A Complete Guide to On-demand Dog Walking App Development(+Steps)

Just as you feel like a human being walking around every now and then, dogs feel it too! But in this fast and furious life, everybody is too busy to take their dog for a walk, regardless of how much they love their tiny fluffy baby. That’s why the concept of a dog walking app is getting increasingly popular. 

The biggest reason is yet to know, which is around 67% of US households own a pet – which is more than 8 million families! And most of them treat their pet as a crucial family member of their life. Yes. Man is still kind.

But just so you know, taking care of them from training to grooming to boarding are all important as well as time-consuming tasks. In the past, people used to search dog walkers beforehand to avoid these hectic tasks, since all businesses operated offline, but no longer. People are now ready to find dog walkers with just a few taps on the screen with your brilliant idea of dog walking applications. Are you also ready to create an app? Keep on reading to know more.  

On-demand uber-like dog walking app makes it easy for busy dog parents to easily get walkers whenever they wish. 

But how? 

As an entrepreneur, you may wonder how this dog walking business actually works, so all dog walking or mobile applications function as a two-sided marketplace on demand. First, dog parents apply for a dog walker, and a dog walker on the other side receives the request in real-time, then confirms the reservation, and lastly, parents pay. That’s how easy it is. All thanks to technology! 

Does it mean creating such a super easy solution takes a lot of effort and investment? Not exactly! All you need to do is follow the steps below.

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Moving forward, if you are considering this idea of walk dogs apps and want to stay at low-cost investment and risk at the same time, you must integrate the below-mentioned MVP features into your apps that can help your pet care service business to expand easily without pouring out your entire wealth. 

Crucial MVP Features to Integrate into Dog Walking App

1. Registration

   While certain functionalities of dog walking applications can be used without registration, people who wish to use an application on a daily basis should be expected to register. Registration opens up a whole host of possibilities such as,

   • Usability to all features,
   • Custom quest and impression,
   • Exclusive deals and exercise, etc.    

   For example, on the wag and rover apps, it measures the awareness of walkers on how to act with dogs in detail, and the outcome is documented in the walker profile only if you have registered yourself. 

2. Set Up a Profile

   This feature can be classified into two aspects of nature – one for dog owners and another for dog walkers! 

   Dog owners have to set up a profile for various purposes such as, 

   • To fill in an online database in details about their dogs, such as the name of each pet, dietary habits, meals, pet health questions, proceeds for portion problems, and daily walking hours 
   • To add photos, images, and videos of their animals  

   While dog walkers need to use this feature for purposes like, 

   • To fill out general information about themselves like name, address location, background area, age rating, email address, etc.
   • To describe something about their work experience and place
   • To attach references from previous employers

3. Walk Scheduling

   For a dog walking program, every time arranging dog walks is very obvious. So this feature of scheduling on-demand walks includes,

   • Book a walk for now
   • Book a walk for later
   • Book a daily walk 
   • Cancel a walk

   In case of any unexpected circumstances, if someone needs to cancel a walk, you can also integrate refund fees and charges options so that your users’ reliability increases on your services more often than before. 

4. Chat Box

   Built-in chat is the capability tool that helps to allow quick and efficient contact between a dog owner and a carer. You can integrate built-in-chat by Rasa Chatbot development easily on the device. It is also a discreet mode of contact as there is no disclosure of any sensitive details like a phone number and email address.  

   With messages, the dog walker and the boxer or mutt pet owner can discuss all the details, issues, special service demand, or anything else pertaining to pet care services. It will also enable customer service to reach out to potential customers and get the notice review right away for the stranger. Customer service or messenger will easily help to maintain existing clients. It paces the operation and draws more revenue to the company.

5. GPS

   GPS tracking is one of the features you can’t miss. It is the opportunity for dog owners and walkers to quickly and reliably identify one another and helps to avoid scammers. Thanks to this feature that helps individuals and pet parents to track a dog’s online walking path. This way dog owners can rest assured about the safety concerns of their little puppy when they are with strangers. Also, GPS tracking owners can enjoy their best friend that is a dog’s walk with a stranger from far that gives them peace of mind and a good lifestyle.   

6. Push Notifications

   This MVP feature can get your business to the next level as it is one of the means for marketing. The feature can be used by administrators to announce all the current related information, and knowledge such as, 

   • Sales, 
   • New programs, 
   • Discount coupons, 
   • Payment due, etc.

   Not only that but push alerts also helps to remind smartphone users about upcoming walks and provide them with an update on other significant activities.  

7. In-app Payments

   This is another MVP feature that helps to launch your final product in the market with 100% validation. In-app payments can be a make or break deal for your dog owners and customers if not integrated according to customers’ convenience. So make sure your users can conveniently pay off walkers through the payment feature. This makes sure the accountability of consumers that they don’t have to send in cash or go through complex transactions back, instead, they can pay through google payments, direct deposit in the bank, debit cards, or credit cards – whatever they choose. 

   However, while we are talking about payments, how can we forget about the monetization part? This is the main mission of creating an app like Uber for dog walking after all! Isn’t it? So, you must know the fact that apart from the services you get paid, your pet care service business apps for iPhone and android can earn in millions if it is monetized effectively. Interested to know about it? Scroll down.

How Can You Monetize an On-Demand Dog Walking App?

Many of the marketplaces for dog walkers follow the utility aggregator network business model. Therefore you can choose any or all of the following best suitable ways for your business.

