In need of Dog boarding/sitting/walking rate advice.

DaveTheGeordie

I'm filling out a profile for 'Tailster.com' a dog walking, sitting etc service. I don't know what to charge. No idea.

Dog Boarding: taking care of a dog in your own home. Price per night?

Dog sitting: taking care of a dog in its owners home. Price per night?

Dog walking: taking a dog for a walk (hehe, reminds me of a local phrase they used to say here for 'going for a pint'). Price per hour?

Maybe worth mentioning: They take 15% commission. I'm from the North East also. So I imagine its cheaper up here than down south. Not greedy. Can do for fairly cheap but don't want to be too cheap either.

fragmented

Why not just enter you post code on the site you said ? (half way down front page)
It will do a search and tell you what others charge in your area.

DaveTheGeordie

Thanks. Feel silly now

Sorted anyway. I have a good idea now.

System

Just wanted to say good luck with your venture

SeduLOUs

Without putting a downer on your venture this is something I looked into a while ago and decided against it.

If you are going to look after animals and board them in your home as a business, you will need a license, which involves your property being regularly inspected by the council. I looked into this briefly and you have to have isolation facilities for sick animals, and we would have had to replace all of our garden fences to the minimum height requirement which I believe was 6ft.

You will probably also need to take out your own liability insurance in case an animal injures someone or another animal or damages property whilst under your care.

Dog walking is probably the most straight forward thing to do, but you will still need to make sure you are appropriately insured, as well as collecting evidence from the owners that the animals are fully vaccinated.

Boarding at someone's own home might be easier to get going than your own home, but then you can only service one client at a time and people are very wary of having strangers in their house, so I would expect to have to provide DBS checks to potential clients as a minimum.

I do wish you the best of luck with your venture and am only posting to give you an idea of the things you might need to think about before jumping in.