bengaluru folk love their dogs but hectic lifestyles mean that our furry friends tend to miss out on their routine walks which are vital not only for them to relieve themselves but also because they need to spend some time outdoors exploring their surroundings and interacting with other people and animals while many of us manage to squeeze in a walk either in the morning or at night coming back home from work for the afternoon walk is just not possible this is where dog walkers a concept that is popular abroad step in and provide a vital service much to the relief of pet parentshigh demand there is a dearth of dog walkers in the city says gurucharan v founder of prim pup and a groomer and dog trainer who walks dogs on the sidewhile many dog walkers offer services across the city gurucharan restricts his to indiranagar i am not a conventional dog walker and charge a premium rate as i walk dogs that others have a hard time with such as neapolitan mastiffs that tend to pull and tug a lot people who use my services are usually those who dont know how to handle these tough dogs says gurucharanpassion is vital it is important for walkers to be passionate about animals and while marsha vaz the cofounder of happy pawz recognized this and hence limits her walkers to three women who are dog lovers anand vishwanath the founder of anvis inc had to suspend his walking services despite catering to 200odd dogs across the city as his walkers were treating it more as a job with little or no passion involved our walkers are not given any special training as they are dog owners and have learnt from their own pets animals take you at face value so you have to like what you are doing our clients are those who work long hours and need someone to walk their pets in the middle of the day there are also those who are looking after their childrens pets and are either suffering from health problems or are too old to walk the dogs we have never faced any attitude problems from the dogs and they have had no issues adjusting to the walkers says marsha who has 20 clients ranging from old parents to those who work 12hour shifts at it firms depending on the breed size and energy levels of the dog each walk lasts 3040 minutes people can get their dogs walked either once or twice a day six days a weektravelling long distances marshas walkers have to regularly brave weather conditions and traffic to travel long distances across the city to greet their fourlegged clientscommuting is a big issue that many walkers face and is one reason that those who were working for anand failed to do their job well each of my walkers walked 45 dogs a day so they also got exhausted and couldnt give the animal their