Dog walking or such like (business). Life change.
Discussion
My wife and I are looking at a a bit of a "life" change.
Thinking of clearing off to rural Wales to become hermits!
My job would stay the same, I can WFH at times and commute in the week if I need to, but wifey would still need to contribute to the income.
Currently she is a private housekeeper that she is utterly brilliant at, but dislikes the family she works for, so not tied (emotionally) to that.
She LOVES dogs and animals in general, hence the dog walking thing, but is this market saturated already?
She could do with pulling in £1k a month ideally.
Open to any other suggestions for her, she is an excellent chef/baker, but doesn't really want to get into split shift working at her time of life (55).
Something that she could do at home would be ideal!
Thanks for any ideas.
Thinking of clearing off to rural Wales to become hermits!
My job would stay the same, I can WFH at times and commute in the week if I need to, but wifey would still need to contribute to the income.
Currently she is a private housekeeper that she is utterly brilliant at, but dislikes the family she works for, so not tied (emotionally) to that.
She LOVES dogs and animals in general, hence the dog walking thing, but is this market saturated already?
She could do with pulling in £1k a month ideally.
Open to any other suggestions for her, she is an excellent chef/baker, but doesn't really want to get into split shift working at her time of life (55).
Something that she could do at home would be ideal!
Thanks for any ideas.
Have you looked into how much need there would be for a dog walker in rural wales?
I live in South Wales but have Friends and their families who live centrally, part of their lifestyle is walking their dogs and being quite active anyway.
Perhaps you could live a number of miles outside say Carmarthen, Swansea, Cardiff etc that way you get the rural living but could attract attention from the local cities and towns, granted your wife would have to factor in collecting the dogs so there would be additional costs there.
I live in South Wales but have Friends and their families who live centrally, part of their lifestyle is walking their dogs and being quite active anyway.
Perhaps you could live a number of miles outside say Carmarthen, Swansea, Cardiff etc that way you get the rural living but could attract attention from the local cities and towns, granted your wife would have to factor in collecting the dogs so there would be additional costs there.
ZOLLAR said:
Have you looked into how much need there would be for a dog walker in rural wales?
I live in South Wales but have Friends and their families who live centrally, part of their lifestyle is walking their dogs and being quite active anyway.
Perhaps you could live a number of miles outside say Carmarthen, Swansea, Cardiff etc that way you get the rural living but could attract attention from the local cities and towns, granted your wife would have to factor in collecting the dogs so there would be additional costs there.
Good point.I live in South Wales but have Friends and their families who live centrally, part of their lifestyle is walking their dogs and being quite active anyway.
Perhaps you could live a number of miles outside say Carmarthen, Swansea, Cardiff etc that way you get the rural living but could attract attention from the local cities and towns, granted your wife would have to factor in collecting the dogs so there would be additional costs there.
I have looked at a few miles out of Welshpool. so there is a town there, but not yet looked at demand.
What I have seen are loads of people doing the same, hence why i think its saturated already.
Steviesam said:
What I have seen are loads of people doing the same, hence why i think its saturated already.
We live in Central Cardiff and needed someone to look after our puppy for 1 day. Although the market is quite saturated, every man and his dog seems to be doing dog walking, however try to find someone CRB checked (they have a key to our house), with professional qualifications in training and caring for a dog limited down to about 1 or 2 people.Most of the dog walkers seem to only work in local areas to their house - probably due to not wanting to waste time stuck in traffic. I also thought it was pretty cheep considering they came to our house twice and gave an hour walk for our puppy. I also found a website that seem to be full of students wanting to do dog walking for even cheaper.
There seems to be two types of dog walkers, the (mainly) younger generation who love dogs & don't work or only part time who advertise on Facebook at silly low prices or the 'professional' walkers who are registered/insured/1st aid trained etc & charge higher prices.
Some combine dog grooming services too.
We see several where we walk our dogs, walking 4-5 at a time, by the time you pay for a van/estate car or similar, insurance etc you'd barely be scraping a living in most cases.
If you were centralish then perhaps doggy day care may work, they drop their pooches to you & collect them again later, this may cause complications with home insurance as well as the neighbours though (if you had any).
