How to Create a Successful Dog Walker Resume (with Skills)

By Indeed Editorial Team

Published 30 May 2022

The Indeed Editorial Team comprises a diverse and talented team of writers, researchers and subject matter experts equipped with Indeed's data and insights to deliver useful tips to help guide your career journey.

Due to their everyday responsibilities, dog owners commonly require help to ensure that their dogs are receiving a healthy amount of exercise. This can involve researching dog walking organisations in their area and reviewing possible candidates to take care of their pets. Developing a effective resume can help recruiters understand your qualifications and possibly help you receive more dog walking gigs. In this article, we discuss how to create a successful dog walker resume and list some skills you could highlight to communicate that you're a suitable candidate to walk dogs.

Why is a dog walker resume important?

A dog walker resume is a professional document that recruiters can read to find out more about candidates with experience in caring for dogs while their owners are absent. Whether you're applying to work to an organisation that contracts you to dog owners or to the owners directly, your resume can act as an advertisement to dog owners who require help caring for their pets. Your resume can also highlight any special skills you bring to the position that might improve your chances of receiving dog walking work.

Additionally, your resume can highlight your preferences as a dog walker. If you prefer to work with certain breeds of dogs or perform certain caretaking activities, you could emphasise this on your resume. Stating your preferences can help the organisation for which you're working select the right dog-walking work for you. This also benefits the dog and its owner, as it can assure them that their dog walker is passionate about caring for their dog.

How to create a successful dog walker resume

For more on creating a successful dog walker resume, you can review the following steps:

1. Write a passionate resume summary

Recruiters may read a large number of resumes in a short period of time when selecting new candidates for walking dogs. Including a short paragraph summarising your qualifications can ensure that they recognise the most impressive aspects of your resume, which could compel them to keep reading.

A compelling resume summary can simultaneously provide objective measures of your dog-walking abilities and subjective references to your passion for the work. You could include references to measurable achievements, such as the number of dogs that you've cared for and the positive reviews you've received. Supplementing this could be your passion for the work, such as why you love caring for dogs and why you decided to pursue this work. Your resume summary can provide recruiters and a dog owners with a comprehensive understanding of both your skills and your emotional investment in walking dogs.

2. List your previous dog walking experience

You can provide a list of the previous dog walking positions you've held in chronological order, including your responsibilities in each position. This list could be a combination of private contracts between you and a dog owner directly, or it could reference any work you performed through a dog walking organisation. Consider listing each position's responsibilities in order of applicability to the position you're applying for. For example, if a potential client has large dogs, you could list your experience working with large dogs first.

You could also take the opportunity to highlight your greatest achievements from previous jobs to communicate the extent of your dog-walking abilities. This could include mentioning the largest number of dogs you've walked at once, the wide variety of dogs you've cared for, the weather conditions in which you've performed your job and moments when you performed your work exceptionally. Your key achievements can indicate how devoted you are to ensuring that the dogs under your care receive exceptional attention.

3. Describe any volunteer work you've performed

If you have experience voluntarily caring for dogs in a shelter or other temporary homes, you could include it in the volunteering section of your resume. Volunteer work can help you develop many of the necessary skills to become a capable dog caretaker. These skills could involve learning how to interact with unfamiliar dogs, caring for multiple dog breeds and caring for multiple dogs at once. Additionally, volunteer work can help convince owners that you're excited to work with dogs and assure them that you're going to take excellent care of their pets.

4. List your highest level of education

Dog walker positions typically don't have education requirements. Dog owners and dog walking organisations typically want to learn about your practical experience working with animals. Nonetheless, possessing a GCE O-level certification or a diploma can indicate to dog owners that you're a responsible and intelligent person, which could help you receive work. If possible, you could consider advertising your knowledge of dog behaviour on your resume. This knowledge could either come from your academic background or from practical experience.

5. Include all relevant skills

In the skills section of your resume, you can list all of the skills you've acquired during your time as a dog walker. This can be a combination of hard and soft skills relating to caring for dogs. If the job listing references that the recruiter is looking for specific skills, be sure to include these near the top of your skills list so they can easily find them. This could help the recruiter quickly understand that you're qualified for the role. Here are some common dog-walking skills that you might include on your resume:

physically fit
comfortable handling a wide variety of dog breeds and sizes
patient
time management skills
ability to walk multiple dogs at once
enthusiastic about working with animals
communicative
critical thinking skills
teamwork skills
independent
problem-solving skills
number of years of experience working with dogs

6. List your certifications

If you've completed a dog-walking certification course, this could improve your chances of receiving more dog-walking work. You can typically achieve dog-walking certification by proving that you possess certain skills pertaining to interacting with dogs and ensuring their good health. Some certifications specifically pertain to understanding dog behaviour and proper interactions with unfamiliar dogs, while others involve learning minor medical operations. These operations could involve performing emergency CPR and first aid. Having these skills can assure dog owners that you can help their animals if they urgently require medical assistance while under your supervision.

7. Supplementary information

These sections are generally optional to include on your dog walking resume, but they could give you a competitive advantage over other potential candidates. One section could include any additional languages that you speak. This could broaden your potential clientele to include dog owners that only speak that language. You could also include a section that outlines your interests beyond dog walking. Including this information could help you receive work from dog owners that share similar hobbies with you. This could also help the dog owner understand more about who you are as an individual.

Example of a dog walker's resume

To help you get started on your dog walker's resume, you can review this sample resume and customise the information:

Chloe Zeng
+65 8555 5555 | Chloez@email.com

Professional Summary
Caring and responsible dog walker with five years of experience with 30+ dog breeds, large and small. Eager to meet your animal and help them get the exercise they need. In a previous role, I walked up to 10 dogs at once and successfully cared for dogs with sensitive medical issues.

Work experience
Dog walker
June 2020–April 2022

cared for a young Chihuahua and an elderly Bolognese
visited the residence and walked both dogs at once three times a day
fed each animal according to their diet
cleaned up and disposed of waste
applied a bandage to the scrape that the animal received during one of our walks

Volunteer
Singapore Animal Lover Dog Shelter, 2017

Education
Dunmore Secondary School, 2018

Skills

five years of experience with 30+ dog breeds, large and small
flexible schedule
good time management skills
passionate about animal care
interpersonal skills
attention to detail

Certifications
Skills certificate in pet care and management, 2018

Languages

fluent in Mandarin

Interests

bird watching
drawing

The model shown is for illustration purposes only, and may require additional formatting to meet accepted standards.