General Terms and Conditions

Gentle Steps Dog Walking and Training

Acceptance of our services is deemed acceptance of our terms and conditions. Pick up a downloadable copy here.

The client agrees to provide Gentle Steps with full and honest information about their dogs during the booking procedures. Behaviour that may negatively impact our trainer-walkers at Gentle Steps should be disclosed at the time of booking. These include, but are not limited to, excessive barking, aggression, incontinence, separation anxiety, destructive behaviour, pulling, straying, fear, anxiety, reactivity, and phobias.

The client agrees that if their pet attacks another animal or person, including any representative of Gentle Steps, and this results in injury to that animal or person, they will be responsible for any expense incurred as a result. This includes payment of veterinary fees incurred from injuries to another animal caused by their dog.

We reserve the right to stop walking a dog who shows aggression towards people.

We cannot be held responsible for damage to your property or injury to your pet unless we are shown to be negligent. We are insured for public liability, professional indemnity, injury to animals and key loss.

Health and Veterinary Care 

We are unable to walk or train dogs who are ill with any kind of communicable (infectious) illness. Such illnesses must be disclosed to the administrator at Gentle Steps where possible. In an emergency, a care visit to provide a wellness check, toilet break, and company may be provided by a walker who has no dogs at home. In this case, your walk will always be the last walk of the day (afternoon).

We cannot walk unspayed bitches who are on heat. We can instead provide a walk replacement enrichment visit and the opportunity to go to the toilet.

If a medical emergency arises, Gentle Steps will make every effort to contact the client and, if that fails, their emergency contact. When time is of the essence, the client authorises Gentle Steps to seek medical services at the client’s veterinary practice as detailed on their records. The client agrees to reimburse all services rendered by a veterinarian in accordance with the owner’s wishes as stated and signed in the veterinary release form.

The client will inform their veterinarian that Gentle Steps will be caring for their pets while they are at work or on holiday and, if possible, arrange for card details to be held so that emergency payments can be made. Any veterinary fees incurred for your pets (and with your agreement) that Gentle Steps has paid must be reimbursed within 24 hours.

The Walk, Training Walk, or Visit

The time indicated on your invoice reflects when we expect the walker-trainer to arrive at your home. We will always strive to align as closely as possible with your preferred time, taking into account the scheduling constraints for that day. We also keep a record of your acceptable window for the walk’s start time and will consistently aim to arrive within this timeframe. Occasionally, due to unforeseen circumstances (such as vehicle breakdowns, accidents, extremely bad weather, or injuries), this may not be achievable. If the walk time is likely to deviate by more than 30 minutes from what we initially agreed, we will inform you of the issue and advise on the adjusted time for the walk or visit.

We reserve the right to curtail or (under exceptional circumstances) cancel a walk in extreme weather conditions. If it is safe to travel to your home, we will always let your dog out for toilet purposes and then provide alternative enrichment activities for them indoors. If driving conditions are extremely slow (as occurs during flooding or heavy snowfall), we will reduce all visit times to 20-30 minutes to ensure that all dogs are visited in a timely manner.

Unless otherwise agreed, all dogs will be exercised using the equipment provided by our client. We do have our own 2m to 3m soft leads. We respectfully decline to walk dogs on choke chains, half chokes, prong collars, slip ropes, rope figure-of-eight leads, or headcollars as the only point of lead contact out of respect for the comfort of the dog. If a client uses any of this equipment, we will provide a comfortable alternative after discussing this at the initial Meet and Greet or Pre-Care Assessment (for training clients).

If a client is comfortable with their dog running free off the lead, they must be willing to sign an off-lead disclaimer, whereby the client accepts responsibility for any accident, injury, or loss caused by or to their dog unless we are shown to be negligent. We will always take the utmost care of our clients’ dogs and will never let them off the lead unless in a safe area. All dogs will be walked on a lead unless an off-lead disclaimer form has been signed. Even where a form is signed, individual walker-trainers reserve the right to keep a dog on the lead if they are not yet confident of the dog’s recall or off-lead behaviour.

Each dog will be allocated a primary walker-trainer who will carry out the majority of their care. They will also meet at least one other member of the Gentle Steps team, who will provide backup care when necessary. This is to ensure that our clients’ service needs are met. The exception to this is when clients make their own backup provision should their primary walker not be available at any time. Backup team members will be properly introduced to each dog by the primary walker-trainer through buddied visits and walks prior to carrying out a solo walk.