Some combine dog grooming services too.
We see several where we walk our dogs, walking 4-5 at a time, by the time you pay for a van/estate car or similar, insurance etc you'd barely be scraping a living in most cases.
If you were centralish then perhaps doggy day care may work, they drop their pooches to you & collect them again later, this may cause complications with home insurance as well as the neighbours though (if you had any).
Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah said:
My first thought is that whilst there is a demand, £1000p/m is a lot of dogs needing to be walked, and a lot of repeat custom.
You say she's a great chef, is there mileage in exploring that avenue? Maybe bespoke cakes? I'd imagine margin would be great, and she could stay at home.
An alternative although it's an unknown to me but could she look at making bespoke dog/cat food? I know it sounds crazy but it's the sort of thing people lap up these days.You say she's a great chef, is there mileage in exploring that avenue? Maybe bespoke cakes? I'd imagine margin would be great, and she could stay at home.
Do some research on dog/cat nutrients, develop a 7 day food and pricing plan for different size dogs, include delivery of the meals and see if it takes off?
ZOLLAR said:
Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah said:
My first thought is that whilst there is a demand, £1000p/m is a lot of dogs needing to be walked, and a lot of repeat custom.
You say she's a great chef, is there mileage in exploring that avenue? Maybe bespoke cakes? I'd imagine margin would be great, and she could stay at home.
An alternative although it's an unknown to me but could she look at making bespoke dog/cat food? I know it sounds crazy but it's the sort of thing people lap up these days.You say she's a great chef, is there mileage in exploring that avenue? Maybe bespoke cakes? I'd imagine margin would be great, and she could stay at home.
Do some research on dog/cat nutrients, develop a 7 day food and pricing plan for different size dogs, include delivery of the meals and see if it takes off?
This stuff -
https://www.millieswolfheart.co.uk/dog-food/forage...
It’s £10 an hour so figure out haw many dogs need walking once you’ve cleared any over heads and paid tax. There’s a lot of people out there who are blatantly on benefits but also doing a bit of dog walking for cash. I guess if your wife stands out as being more professional then she’d do ok.
Probably extra money to be earned dog sitting at £30-40 a day on top of any dog walking. My nephew does it all and seems to do ok but he’s a youngster and loves dogs more than humans. We’ve lived in a few rural areas and the dog walkers we’ve used always seem busy. You have those that move out here but still have full time jobs then there’s those that move, get a dog etc and find they can’t be arsed so pay someone to do it.
Probably extra money to be earned dog sitting at £30-40 a day on top of any dog walking. My nephew does it all and seems to do ok but he’s a youngster and loves dogs more than humans. We’ve lived in a few rural areas and the dog walkers we’ve used always seem busy. You have those that move out here but still have full time jobs then there’s those that move, get a dog etc and find they can’t be arsed so pay someone to do it.
We use a dog walker. She's insured, CRB checked etc. What strikes me is that I'll walk the dog at 6am, 6pm and 10pm. I want the dog walked between 11:30 and 12:30 in the morning. I'd imagine most people do. You've got to make your money between, at best, 11am and 2pm. It's a narrow window.
s2sol said:
We use a dog walker. She's insured, CRB checked etc. What strikes me is that I'll walk the dog at 6am, 6pm and 10pm. I want the dog walked between 11:30 and 12:30 in the morning. I'd imagine most people do. You've got to make your money between, at best, 11am and 2pm. It's a narrow window.
But if you can do 5 dogs per hours over the 3 hour window, 5 days a week, at £10p/h, that's £450 a week.. so nearly 2k per month, take out expenses and tax, and that's probably going to clear the 1k per month that the OP was talking about quite easily. And all for 3 hours work a day, with the benefit of getting out and about in the outdoors (Although I guess the downside is the cold/wet winter days)
Superhoop said:
But if you can do 5 dogs per hours over the 3 hour window, 5 days a week, at £10p/h, that's £450 a week.. so nearly 2k per month, take out expenses and tax, and that's probably going to clear the 1k per month that the OP was talking about quite easily.
