The Uber Dog Walker

The San Francisco Dog Walker · Jul 31, 2020 ·

Posted by The San Francisco Dog Walker

I remember when I was in my twenties and thirties, there was no way I could afford to take a Taxi to work or home after an evening out in San Francisco.  They were just so darn expensive!  But along came Uber and for people that could not afford a Taxi ride, this opened the door for a whole new class of customers, those with lower disposable income.  So now, Uber is affordable for most everyone. 

The same could be said for dog walkers.  Dog walkers seem indispensable for people that work or are limited in their abilities to walk long distances.  What once seemed like a luxury for the richest people, all of a sudden became a must-have for the working class.  Longer hours required at the office made it impossible for people to have a pet unless they could get someone dependable to help them out.  Ozzie and Harriet days of 9-5 are long gone.  Everything in San Francisco is so expensive, therefore people must work more hours to afford the extras.  And San Francisco is the capital of dog ownership!  Everyone has a dog!!

Lower middle class citizens now-a-days seem to demand house-keepers too, so that they can have time to relax on their weekends.  I never had any of these luxuries in my young corporate working days and am very surprised by this turn of events.  What it means is that young people are making larger salaries in San Francisco, so they can afford the extras and are putting off the purchase of a house or increasing their savings accounts – to a much future date, if ever.

Picking a dog walker is very much dependent on your income level.  There are some of us that are at the top of our game, have years of experience under our belts and can offer subtle differences, (but important differences), that the newer dog walkers can’t possibly have under their belts.

So pricing may or may not be an important factor in choosing your walker.   Kind of like the Taxi vs. Uber debate.  By hiring a San Francisco dog walker that does not have a business license and chooses to evade the laws, you are taking a risk.  Uber drivers are employees and must abide by the rules set out by their company, but they get away without purchasing a costly special license.  Dog walking companies seem not to abide by such rigid set of rules. The companies they work for can be very lax in their expectations of their employees.  Most of them do not hire employees, but rather use contractors.  This is a big no-no and if caught using contractors on a regular basis as if they are employees, the fines are hundreds of thousands of dollars. But there are many dog walking companies that do this and seemingly get away with it.  Most of their employees (contractors)  are not certified dog walkers, nor do they have park permits.  Very few dog walking companies actually do a background check on their employees (contractors). Everything is fine until one day when something goes terribly wrong.

So, if these companies are willing to cheat at dog walking they are more likely to cheat you in small, unnoticeable ways.  Instead of a one hour walk, they take your dog to the park for 20 minutes.  Or on rainy days, they just sit in the car and then give your dog a pee break, not a walk.  Most of them never clean their autos regularly and your dog might get trampled under foot of bigger dogs.  Most importantly your dogs are extremely aroused by the time they arrive at the park.  They arrive at the park in a truck, barking and snarling at each other, while the driver pulls into the parking lot.  And many times when the dog walkers get to the park, they just stand around and don’t tend to the wants and desires of their dogs.

Like I say, the differences between dog walkers are subtle and mostly go undetected.  Make sure you ask the right questions, so you know the type of person you are dealing with.  People without ethics in their business practices are hard to hold accountable, if the time ever comes for that need.  But it may never come to that, since they seem to get away with it.  They will grin and tell you how accomplished they are, but some of us know the real truth. There is no short-cut to doing the right thing.

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