Admin Terms and Conditions

Bookings for services at Gentle Steps can be regular or ad hoc and will be processed weekly. Requests may be submitted months in advance via your Gentle Steps portal. For those with changing needs, requests for services should be submitted by 18:00 on the Tuesday of the preceding week. If your work schedule does not enable you to meet this timeframe, we may be able to offer an extension, depending on the services requested. Extra walks can be requested right up to the day of the walk, although availability cannot be guaranteed. Walk requests submitted after the Tuesday deadline (above) will incur a late booking fee of £3 to cover admin time spent rescheduling. There is no late fee if you have an agreed extension.

Weekend walks are exclusively offered to clients who regularly utilise our services and are entirely contingent upon the availability of walker-trainers. Both weekend and Bank Holiday walks will incur a slightly higher fee: an additional £3 for a single dog walk and an additional £4.50 for two dogs over prices advertised on the website. This is to compensate the walker-trainers for working on their days off and travelling from home for a single walk/visit.

Where clients have a regular work pattern, they can take advantage of our repeat service scheduler. No further service requests are needed, and the walks will be generated automatically. However, unwanted repeat bookings must be cancelled by midnight on Sunday of the preceding week and with at least 24 hours notice (if it’s a Monday walk) to avoid incurring a cancellation fee. Such fees may be waived at the discretion of the trainer-walker booked to attend.

All cancellations without 24 hours notice will incur a cancellation fee (40% of the service fee rounded down to the nearest 50p but capped at £7.50 for our more costly services). This fee compensates the walker-trainer booked for the service for loss of earnings. The walk fee will not be charged, just the cancellation fee.  These fees can be waived or reduced at the discretion of the walker-trainer affected, for instance, if the dog is sick.

House Sitting Cancellations within 14 days of the start of the sit will incur a cancellation fee of 30% of the charge for the full sit. This will be capped at £75. This fee can be waived (or reduced) at the discretion of the person booked to attend.

All late booking or cancellation fees can be waived at the discretion of the administrator of Gentle Steps.

Invoices will be sent out the preceding weekend for the following week. Payment is due 24 hours before the first walk of any week (for the entire week) unless otherwise agreed. Payment for regular services can also be made monthly in advance if preferred.

Terms and Conditions Related to Your Home

Depending on the service provided, Gentle Steps walker-trainers will need access to the client’s home in their absence. If there is an external key safe box, having the entry code is our preferred option. In all other circumstances (unless you will consistently be at home), the primary walker-trainer will hold the necessary keys to access the property. All keys are marked with coloured caps and tags but do not contain any identifying features that could link back to the dog, client, or property. Gentle Steps walker-trainers are fully insured against key loss and lock replacement, a feature we have never had to utilise in our 13 years of operation in the dog walking sector.

In the event of flooding, fire, a break-in, or a similar occurrence at the client’s home, Gentle Steps will make every effort to contact the client and establish a plan of action. If the issue arises and the client cannot be reached immediately, and if action is required for health, safety, and welfare, the client authorises Gentle Steps to take any necessary action to ensure the dog and the property are made safe if it is possible to do so. The client agrees to reimburse Gentle Steps for any costs incurred and to hold Gentle Steps blameless for actions taken by others.

The cleaning up of any damage caused to the internal fabric of a property or possession by the client’s dog while home alone is not the responsibility of the walker-trainers. However, they will take any necessary action to ensure that the environment is safe prior to leaving the dog. If there is any potential risk to the dog, the client (or their alternative contact) will be contacted to determine a suitable course of action.

Other than puppy services, senior visits and house-sitting at Gentle Steps, the cleaning up of faeces, urine and vomit within your home is not in the remit of the walker-trainers. We will, however, in most circumstances, clean hard floors if there are suitable cleaning materials and gloves made available. If a carpeted area is soiled, we will (in most circumstances) remove as much of the soiling as possible, but cleaning will be left until you get home.

Conclusions

Gentle Steps will provide all agreed-upon services in a reliable, caring, and trustworthy manner. In consideration of these services and as an express condition thereof, the client waives and relinquishes all claims against Gentle Steps except those arising from gross negligence or misconduct on the part of Gentle Steps.

The client authorises the signed contracts to be valid approval for future services, allowing Gentle Steps to accept future bookings without additional signed contracts or authorisation. By signing below, the client acknowledges that they have read and accept these terms and conditions in their entirety.