A professional dog walker says she is concerned by the lack of training and understanding around animal behaviour from new dog walking businesses that have popped up in Auckland.
Auckland Council said it is considering making changes to how professional dog walkers are managed, including potential limits on how many dogs they can walk at one time.
It follows a number of incidents, including one earlier this month that saw a beloved family dog put down after it suffered “horrific” injuries in a violent mauling by four larger dogs participating in a “pack walk” in East Auckland.
Cassie Jefferies from the Dog Squad has been walking dogs professionally for six years and told Breakfast the biggest issue is people who don’t understand how a group of dogs work together.
“The main thing is, a lot of people don’t have control of their groups of dogs, if I’m honest,” she said.
“So they’re coming into it, they see that there’s money, they see that it looks fun and easy and they think ‘I can take out those dogs, I can do that’ but in reality it’s actually a really difficult job and requires so much learning on your part before you can even start so you can do it safely and carefully.”
“You can’t just chuck a group of 10 dogs together and be like ‘cool let’s go for a walk now, this is going to be great’ because it’s not. It’s going to be horrendous almost right off the bat.”
She said there are currently no standards in New Zealand that regulate the dog industry as a whole, but said canine regulation groups could be coming that can uphold standards of care.
Auckland Council’s animal management team leader Angie Castro told 1News that currently a dog walker has the same legal responsibilities as an owner.
“This includes keeping the dogs in their care under control at all times and ensuring the dogs do not attack any person or animal,” she said.
“The dog walker is responsible for deciding whether it is appropriate to walk any one or more particular dogs and can be held accountable if an incident occurs.”
The council’s Dog Management Bylaw 2019 is undergoing a review, and regulations for commercial dog walkers are being considered as part of that process. Any proposed changes will be open to public feedback in early 2025, Castro said.
“I personally am part of the IAPC, which is an international organisation of canine professionals internationally. But we don’t have one of those in New Zealand yet, but they are looking at starting one,” Jefferies said.
“We personally as Auckland dog walkers are looking at starting one so that we can weed out some of those more problematic people.
“We’ve seen so many people jumping on board thinking it’s a great idea [pack walking] and not having any idea of what to do or how to run a group of dogs. Your pack is only as strong as your weakest dog.”
“So if you have a dog that has issues, in a pack like that, it can cause many problems for the pack, that’s where you get pack attacks and other problems. That’s why we work with each dog individually, Jefferies said.
She said figuring out where each dog will fit in which pack has a lot to do with training and understanding animal behaviour.
That is why it is “so important to take on individual dogs first”, she said, to build an individual relationship with a dog before slowly adding it to a pack of other dogs with similar behaviours.