How much does a dog walker cost in Liverpool?

What moves the price

Five things account for most of the range.

Walk length

Plenty of walkers sell a half hour, and it looks cheap on the page. Getting there, getting the dog ready and locking up takes the same time whether the walk is thirty minutes or sixty, so a half-hour walk is often twenty minutes of walking. I only do the hour. Per minute of actual walking it is the better deal, and it is what most dogs need on a working day. Weekends are priced separately: Saturday mornings a little higher, Sundays by request at double. If your dog is older or has a condition, how far they should be walking is one for your vet, not your walker.

If your dog needs more than an hour, a day out is better value than two walks. My doggy day excursion is £35 a day for 8am to 2pm, which works out cheaper per hour than any walk, though it is a different thing.

Travel

A walker who covers a wide area spends much of the day driving between houses, unpaid, and the fuel and the time have to come from somewhere. Some add a travel charge on top of the walk, some build it into a higher price, and some only take on dogs within a tight patch. Ask which, because a walk at the bottom of the range with travel added can end up at the top of it. My own rule on travel is on the prices page.

How many dogs go out together

A walker with five dogs on the lead can charge each owner less than one with a single dog, because the hour is paid for five times over. Two dogs from the same house are a different thing: most walkers, me included, add a smaller amount for the second one because they go out together anyway. That is not automatically bad. Some dogs love a group, and it is what makes a lower price possible. But five dogs is five sets of recall, five things that can go wrong at once, and a walk at the pace of the slowest. If a price seems low, this is usually why. What I do with your dog depends on your dog, and we settle it at the consultation rather than on a website.

Insurance and a DBS check

Both cost money and take time to keep current, so a walker who has them carries overheads that one without them does not. It is a small part of the price and the part that matters most if something goes wrong. If a dog is hurt on a walk, or slips a collar and is lost, or a house is damaged while the walker has the key, insurance is the difference between it being dealt with and it being your problem. A DBS check tells you the person holding your house key has been looked into. Neither is required by law to walk dogs, which is why not every walker has them, and why you have to ask. I am insured with Cliverton, who specialise in pet care businesses, and DBS checked. Ask any walker to see both. I would expect to be asked.

Bank holidays

Most walkers charge more on a bank holiday, and by amounts that vary more than you would think, so ask before you need one. Mine are on the prices page along with everything else.

Why the cheapest is not always the cheapest

The lowest quote is usually low for a reason, and the reason is normally one of the things above. Fewer minutes, more dogs, no insurance, or someone doing it alongside another job who may not be doing it next year.

A couple of pounds a walk, three walks a week, comes to a few hundred pounds a year. Then set that against one vet bill from a walk that went wrong with nobody insured, or a week of scrambling for cover because your walker packed it in, or a year of your dog being the fifth on the lead. Cheap is fine if you know exactly what you are getting. It only becomes expensive when you find out afterwards.

The other thing to price in is reliability. A walk that does not happen costs you an afternoon off work, or a dog that has been crossing its legs since morning. A walker who turns up in the rain, every time, at the time they said, is worth more than the difference between two quotes.

None of that means the dearest walker is the best one. It means the price on its own tells you very little.

Where I come into it

I have walked dogs across Liverpool, Knowsley, Sefton and St Helens for over sixteen years, and it has always been just me. Every price I have is listed on the prices page, and what a walk with me involves is on the dog walking page. The consultation is free, and I confirm the exact figure there before you commit to anything.

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