Well, I kind of knew this day would come. I didn’t want it to, but it did.

I’ll cut to the punch line if you are looking for a dog walker in Vancouver, don’t use dogcity.ca.

Now here’s the lead-up as to why I’m making such a bold statement and contradicting what I said last fall about dogicty.ca.

Last month I talked about what happened with my dog (Gallagher) and how my existing Vancouver dog walker, dogcity.ca handled the situation. I honestly have to admit that after the past few weeks of back and forth with the management at dogcity.ca (Abby, the owner, through Lisa, the manager), dogcity.ca is a true embodiment of the phrase ‘fallen from grace’ when in comes to customer service.

I’ve already told you what they have done (which seemed to be going very well for a number of months), but to emphasize my point about how dogcity.ca fumbled the customer service ball about one specific incident in December which resulted in Gallagher being dropped off and left at my house in need of medical attention without calling me, let me talk a little about what they haven’t done.

• dogcity.ca will not offer any meaningful reimbursement for the time, cost and inconvenience they caused me (and Gallagher)

• dogcity.ca did not seem to realize the economics of this situation (at least to me) in that the bill from the emergency clinic that I really shouldn’t have had to visit at 7pm on a Friday night because dogcity.ca forgot to call me after leaving Gallagher injured and bleeding on my floor was over $400

• dogcity.ca’s ‘suggestion’ (only after countless conversations which were more akin to pulling teeth) was to give me a free walk (value: around $30 to $40).

Good customer service should never have to be ‘asked for’, it should be offered.  I mean, really, if you go into a restaurant and the server tells you to get your meal yourself, would you?  Or something a little more personal, if your dentist told you that you needed to have something done immediately but said he didn’t have time (or forgot to call you about it), would you be pleased?

If service it isn’t offered, but asked for, which clearly is something dogcity.ca has exemplified in this situation, one should seriously consider moving on. Guess what? I am.

Over the past week, I’ve interviewed and/or met with a number of reputable dog walkers in Vancouver that are in direct competition with dogcity.ca. And you know what? It really does pay to look around and consider your options.

Not only did the company I selected (which I will blog about shortly) know how to address a situation such as the one I laid out that just happened to me, they were considerably more affordable! How much more affordable? Triple digits per month…let’s put it that way.

So, dog owners, when it comes to your options, listen to what I’ve had to say about dogcity.ca and stop, drop and roll your way along. I know that I’m only one person, but I wouldn’t want you to have to go through what I did.

darren