About Our Company
"The kinder alternative to kennels"
Founded by pet lover Richie Barlow in 2006, The Dog Walker is Yorkshire’s largest pet care and wellbeing specialist. We provide fully insured and registered care for customers’ pets in the stress free environment of their own home.
While our customers go about their busy lives, we walk their dogs and even offer home boarding. We provide a pet taxi service for important events like weddings as well as those unfortunate vet visits.
Having been a dog owner all his life and then working at a range of kennels in Yorkshire, dealing with up to 80 cats and 55 dogs at any one time, Richie was convinced that there was a better way to care for our furry friends. He saw how pets often feel distressed by howling and barking in an unfamiliar environment and that they feel safer and more relaxed in their own home surroundings. And so The Dog Walker was born!
Offering unconditional love, pets are an important part of our lives and with many owners working ever-longer hours, there’s a huge demand for our services. The bottom line is that you can be assured that we care for your pets as if they were our own.
As with any business, we started off small until the word spread and people found out how good our service is. Our first client was a Springer Spaniel called Sapphire and we still walk her to this day.
In 2009 we demonstrated our commitment to The Dog Walker brand by trademarking our logo. Increasing customer demand saw our brand expand with our very first franchisee and since then we’ve grown across Yorkshire.
We now have eight franchises across the north of England. Lorraine Airth and Ian Clayton operate franchises in the York and Harrogate areas respectively, whilst Benjamin Barlow is our assistant director he’s also our representative in Garforth/Tadcaster. Richard Winston runs North Leeds, Nigel Wilson in Queensbury, Lisa Stubbs in Castleford and Mike Hogg in Silsden. We are continuing to develop the business by rolling out a national franchisee network.
Unlike some of our competitors, all franchisees/walkers are personally trained, fully insured, registered and licensed. The business continues to grow by word-of-mouth recommendation and has a wide client base across the north of England.
We have won a number of awards including Local Business Accelerators Regional Winner in 2012, Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2013 and Best Small Business 2015.
Please see our legal page for our full Terms & Conditions.