Everyone offering this service likes dogs. That is the entry requirement, not a qualification. What distinguishes a professional is what happens on the difficult days: the injured paw, the cancelled flight, the dog who slipped a collar on a February evening when it was already dark.
In Luxembourg the decision carries more weight than it does in a city where family lives around the corner. Most people booking a walker here are away from their own support network, work in a building they cannot leave at midday, and are handing a key to someone they met once. The questions below are the ones that separate a business from an enthusiasm, and almost all of them can be asked before you have committed to anything.
Before the first meeting
These four can be asked by message, and the answers tell you whether the meeting is worth arranging at all.
1. Do you carry professional liability insurance, and can I see it?
This is the fastest filter in the whole process. A professional answers immediately and offers to send the certificate without being pushed. Hesitation, a change of subject, or an answer about their own household insurance tells you what you need to know.
The distinction matters and is widely misunderstood. Your own civil liability cover, the one your commune required when you registered the dog, follows your dog: it pays when your dog causes damage to somebody else. The walker's professional policy covers their work: the key they lose, the door left unlocked, the dog who gets away from them in a park. Those are different events with different payers, and only one of them is your responsibility to arrange.
2. How many dogs do you walk at once?
Ask for a number, not a description. "A small group" is not an answer. The number changes what your dog's forty-five minutes actually consist of, and it is the single variable most often left vague in the advertising.
3. Is it always you, or do you use substitutes?
Agencies rotate staff, which is a legitimate model and suits some households perfectly well. What you cannot do is assume. If continuity matters to your dog, and for anxious or elderly dogs it matters a great deal, establish now whether the person at the meeting is the person at the door in March.
4. What areas do you cover, and how do you travel between clients?
A walker covering Kirchberg, Bertrange and Hesperange in the same midday window is either driving impossible distances or shortening somebody's walk, and it will not always be somebody else's. Ask what time slot they are offering you and what comes immediately before and after it.
If a walker cannot tell you their group size and their insurance position in two sentences, the rest of the conversation is unlikely to improve.
At the meet and greet
The visit is not a formality. It is the only chance you get to watch a professional handle your dog before your dog is alone with them.
5. How will you handle my keys, and will I get that in writing?
Good practice is a signed handover form recording how many keys were given, on what date and for what purpose, with the keys then stored under a code rather than your name and address. Ask how they are returned and how quickly. A walker who takes a key without a receipt has told you how the rest of the administration works.
6. What happens if my dog is injured and you cannot reach me?
You want a specific sequence, not goodwill. The workable version: they call you, then a named second contact, and if the situation is urgent they take the dog to your own practice, or to the nearest emergency clinic if yours is closed. That requires your vet's details and a written authorisation collected in advance, and it requires them to know roughly what an out-of-hours consultation costs before they are standing at a counter at midnight.
7. Do you walk in all weather, and what changes in a heatwave or in ice?
The right answer includes limits. In July, walks move to shaded valley routes or to earlier and later slots, and on the worst days a walk becomes an indoor visit. In January, treated pavement means rinsing and drying paws afterwards. A walker with no weather policy has not thought about the two months of the year that produce most of the injuries.
8. Will my dog ever be off lead, and under what conditions?
This should be your decision in writing, not their judgement on the day. Remember also that the law here keeps dogs on a lead in public transport, in the common parts of apartment buildings and in car parks open to the public, which in a city of apartment blocks is most of the first two minutes of every walk.
9. What will you send me after each visit?
A photograph confirms the walk happened. A written note tells you what happened: the route, toilet breaks, food and water, behaviour, and anything unusual. Ask to see an example from another client with the name removed.
While they answer these questions, watch what they do with your dog. A good handler stays aware of the animal throughout the conversation, lets the dog approach instead of reaching over its head, and notices the moment your dog disengages and gives it space. That behaviour is harder to fake than a good answer.
Before you commit
10. What is your cancellation policy, in both directions?
Most published policies cover what happens when you cancel. Ask what happens when they do. A professional will offer a refund and, where possible, an alternative slot, and will say so without being prompted.
11. What happens when you are ill or on holiday?
A one-person service cannot be in two places, and honesty here is worth more than an improvised promise. What you want is notice, a named stand-in you can meet in advance, or a clear statement that cover does not exist so you can plan around it. August and the Christmas fortnight are when this becomes real.
12. How do you invoice, and when?
Bank transfer with a proper invoice is the normal arrangement. Cash only, with no paperwork, means there is no record of the service, which matters precisely on the day something goes wrong and an insurer asks what was agreed.
13. Can you give me a reference from a current client?
A new service may not have one, and saying so plainly is fine. What is not fine is a wall of anonymous testimonials that cannot be checked. Prefer one client you can actually speak to over twenty quotes with first names and no context.
14. Is there anything about my dog that would make you decline?
This is the important one. A walker who says yes to everything is either exceptionally experienced or not paying attention. A professional has limits: a bite history they will not take on, an area they cannot serve on time, a schedule that is full this term, or a breed on Luxembourg's list of dogs susceptible to being dangerous, where the law sets conditions on who may hold the dog (an adult, with no disqualifying criminal conviction) and requires it to be on a lead everywhere, so ask the walker explicitly whether they are willing and able to take it on.
Hearing a clear no about something is the best evidence you will get that the yes means something.
Group size deserves a straight answer
Six dogs on one handler is a common business model and a poor environment for a dog who is reactive, elderly, recovering from surgery, or simply uninterested in spending forty-five minutes managing five strangers. In a group of six, your dog's share of individual attention is a few minutes, and part of the advertised hour is collection and return in a vehicle.
None of this makes group walking wrong. A confident, social, well-recalled adult dog can have an excellent time in a stable group with a competent handler. It makes the number something you are entitled to know before you book, along with whether the dogs are the same each time and what the procedure is if a fight starts.
Red flags
- No written agreement of any kind
- No insurance, or evasiveness about it
- Cash only, no invoices
- Unwilling to do a meet and greet before the first booking
- Keys taken without a receipt or a record
- Reviews that all appeared in the same week
- No questions asked about your dog's health, vaccinations or behaviour
That last one deserves its own line. Someone who will take your keys and stay overnight in your home without ever asking what your dog is vaccinated against, who your vet is, or what your dog does when a delivery arrives, is not being relaxed. They are telling you how much of this they have thought through.
And one thing that is not a red flag
Being more expensive than the cheapest quote. The cheapest option in this sector is usually paying for itself with bigger groups, shorter walks, or no insurance, and one of those three is being funded by your dog. The right comparison is not price against price, it is price against what is actually delivered in the hour, and against what happens on the day something goes wrong.
The trial that costs you nothing
Book a single walk before you book a month. Read the report that evening and compare it with what you would have observed yourself. Was the timing accurate? Does the route match what you agreed? Is there an observation in it that you had not noticed? Then look at your dog. A dog who settles calmly an hour later had a good walk, whatever the photograph shows.
General information for dog owners in Luxembourg, not veterinary or legal advice. For your own dog, ask your vet, a qualified behaviourist or your commune. How this journal is written and checked.
Away from your dog all day?
PAWLY provides individual dog walks, home visits and overnight care in your own home, across Luxembourg City. Same walker every time, written report after every visit.
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