• Build a common platform – Where many other pet service providers are able to register to get bookings and field autonomously. To the least they have to do is pay the website or app a nominal fee on every booking and pet sitting they have completed.
• Create an agency app – Where you can hire and recruit pet message sitters, professionals, and walkers, provide comprehensive training, and effectively employ them as pet caregivers. Here, the walkers are not individual workers as mostly they are in the business model, but they’d be operating for the program instead. 
• Charge one-time transaction fees – This can be applied to pet owners and pet sitters both. This way you charge money as earnings in thousands as well as help them take advantage of the platform’s different functionality at a reasonable price.
• Let other businesses run ads on your apps – If any dog people, sitter, or relevant business like journalism needs to increase their visibility and availability of readers, reviews and version, newsletters and analytics, rates and things, then you can give them exposure on your application in form of advertising activity, and in return, you can ask them to pay charges and prices as per standard rates.   
• Start selling pet care items – Because as we have discussed, shelter dogs are not just pets for the owner but family members & friends, and for some, dogs mean the world, so anyone will be ready to spend on buying a couple of stuff as much as they can to shower their love on their little pups.

Are you still confused about developing an application for a dog walking business? Need inspiration? Take a look at below mentioned 5 best apps for dog walking and know what you need to do to stay in the market situation.  

5 Best Dog Walking Apps

1. Rover

   Rover app is nothing but an online solution to the problem of pets to take care of, with more than 100,000 pet sitters and dog walkers in the United Kingdom, the United States (u.s), and Canada. Rover app makes it easy to book a pet caregiver you can trust.   

   Total downloads: 1M+

   Reviews: 3.7 Stars (Google play store), 4.9 Stars (Apple app store)

   Features: 
   • Book and pay
   • Send pictures, and videos
   • Messaging inbox
   • Push update
   • Map of your dog’s walk
   • Pee/poo and food/water alerts and phone call
   • A personalized note from the dog sitter 

   Pros and Cons: 

   Pros	Cons
   A flexible case for drop off and pick up Great sitter communication The ability for dog sitters to GPS track walks to both parties Criminal background check conducted by the dog PeopleTM	Poor customer support

2. Wag

   Wag is an application designed for a pet parent offering 5-star dog walking, pet sitting, vet care, heart disease pet health advice, and training services in the US location. The application supports languages like English, Arabic, Burmese, Cambodian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, Norwegian Bokmål, Polish, Swedish, Thai, and many others.

   Total downloads: 1M+

   Reviews: 3.7 Stars (Google play store), 4.8 Stars (Apple app store)

   Features: 
   • Booking walk or daily walk
   • Drop-in visits for dogs
   • Wag veterinary consultations and data certification
   • Personalized dog training and home access
   • GPS tracking 
   • Live chat and conversation
   • Receive live pee/poop notifications and notes
   • In-app payments

   Pros and Cons: 

   Pros	Cons
   Provides lockboxes to store key Weekly activity pup report card Criminal background check conducted to avoid danger	On-demand bookings not available in all areas Can’t always choose the dog walker of your choice

3. PetBacker

   PetBacker matches caring dog walkers, sitters, boarding & groomers with a pet parent just like you and your friend in all major cities of more than 50 countries including the United Kingdom, the United States (u.s). It is multilinguistic like Czech, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, and a couple of more. 

   Total downloads: 100k+

   Reviews: 4.1 Stars (Google play store), 3.5 Stars (Apple app store)

   Features: 
   • Search pet owner and filtering
   • Personal profile
   • Ratings and reviews
   • Veterinary care & damage vaccinations 
   • Photos and video coverage
   • In-app payments
   • Push notifications 
   • Pee/poo push alerts

   Pros and Cons: 

   Pros	Cons
   Provides service for all kinds of pets in the neighborhood Refund for unsatisfied users and liability pet insurance Multiple language support Flexible pricing structure	Quality of dog walking services and work may differ in different areas Difficult to navigate the app

4. Pawshake

   Pawshake puts together pet owners with thousands of reliable and professional pet sitters and dog walkers in more than 15 countries (and counting), including Australia, UK, Canada, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and several European countries.

   Total downloads: 100k+

   Reviews: 4.4 Stars (Google play store), 4.8 Stars (Apple app store)

   Features: 

   • Search and filter walker
   • Detailed pet sitter profiles
   • Daily photo updates and video
   • Booking requests and cancellation 
   • Photos and videos
   • Pee/poop alerts

   Pros and Cons: 

   Pros	Cons
   Option to meet the contractor in person before you book and pay Great customer support Prices are competitive	Payments mode is limited only to PayPal

5. Fetch

   Fetch! Pet Care is the most trusted and respected dog walking & pet sitting service offering in more than 20 countries and cities including Birmingham, and New York City.

   Total downloads: 1k+

   Reviews: 3.5 Stars (Play store)

   Features: 
   • Search and filter walker
   • Personal profiles
   • Data certification and damage vaccination
   • Schedule a walk or board
   • In-app payments
   • GPS tracking and record area map 
   • Photo updates and story videos

   Pros and Cons:

   Pros	Cons
   Easy to use in any provided city Trained walkers and more opportunities on the block Great professionalism from start to end point	No push alerts

Conclusion

As long as there is humanity, care, and love towards pets, nothing can stop you from being the leading businessman in the industry for dog walking service.

So future entrepreneurs, are you ready to make a dog walking application?

If you are in doubt, remember one thing lately pet-focused businesses have gained a lot of recognition from investment firms and agencies. So even though you initially set yourself to MVP (Minimum Viable Product) or the new trend MAP (Minimum Awesome Product), the scope is wide and open! All you must do is contact an app development company and build the best apps for your service company that can bring you millions.

However, in the process, if you feel stuck, find queries and questions, have suggestions and opinions, or even need guidance, feel free to contact us. Our expert support team will be back to you with the best possible solutions. See you there!