Yes! We only hire walkers that have experience in caring for dogs. Our walkers are knowledgeable, dependable, and passionate about dogs. Each of them is certified by the Dog Walking Academy (see below), though the date of certification may vary depending on the course schedule.

Our goal is always to pair your dog with the same walker.

Yes! We hope you will!

Yes, your dog walker is insured through United Specialty Insurance Company and is bonded through Travelers.

Charges depend on the length of the walk and the type of walk. A half-hour walk is $22. A one-hour social walk is $30. A one-hour solo is $35. Siblings go for half-price. For walks on the weekend, on holidays or outside the hours of 9a-6p weekdays, add $5 for the half-hour and $10 for the hour. We also have special training walks and walks that support the training for $200/hr and $50/hr respectively.

It is a walk where your dog goes out with a regular buddy or two (maximum three) who live nearby.

Depending on their needs, some dogs benefit from having a buddy or two. Others do best having a solo walk. Btw, we never do pack walks!

A training walk is a session with Heather, CTP-KPA (see below), that addresses a particular problem. Usually the dog’s human is also present, but not always. Typical problems include pulling, eating off the street, or leash aggression.

After a dog understands a behavior, she needs lots of practice to make it a habit. It’s helpful to have a walker who understands the training protocol to back it up with focused walks.

Yes, we limit our service to regular and on-going clients in order to do our best work.  However, see “Occasional Walks” below.

Click the Get Started Now button and let us know your preferences. Then we’ll contact you and arrange for a walker to come meet you and your dog(s). If you are satisfied, we can start walking right away.

It means that you subscribe to a 3 or more walks each week on an on-going basis.

Yes, you may stop your service at any time provided you give us two weeks’ notice. The notice permits us to fill the hole in our walker’s schedule.

Our hours of operation are Monday-Friday 9am-5pm, not including public holidays. Email us for any support issues: info@thedoghousenyc.com.

We do not have regularly scheduled walks on the following days: New Year’s Day, MLK Day, President’s Day, Memorial Day, July 4^th, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas Day.

However, if you are a regular and on-going client and have a special need on one of these days, we’ll do our best to meet your need.

For walks, we need you to give us 24 hours’ notice of a cancellation or you will be charged in full. To cancel your service, we need two weeks’ notice as noted above.

We send you a statement on the last day of each month for walks performed that month and collect payment the next day. Most people pay with a credit card and we charge their cards on the first day of each new month. Some people prefer to pay with a check or cash and that’s fine, too.

We are a subscription service based on the expectation that we are walking your dog(s) on a regular basis for the foreseeable future. We allow you 10 personal/vacation days and 11 public holidays a year, starting in January, and pro rate your monthly bill accordingly. This way, each bill should be the same unless you occasionally add walks.

As with a magazine or cable channel, it is regular service for a fixed monthly price.

We allow up to 10 personal days without charge in a given year, beginning on January 1, in addition to 11 holidays. If your days away exceed this number, we will charge as if you were here.  We do it this way to ensure stability for our business operations.

We have your credit card on file and we use Quickbooks Merchant Services to process your payments. You may also pay by cash or check if that’s better for you.

It’s no fun to be out in the rain, dog or human. If the rain is steady, we reserve the right to abbreviate the walks to relief walks. Please leave towels by your front door so we can clean off muddy paws!

Sometimes, but rarely. Our guiding rule is safety. Extreme heat is dangerous, and severe wind blowing signs and trees can be too. When we think it’s advisable to shorten walks, we let you know by email.

We are asked from time to time by people who are not our regular clients if we will walk a dog while the human is on vacation; or while the human is recovering from something; or for an occasional walk. We like to be neighborly and so, if we have a walker available, we will gladly honor these requests. The rate, however, is higher. $40/hr. $30/.5 hr

It stands for Certified Training Partner, Karen Pryor Academy. Karen Pryor is one of this century’s best known animal trainers. She introduced clickers to the dog world, a training tool that supports operant conditioning.

It is a 4-day workshop that teaches attendees: (1) practical applications of classical and operant conditioning; (2) dog training pedagogy, including the whole “alpha dog” phenomenon (that has been debunked); (3) safe practices; (4) pet first aid; and (5) hands-on dog walking.  It is designed by dog*tec, a non-profit consulting service for dog businesses, and is offered nationally in an effort to elevate and standardize dog walking .