Dog Walker Task — PawSteps

What the job actually is

Dog walkers offer their services helping owners exercise their pets. Dogs are usually walked during the day whilst owners are at work, or for short periods when they are away.

Services you could also offer

Pet sitting in the owner's homePet boardingPuppy and pet visitsPet taxiDog grooming

What personal qualities and skills are needed to be a dog walker?

Price it

How much is reasonable to charge for an hour's walk? Would you charge more for 1-to-1 or group?

Price for a one-hour group walk, per dog (£)

Price for a one-hour 1-to-1 walk (£)

Dogs per group walk

Group walks per day

1-to-1 walks per day

Days worked per week

Unpaid travel and admin per day (hours)

Fuel and vehicle per week (£)

Insurance per year (£)

Phone, website, kit, DBS per year (£)

The 1-to-1 question

Would you charge more for a 1-to-1 walk or a group walk — and why?

How the pricing usually works

Almost every walker charges more per dog for 1-to-1, and earns less per hour doing it. Four dogs at £14 is £56 for the same hour that a £20 solo walk pays.

So why offer it at all? Because some dogs cannot go in a group — reactive dogs, dogs recovering from surgery, elderly dogs, puppies not yet vaccinated, and dogs whose owners simply will not have it. Those clients pay a premium and they are loyal, because very few walkers will take them.

The trap is pricing 1-to-1 as if it were a group walk with fewer dogs. It is a different service with a different risk profile, and often a longer drive.

Insurance

The source note flagged this as needing checking. Here is the current position.

Do you need insurance as a dog walker? Yes — and in practice you cannot operate without it. Public liability covers the damage a dog in your care does to a person or property. Care, custody and control covers the dog itself being injured or lost while you have it.

Which breeds would UK insurance not cover you to walk?

The Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 prohibits four types across the UK:

Pit Bull Terrier
Japanese Tosa
Dogo Argentino
Fila Brasileiro

The XL Bully was added in England and Wales from the end of 2023, and in Scotland during 2024. Most standard pet business policies exclude any dog banned or restricted under the Act — though some specialist insurers will cover an exempted XL Bully provided it holds a valid Certificate of Exemption and is muzzled and on a lead in public.

The law goes by what a dog looks like, not what it is called. A police or council dog expert assesses type on physical characteristics. That means a crossbreed with no papers can be judged a banned type, and your policy can exclude it, whatever the owner tells you it is.

This area has moved recently, so check before you rely on it. As of 2026, Defra removed the requirement for banned-type dogs to hold third-party public liability insurance for their Certificate of Exemption from 1 July 2026, and the Dogs Trust scheme that provided it has closed. A separate condition arriving 1 November 2026 means a child under 12 must not be left in close contact with a banned-type dog in a private place without adult supervision. None of that changes what your own business insurer will cover — that is a separate contract, and you read it yourself.

Other exclusions that catch people out

A maximum number of dogs, commonly six. Walk seven and you are uninsured for all of them.
Off-lead walking without written consent from the owner. A signed off-lead consent form is standard.
Some policies exclude specific activities — transporting dogs, entering the owner's home, overnight boarding — unless added.

Write the question you would ask an insurer before buying a policy

Advertising

If you started your own dog walking business, how could you advertise your services?

Worth knowing: most dog walkers get most of their clients from other dog owners they meet while walking, and from vets, groomers and pet shops who pass on a card. The card in someone's hand is doing a lot of work, which is why the task is what it is.

Design your business card

Front and back. Fill these in and it renders below at roughly the real size, 85 by 55 millimetres.

Business name

Tagline

Your name

Phone

Social media

Area covered

Colour

Services — one per line, four at most

One line for the back of the card

Print this page to get the cards at size, or rebuild the design in Google Slides, Docs or Canva and upload it to Google Classroom as the task asks.