The saying that dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen is a truism that applies here in Nigeria. It's only few people who have recognised the potential in dog walking that can tell how lucrative it can be. An example is a university graduate that is making a living in dog walking according to this BBC News video.
After getting the above tools in place, it's time to learn how to make money using these tools in dog walking business.
Yes, getting a job in Nigeria is hard. In fact, a 2018 report from the National Bureau of statistics showed a 23.1% increase in unemployment rate in Nigeria. With the current reality of Covid-19 pandemic, this number is expected to rise in 2021. But do you know that inspite of this, you can make money in Nigeria by walking dogs?
Today, we're going to show you how to make a decent income in Nigeria through dog walking.
Image by AnnaliseArt via Pixabay
What Is Dog Walking?
As household income increases, more Nigerians are keeping dogs as pets. These are mostly members of the upper class, upper-middle-class, middle class and lower middle class.
Most of these individuals are very busy with their jobs, businesses and families and may be unable to take their dogs around for routine walk. This is where your expertise can be rewarded when you help them exercise their dogs.
So, what's dog walking?
Dog walking simply means moving dogs around either for yourself or for people. This process begins in the house of the dog owner, then proceeds to the location you choose and then back again to the home of the dog.
Please note that dog walking is different from dog walk.
While dog walking involves exercising a dog and has many benefits for the dog and the person that carries out the act, to dog walk is a slang that entails conquering or tricking people or dogs to carry out a task. You can think of dog walk as an idea of subjecting a dog to inhumane treatment like dragging, pulling, pushing or forcing it to move.
As it has been scientifically proven that animals are sentient (have feelings), we discourage every form of domination, outsmarting or overpowering of animals including dogs.
We believe that dogs should be treated with respect, taken care of and given all the necessary attention they deserve.
Since you've known the meaning of dog walking, let's move on to the benefits.
Benefits Of Dog Walking
Apart from helping you to make money in Nigeria within a short time, there are many other benefits of walking dogs. You'll learn the health benefit, social benefit and financial benefits below.
1. Dog Walking Keeps You Healthy
When you take part in routine exercise like dog walking, your rate of suffering from heart diseases, blood pressure and stress is reduced.
Research has also shown that people suffering from metabolic health conditions like type 2 diabetes experienced long term benefits from physical exercise such as dog walking.
These benefits also extend to dogs since overweight dogs can develop medical conditions like osteoarthritis, heart and liver diseases etc.
Routine exercise through dog walking helps in delaying the onset of muscle atrophy in large dog breeds suffering from Canine Degenerative Myelopathy (DM).
2. Dog Walking Enhances Social Interaction
When you take a dog for a walk, the chance of meeting and interacting with other people is increased.
You know more about the natural environment, the route and neighbourhood of the dog-walking location. This helps in building connections with nature since you visit these locations always.
Besides, when a dog walks to different places, it has the chance of seeing different people, vehicles and objects. It becomes familiar with diverse sounds, smells and colours. This familiarity helps the dog to react less aggressively when confronted with these experiences at home.
It also helps in increasing its happiness and playfulness while reducing fear, anxiety, and destructive behaviours.
3. Dog Walking Can Help You Earn Money In Nigeria
Apart from keeping fit and making new connections, walking dogs can be a source of earning decent income in Nigeria within a very short time if done as a job.
Basically, people that carry out dog walking charge their clients per dog, per hour, or per day. Assuming that you're charging N5000.00 per dog and are able to walk like two to three dogs per day as a beginner. That's a whole lot of money! Besides, you can walk more than two dogs in a day.
What You Need For Dog Walking
Anyone can make a living in dog walking. Academic qualification or certification is unnecessary at the beginning but you can improve yourself as time goes on so as to build credibility and expertise. What is needed most is your passion for dogs and willingness to put in the effort to learn their behaviours and body language. Knowing how to relate with your clients will also help in bringing in more jobs.
