How to start a dog walking business: Step Three
Dog Walking Equipment
Dog Walking Equipment – How dog walkers can safely leash their client’s dogs.
View our ten steps to quickly launching your pet business.
How dog walkers can safely leash a dog
I highly recommend this product to lessen the chances of your dogs getting off-leash.
Full List
- Claim your free Google Business Places listing.
- Understanding the body language of dogs.
- Leashing a dog.
- Choosing the right dog leash.
- Household dangers to dogs.
- Outdoor dangers to dogs.
- Create a business card.
- Dog walking insurance.
- It’s time to walk some dogs.
- Relationship build with dog trainers.
- Relationship with your peers.
- Claim your free SparkyGo listing.
Master all the different dog collars, harnesses, and leashes.
You might want to skip this section but don’t! There’s nothing more important than making sure your dog doesn’t get off-leash on a walk. This means you need to learn the different types of equipment dogs wear.
The basics.
There are a few things that should always be the case no matter what equipment a dog wears:
- A collar should not be able to be pulled over a dog’s head. If the collar can slip over the dog’s head it can get off-leash.
- A dog should not be able to slip its front paws out of a harness. A harness should also not be able to be pulled over a dog’s head.
- Every time you clip a piece of equipment you should try and pull it apart.
- Never use chipped or cracked pieces of equipment.
Pro tip: Many professional dog walkers use two forms of equipment with their dogs (a collar & a harness.) They either use one leash that clips to both pieces of equipment, or some walkers even use two leashes. Other dog walkers clip the dogs to a carabiner they wear on their waste. This backup safety mechanism can give you much more peace of mind. Of course, you still need to make sure the dog’s equipment is on properly though.
There’s a lot of equipment to learn!
There are a lot of different equipment made for dogs and the list is only growing. Let’s break down the list of equipment into bigger groups:
No-pull back and chest harnesses.
This popular list of dog equipment is meant to stop puppies and high-energy dogs from pulling. This list would include products like:
- The Freedom Harness.
- The EZ Walk Harness.
- No Pull Comfort Harness.
No-pull face harnesses.
- Gentle Leader.
- Halti.
Normal collars.
Normal harnesses.
Ruffwear.
The worst fear of a dog walker is having a dog get off-leash. With a good leash and understanding of dog equipment (dog collar, dog harness, etc.), this should help that from happening. You can find lots of YouTube videos that will show you how to safely put on a piece of equipment. You can also go to the manufacturer’s websites to find step-by-step instructions on how to safely put on a piece of dog equipment. The big idea here is to never use a piece of dog equipment unless you know how to.
If you’d like to practice how to put on equipment, and you don’t have access to a dog, you could buy a pet store dog mannequin like above.
