After seven years of living in London, the busy city life became incredibly overwhelming for my mental health and getting a dog changed my perspective on many things in my daily life. Besides the challenges of living with a dog in a flat in this city, seeing my dog love life even in the worst weather made me hate rain less. A dog on the tube will make everyone smile, and seeing all people as friends helped me start conversations with strangers, and learn great stories from them and stop to investigate something interesting helped me slow down, pay attention to my surroundings.
Of course, many people in London are restricted to getting a dog, and that is exactly why dog walking volunteering is a fantastic alternative for those who want to recharge their energy from a doggie’s love, get a fresh perspective on life and also be a great help to dog owners in need.
I spoke with Hannah about her experience as a dog walking volunteer at the Underdog Unity program created by Underdog International to help people who were shielding because of COVID-19 and needed help caring for their dogs.
HOW TO GET STARTED
You can start by applying to become a volunteer on their website. Once you’ve been through a basic but thorough interview process with Underdog, they go through a vetting process, verifying id and, depending on your schedule and the dog’s and the dog owner’s needs, you get connected with the dog owner. We got paired up with a gentleman who lived in a town near us, and he has a 14-year-old dog called Megan.
We had a phone call and talked about what he was looking for, which was just a walk once a week on Sunday mornings, then we arranged to meet the dog and took her for a couple of walks initially before we set up a more formal arrangement.
We have been taking Megan for walks pretty much every Sunday for the last two years, and it’s special how this evolved out of a need, initially, as the gentleman was shielding and not allowed outside, and now, in a kind of post-pandemic world he also walks his dog, but we’re keeping it up for mutually beneficial reasons.
IS PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE WITH DOGS NECESSARY?
From my experience with Underdog, they were certainly keen to be as inclusive as possible in their volunteer recruitment. There is information on their website about the requirements you have to meet to be a walker, but the people from Underdog are very supportive and can provide guidance. The main thing is to be responsible, to know the basics of caring for a dog, but there are many resources online that can help you with that.
My main tip for someone who would like to become a dog walker would be to focus on the local charities in your area. There is an increase in smaller dog rescue charities and they rely on a whole network of volunteers for dog fostering, caring or walking.
Especially now as people are going back to work in offices, there will be more need for this type of community dog stewardship to be able to care for these dogs. This could be a great opportunity for young adults, students who are free during the day, as it’s very likely that someone in their area would appreciate help looking after their dog.
THE BENEFITS
We’ve been walking Megan every Sunday at 10 oclock, so it was very helpful to have something solid in the diary to look forward to, especially during lockdown.
It became part of our routine and once we were out exploring nature and our local area, we were actually keeping fit. It also builds a sense of community as we often go to the same park and get to talk to other dog owners.
It’s really benefiting all parties. We get to spend time with a dog without necessarily the responsibilities of full ownership, the dog owners get the support they need, and the dog gets double the love and fun.