Aside from the mindset, you need to get some tools that will make your dog walking business easier. You'll need the following:
1. Leash
This is a material in the form of rope that can be attached to a dog's collar or harness to make moving the dog to your desired direction easier. A good leash gives you some level of control and makes it possible to lead the dog in a direction that is safe from vehicles, humans and other animals.There are many types of dog leashes such as retractable, chain, nylon, and leather leashes. But in order to make decent income in Nigeria within a very short time you need to get the best dog leash. This can come in form of a standard nylon leash or a leather leash. This is because they're durable, easy to use and may come with safety features, like the reflective nylon leash.
The choice of leash also depends on the size of dog and its habits. Big dogs that like chewing their leashes are best controlled with chain leashes. Small dogs like Chihuahua, Pomeranian, Pug etc, will do well with small nylon leashes that are light since heavy chains can be uncomfortable for these dogs.
Image by Katherine McAdoo via Unsplash
2. Dog Water Bottle
Dog walking raises the need for water intake in dogs especially in hot tropical weather. This is because lots of water goes out of a dog's body through evaporation, radiation, convection and conduction during exercise according to this study.To avoid dehydration that can later lead to hyperthermia and reduced performance, you need a portable dog water bottle. Most dog water bottles are very light to carry about and have two in one design - the folded cap functions as a water bowl. This type is safe and easy to use, simply press it with your hand to enable the water to flow into the bowl for the dog to drink anytime it's thirsty.
3. Waste collection bags
You're already thinking about what this will be used for. Yes, the dogs you'll be walking will defecate and you'll have to act responsibly by packing the poop.Aside from keeping the environment clean, this practice helps to prevent stools in dogs infected with worms and other pathogens from getting back to the environment to infect humans and other animals. Pathogens like Giardia cysts become infectious immediately after defecation, Toxoplasma oocysts may take up to 24 hours to become infectious while roundworm eggs may take up to 7 days to become infectious.
When you allow the stools from infected dogs to dry, break, and pollute the soil, the risk of infecting people and animals is increased.
By packing the stool immediately the dog defecates, you disrupt the transmission cycle and safe your environment. But ensure that you wear gloves or cover your hands with waterproof bags when doing this and wash your hands thoroughly after.
4. Reinforcer
During dog walking, you may want to train the dogs or encourage them to act according to your desire. This can be hard without a reward (positive reinforcer).Getting some pieces of treats and toys from your clients can save you time and money. Only give treats approved by your clients to their dogs to avoid giving wrong treat that can cause allergic reactions to the dogs.
5. Pet Insurance
Anything can go wrong in the course of your dog walking business. A dog you're walking can miss, sustain an injury, or dies; members of the public can also be injured by your dog.Getting a small business insurance will help in shifting the losses from your small business to the insurance company through payment of losses.
Aside from protecting your business from claims that may arise from dog walking, having insurance in place will give your clients peace of mind and gives your business credibility. The good side of it is that small business insurance like AlianzSME is cheap to acquire.
After getting the above tools in place, it's time to learn how to make money using these tools in dog walking business.
How To Make Money Walking Dogs In Nigeria
There are some steps you'll take before the money can start coming in. You'll learn these steps below:
Step 1: Learn More About Common Dog Breeds
Before you can be successful in dog walking business, having good knowledge of the common dog breeds and their behaviours is important.
There are over 400 breeds of dogs. These dogs are bred for tasks like hunting, rescuing, herding, friendship, and so on.
In Nigeria, the common breeds include large dogs like German Shepherd, Caucasian Shepherd, Rottweiler, Boerboel, Bullmastiff, Doberman Pinscher etc. Small breeds like Chihuahua, Beagle, French Bulldog and other mixed breeds are also common.
Larger dogs most times suffer anxiety, fear, stress and bite less often, though their bites can be devastating. But smaller dogs are likely to show aggression such as barking, growling, snapping, lunging, and attempt to bite humans more often than larger dogs.
Some dog breeds get tired easily when they get old. Giving them a shorter walk may be ideal.
Others walk and exercise more as they age. Same goes for puppies. Puppies get tired easily, give them utmost attention and walk for a short distance.
