Dog Walkers and Pet Sitters

In this article, we use the term "dog walker" to mean any type of home pet professional who may visit your apartment when you are not at home, such as a dog walker, pet sitter, home vet, etc.

Dog walkers are a way of life for us Downtownians! How else will Fido get his exercise and a great patch of green to do his business when mom and/or dad is away?

To maintain the strict safety standards you've come to expect with a Downtownian.com building, we unfortunately cannot issue additional keys to you for your dog walker. See the handbook entry on Keys for more information on that policy. But what to do about the dog walker then, you ask? Never fear, we've come up with a solution!

The Lowdown on Dog Walkers

Dog walkers must be qualified by our own internal vetting process before they can be approved to access your building. Once we have approved them, we will issue them their own dog walker key and they can access our buildings at any time you have scheduled with them.

Without exception, dog walkers who are not on our approved list MAY NOT have access to your building when you are not home. It is a violation of the terms of your lease to issue a dog walker, or anyone who is not on your lease, a key to your building.

Qualification Process

Any dog walker can apply with us to become an approved Downtownian.com dog walker. If they have already been approved, you may hire them to perform services for you at your convenience without notifying us first. If they have not yet been approved, here's the process in which they can get there:

1. Your dog walker must send a request to leasing@downtownian.com and request a dog walker application.
2. An electronic dog walker application will be sent to them via DocuSign. It must be filled out completely, and returned along with a valid, legal photo ID.
3. We will contact them to collect a fee.
   • The current fee can be found here, is generally not refundable, and is subject to change without notice.
   • The fee may be paid to us by check, EFT or credit card at no additional charge. We do not accept cash.
   • You may pay the application fee on behalf of your dog walker.
   • We will consider requests to waive the fee on a case-by-case basis.
4. We will perform a full background check on the applicant, including criminal history and various state and federal databases.
5. We reserve the right to reject a dog walker for any reason. If we do reject an applicant, we will issue a refund of half of the fee.
6. Once we have screened the dog walker and approved them, we will present them with a DocuSign dog walker agreement. The agreement will permit them to access any Downtownian.com managed building.
7. We will also ask your dog walker to provide liability insurance, with a minimum of $200,000 per occurrence.
8. Once all paperwork has been collected, approved and signed, your dog walker will be issued a building key from us, which they can use to access any Downtownian.com building. They will need to provide a deposit for the key, which is refundable upon return of the key. The deposit amount can be found here.

On-Demand Dog Walking Services

While we encourage the use of online dog walking services such as Rover.com to source a dog walker, at this time, we have not determined that any on-demand dog walking services, such as those provided through Wag!, Swifto, Rover, etc., perform adequate background checks that meet our standards of safety. Despite the guarantees and insurance coverage of these services, we have found that they do not provide adequate assurance that their walkers are honest and will not cause a risk of theft or other harm to you or your neighbors. Therefore, walkers from on-demand dog walking services are prohibited unless the particular walker has been specifically approved by our process, is listed below, and carries their own key to the building. It is strictly prohibited and a violation of your lease agreement to utilize lockboxes furnished by on-demand dog walking services. We reserve the right to remove any on-demand lockboxes found on or around any Downtownian.com property.

If you feel that there is an on-demand dog walking service that may have a strict enough background check process, please let us know by logging onto your Downtownian.com account and sending us a message.

Additional Notes

• We reserve the right to cancel a dog walker agreement at any time with 24 hours advanced notice, however we will attempt to give at least 7-days advanced notice to give you time to find a new dog walker. In the event that an agreement is cancelled, the dog walker must surrender their key immediately, and will no longer be allowed to access Downtownian.com buildings.
• As is the case with anyone you invite into your building and apartment, you are responsible for their conduct. If they damage the building or disturb other residents, it will be your responsibility to correct.

List of Approved Dog Walkers

These are the currently approved Dog Walkers and Home Pet Professionals.

None yet, please contact us to get the process started for your preferred dog walker!

Name	Service(s)	Phone	Email	Since
Sample Walker	Dog Walker	(410) 555-1234	sample@dog.walk	08/2015
Sample Sitter	Pet Sitter	(410) 555-4321	sample@cat.sit	02/2017

Is your preferred dog walker not on this list? If not, contact us at leasing@downtownian.com so we can get the process started.

Need to source a dog walker? Try Rover.com, but remember to have your choice approved by us before starting!