Safety protocols

Walks with Olli is dedicated to the safety and wellbeing of your pooch. Safety is our number one priority and will always take predence. 

Our priority is your dog and their safety. This is why we have a number of practical steps in place to ensure our pack walking is undertaken in a controlled manner. Our adventures are conducted along a route that has been carefully reviewed by our team. 

Before a new adventure location is endorsed, all risk factors are taken into consideration. Once at a location, our dogs are required to be within a consitent 10 metre radius of their walker. When they depart this radius, we require them to rejoin by voice command. Along this route, we stop along lakes, rivers and streams where our dogs are encouraged to have a splash in the shallows. 

Our team are trained to undertake numbered headcounts of our dogs every 1-2 minutes, or when turning corners, leaving a rest area or when changing direction. This ensures every dog is regularly accounted for. We do this by mentally breaking our pack up into smaller groups. We find this to be the most effective and efficient way of conducting regular head counts.

Every dog is unique meaning we dont believe in the idea that one size fits all. 

Every new pooch undertakes an initial session with Chief Adventurer, Adrian. This session takes place on a day that owners are home. This allows our first interaction with a new pooch to run smoothly.  We like to delve a bit deeper into understanding your pooches character. We like knowing everything about your dog.

During this session your dog will join the pack on a long lead, with a GPS tracker and begin the walk on lead with our team. Your dogs engagement with our team is the crucial first step. Are they listening to their name while they are being called on lead? If yes, great, they will be treated consistently for this. While on lead,  once our team has seen consistent engagement with your pooch, we will let them join the pack on a long lead.  We then are observing how they are interacting socially and also how their recall is performing.

A long lead gives our team the opportunity to intervene should your dog become anxious, stray from the pack or become aggressive. 

Our GPS tracker gives us to the opportunity to locate your dog in the very rare event that it displaces itself. 

These steps are then again followed when your pooch meets a new member of our team. This again gives us the opportunity to intervene should your dog become distressed in new company. 

Once our team have establised a strong understanding of your dog, and your dog is comfortable in their new pack and with our team of walkers, the goal is then to take away each layer of safety (Leads, long leads  and trackers). This process can in some cases take up to 1 month or longer.

Once the initial session is complete, Adrian will determine how we will intergrate your pooch. If they display strong recall and interact with the pack well, it is likely they  begin with your desired weekly schedule and will meet the rest of the team.

If your pooch takes a little while longer to warm up, a few more sessions with Adrian are likely. These will continue to be on long leads until they display consistent recall, comfort while walking and great social interaction. 

Once Adrian is comfortable with how your dog has intergated within the pack, we will then slowly introduce them to the rest of our team of walkers.

In some cases, our adventures may not be the right fit for your pooch. Adrian will discuss this with you and assist you with finding an alternate solution that may best fit your dogs needs.

Adrian will guide you through this process.