You can ask the dog owner about the preferred distance before beginning the walk.
Step 2: Learn How To Meet New Dogs
In this business, you'll constantly be meeting new dogs from your clients. It's vital to learn how to behave when you meet a dog for the first time. This will help you to know whether the dog is aggressive or not and also give you the chance of knowing the characteristics of the dog.
When you meet a client's dog for the first time, remain calm. You can ask the owner whether the dog is aggressive or not. When you're sure, squat and allow the dog to come and sniff you.
Avoid direct eye contact, smile, touch and talk. This may startle some dogs and make them to perceive you as a threat. This can lead to aggressive behaviours and sometimes dog bites.
You may have direct eye contact, smile or talk to the dog when it has become familiar with you after sometime. After this, you can gently pet the dog on its back and begin dog walking by taking the dog to your desired location using the leash.
Step 3: Choose A Safe Location
Before you begin dog walking, pick locations with sidewalks. The sidewalk should be less crowded with people and other animals that can distract your dog. Avoid places with bushes and farmlands.
This is because most bushes harbour snakes, poisonous plants and insects that can be dangerous to your dog. Farmlands may be fertilized or sprayed with toxic herbicide and pesticides. These can cause serious problems for your dog when it gets in contact with them.
Ensure that you begin dog walking in the morning or evening because excessive heat from the sun may make you and the dog uncomfortable.
Stick to a particular route or change the location less often so that the dogs can be familiar with it.
Step 4: Have Proper Means of Identification
Going for dog walking with your identity card that has contact information of people to call during an emergency can help in case anything happens to you.
The dog you're walking should also carry the name and contact details of their owners in the collar or microchip. This will help in identifying the dogs and contacting their owners for reunion in case the leash gets broken and the dog goes missing.
Step 5: Market Your Dog Walking Service
It's always hard for new businesses to have more customers at the beginning. This is the reason you have to market your dog walking business. You can start by telling people about your business through word of mouth. This requires having something like a business card. A business card is cheap and can easily be given to any dog owner that you come across.
You can also use social media platforms to tell people what your business is about. Open a Facebook page or group, and give it a beautiful branding. You can do the same on Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
If you have neighbours or friends that own dogs, help in walking their dogs. This will help in connecting you with other dog owners while also learning more about the business.
Step 6: Join Online Pet Service Platform
You can save time and start earning money in dog walking by joining online pet service platforms.
PetBacker is one of them and is available in Nigeria. The platform helps in connecting people that provide pet services with pet owners in major cities in Nigeria.
The platform acts like Uber but here, the service is for pets. PetBacker is a lead generation system that shares jobs to anyone that is willing to provide pet services. It takes where you're living into consideration by showing dog walking jobs near you.
The benefits of using this platform apart from giving you free personal webpage where pet owners can do business with you, include payment and insurance protection. This means that you'll get paid within hours after carrying out dog walking because it's only interested clients who are willing to pay for the service that can contact you.
This weeds out scammers and identity thieves from getting to your profile since they will also need to register on the platform before posting any job. All what you need is the mobile application - download, register, get verified and start your dog walking business.
The downside is that you'll be charged 15%-25% service fee from the total amount anytime you get a reservation.
The vetting process is also rigorous and may involve uploading and submission of your identity card, police report, dog walking related certificates, photos with your pets and passing of their online examination.
Although the registration process is strict, it makes the platform safe for both the pet owners and service providers.
Conclusion
If you're unemployed or looking for ways to make additional money in Nigeria, starting a dog walking business can go a long way in increasing your income.
Making money in Nigeria is easy if you can start a dog walking business. All that you require is the entrepreneurial mindset, willingness to learn and commitment to the business.
The benefits of this business apart from being easy to start include keeping fit, networking and making passive income.
The tools needed are cheap and you can easily learn how to use them.
Besides, if you have a tight budget you can just join an online dog walking platform and start earning money and experience until you're able to start your own platform. Whatever your choice is, we encourage you to start making decent income in Nigeria through dog walking.
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