And all for 3 hours work a day, with the benefit of getting out and about in the outdoors (Although I guess the downside is the cold/wet winter days)
Aye, that works if there are 15 dogs living next door to each other that all use the same dog walker, and don't mind being walked with 4 other dogs. I think ours walks between jobs, so that eats into the time. If you have to run a van or decent sized car, with appropriate insurance, you've got pretty decent overheads before you even start.And all for 3 hours work a day, with the benefit of getting out and about in the outdoors (Although I guess the downside is the cold/wet winter days)
I’m in semi rural wales and there’s doggy day care in our town and it is ram packed every day, they do dog walking and washes too. There’s probably a few months waiting list to even get your dog in there.
So if you’ve got the cash to do something like that from home you’d be laughing if there isn’t one in the town you move to.
Alternatively get your missus on a dog grooming course, theres a mobile dog groomer in our town and again you are looking at at the very least 3 months waiting list, her books are closed atm she’s that busy.
So if you’ve got the cash to do something like that from home you’d be laughing if there isn’t one in the town you move to.
Alternatively get your missus on a dog grooming course, theres a mobile dog groomer in our town and again you are looking at at the very least 3 months waiting list, her books are closed atm she’s that busy.
My in-laws did this for the best part of 25 years in central Derby, previously she was a teacher, he was an engineer on the railway. FiL took the option of early redundancy and set up a dog training school / consultancy having been involved in obedience training for most of his adult life, she left teaching and took up dog walking as a side line to this.
They had a van with 8 cages, IIRC they did a morning and afternoon round and walked 6-8 dogs together. They had a mix of clients including OAPs who could no longer walk their dogs properly.
Downsides are that people come to rely on you just as much as childcare so things like holidays and sickness need factoring in to your plan.
Funnily enough, they sold the business and moved to North Wales just over a year ago.
They had a van with 8 cages, IIRC they did a morning and afternoon round and walked 6-8 dogs together. They had a mix of clients including OAPs who could no longer walk their dogs properly.
Downsides are that people come to rely on you just as much as childcare so things like holidays and sickness need factoring in to your plan.
Funnily enough, they sold the business and moved to North Wales just over a year ago.
dai1983 said:
It’s £10 an hour so figure out haw many dogs need walking once you’ve cleared any over heads and paid tax. There’s a lot of people out there who are blatantly on benefits but also doing a bit of dog walking for cash. I guess if your wife stands out as being more professional then she’d do ok.
Probably extra money to be earned dog sitting at £30-40 a day on top of any dog walking. My nephew does it all and seems to do ok but he’s a youngster and loves dogs more than humans. We’ve lived in a few rural areas and the dog walkers we’ve used always seem busy. You have those that move out here but still have full time jobs then there’s those that move, get a dog etc and find they can’t be arsed so pay someone to do it.
Just seen this thread- I'm semi-retired and have been a pet sitter/dog walker for 8 years now. I concentrate on the house sitting side ( charged £30/night since I started) and have a couple of regular dogs I walk. Probably extra money to be earned dog sitting at £30-40 a day on top of any dog walking. My nephew does it all and seems to do ok but he’s a youngster and loves dogs more than humans. We’ve lived in a few rural areas and the dog walkers we’ve used always seem busy. You have those that move out here but still have full time jobs then there’s those that move, get a dog etc and find they can’t be arsed so pay someone to do it.
I doubt if you'd make £1000/month, more like £500 , and it will be hard work to get initial clients - though you might be able to buy a 'dog walking round' off someone local to help you start.
dudleybloke said:
Steviesam said:
Thanks for replies so far, all helpful.
Erring towards the cake/baking side of things, so now just need to work out how to get the word out there!
I know a girl who makes custom cakes to order and she uses facebook to get a lot of work.Erring towards the cake/baking side of things, so now just need to work out how to get the word out there!
condor said:
I doubt if you'd make £1000/month, more like £500 , and it will be hard work to get initial clients - though you might be able to buy a 'dog walking round' off someone local to help you start.
One of my family is a dog-walker in Wales. Let's just say that payscales there are less than in your part of the world; £500/month would be pushing it.Gassing Station | Jobs & Employment Matters | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff