What a dog walking service agreement should cover

This is general information for working dog walkers, not legal advice. Nothing here has been reviewed by a lawyer. Whether a particular clause is valid or enforceable depends on how it is written and on the rules of your state, and those rules differ. If your terms carry meaningful money, or you are hiring, ask a lawyer in your state.

What the agreement is actually for

A service agreement is not there to win an argument in court. For a one-person business it almost never gets that far. It is there to make sure that you and the client made the same decisions, on the same day, about the six or seven things that go wrong.

Most disputes in this trade are not about bad faith. They are about a question nobody asked. Can the dog go off leash. Who pays when you arrive and the key does not work. What are you allowed to spend at a vet at nine on a Sunday night. Written answers stop those from being arguments.

Solo operators really do use them. A service agreement from a single-owner dog walking company is publicly indexed on Law Insider, which is a small but useful fact: a formal agreement is normal at this size, not something only franchises bother with.

The nine clauses that carry the weight

Scope: say what a visit is

Name the service, the length, and what is included. Then name what is not: extra dogs, house keys for a neighbour, medication, waiting for a delivery, taking the bins out. None of those are unreasonable requests. They are just services, and services have prices.

Include your service area and your operating days here too. It is easier to say no to a client four miles out when the agreement they signed already drew the line.

Keys and access

Say how you hold keys, how they are labelled, and how they come back. Never label a key with an address. Say what happens if a lock, code or alarm changes without you being told, and say plainly that a visit where you cannot get in is charged, because you drove and you were ready.

Say who else has access, and get them to confirm that they are allowed to give you access to that home. Renters and shared houses are where this occasionally matters.

Cancellation

This is a whole decision in itself and it is a pricing decision more than a legal one. Set the notice window, say what happens inside it, and say what happens when you are the one who cancels. The reasoning, the four decisions and a template are in writing a dog walking cancellation policy. Reference it in the agreement rather than writing two versions that can drift apart.

Weather

The agreement needs one line: you make the call on safety, and the visit becomes something else rather than nothing. What that something is, and what it costs, belongs in your written weather policy. Heat is the case that produces the most disagreement, and the disagreement is about billing, not about the dog.

Vet authorisation and the cost cap

This is the clause you will be glad you wrote. Three parts, and all three need to be there.

• Permission to seek care. Their regular vet first, the emergency hospital if the regular one is closed.
• A spending cap. A number the client writes in, above which you must reach them or the person they named. Permission without a number leaves the decision to a stranger on the worst night of the year.
• Who pays, and how. Say plainly that vet costs are the owner's, that you may have to pay at the counter to get treatment started, and that you will be reimbursed.

Add transport: may you take the dog in your own vehicle. Ask your insurer whether that is covered before you promise it, because a personal auto policy may exclude business use. That is explained in dog walking insurance and what actually covers the dogs.

One number worth putting in the same clause: the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center on (888) 426-4435. The ASPCA's own page says it runs 24 hours a day, every day of the year, and that a consultation fee may apply. Deciding in advance who pays that fee takes one sentence. Checked in September 2026.

Off leash

Write it even when the answer is obviously no, because obvious is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Some clients assume their dog gets a run. Some assume the opposite. The default that protects everyone is no, in writing, with a place for an exception the client signs separately if you ever agree to one.

If you do allow it somewhere, name the place, name the dog, and say the recall was tested with you present. Do not write a general permission that follows the dog to every park in the county.

Photos and social media

These are two permissions and most agreements collapse them into one.

• Taking photos. Almost every client says yes, because a photo is how they know the walk happened.
• Publishing them. A different question. A dog on a doorstep shows a door, a street and sometimes a house number.

Ask separately, let them say yes to one and no to the other, and say whether you will use the dog's name. Also say they may change their mind later, because they can, and a clause that pretends otherwise is the kind of thing that turns a small request into a bad review.

Payment terms

Say when payment is due, how it is made, and what happens when it is late. Say whether recurring clients are billed weekly or monthly, in advance or in arrears, and whether you take a card at booking or take payment directly.

Late fees are common and are worth stating rather than improvising. Say what you will do before you charge one: a reminder, then a pause on new bookings. Most late payment is forgetfulness, and a policy that starts with a reminder collects more money than one that starts with a penalty.

Liability, and what an agreement cannot do

Be careful here and be modest. It is reasonable to say that you take proper care, that you are insured, and that the client is responsible for disclosing a bite history, for keeping vaccinations current, and for the condition of collars, harnesses and fences.

What is not reasonable is a sweeping line that says you are not responsible for anything that happens. How far a term like that goes is decided by state law, not by how firmly it is written, and an agreement that overreaches can undermine the parts of it that were fine.

An agreement is also not insurance. It decides who owes; a policy decides who pays. If you only read one other page today, read the insurance guide, because a general liability policy usually does not cover injury to the dogs in your care and most walkers believe the opposite.

For the rules that apply where you work, start with your own state. USA.gov keeps a directory of state consumer protection offices, which is the right first stop for how service contracts are treated locally.

A plain-language template to adapt

A starting point to rewrite in your own words, not legal drafting and not legal advice. It is written in plain sentences on purpose, so nobody mistakes it for a reviewed document. Fill in every bracket with your own decision. Have someone qualified read it before you rely on it for anything that carries real money.

Does this work as a pet sitting contract?

Far more people look for a pet sitting contract than a dog walking one, and the core is the same document. Scope, access, cancellation, vet authorisation, payment and responsibility do not change.

What sitting adds is worth writing as its own clauses rather than stretching the above:

• overnight stays, and what hours you are actually present
• house duties: plants, bins, mail, thermostat, lights
• what happens if the client comes home early, or late
• who else may enter the home while you are responsible for it
• emergencies in the house, not just the pet: a leak, a power cut, an alarm

Getting it signed, and keeping it current

Send it with the intake form, before the Meet and Greet. Then say the three lines out loud at the visit: the notice window, the vet cap, and off leash. A client who first meets a term on an invoice will argue about it. A client who heard it at the door already agreed.

Date it, keep a signed copy, and reissue it when your prices or policies change. An agreement from three years ago that describes a rate you no longer charge is not much of a record.

PackRounds keeps the client and pet record, the schedule and the payments in one place, and clients book themselves from your own booking page, so what you agreed and what actually got booked stay attached to the same client rather than living in a folder and a phone.

When to get a lawyer to read it

• you are taking on staff or contractors
• you have commercial clients, a landlord, or a lease
• you offer overnight or in-home care
• your terms carry meaningful money, or you are asked to sign somebody else's contract
• you are about to enforce a term and are not sure you can

Before any of that, start with your own state. Rules on service contracts and on what a term can waive are state rules, and no template can answer them for you.

Read next

• Writing a dog walking cancellation policy is the clause most likely to be tested first.
• How hot is too hot to walk a dog? Your weather policy fills in the weather clause above.
• Dog walking insurance: what actually covers the dogs is the thing an agreement is not.