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My dog was killed on a walk with a walker ordered through Wag

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Re: My dog was killed on a walk with a walker ordered through Wag

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It definitely seems they could and need to do more to tighten up the accountability on the platform. No doubt about that. I don't know that it's accurate to say the contractor doesn't care. If they were a psychopath I could agree with that, but most people have had the experience of having either a pet, friend or relative die and know how deeply it affects people emotionally and to know you were responsible for that…

The problem is I can’t tell which ones care, and those are the only ones I’d want to do business with.

I can respect that. You want to maximize the likelihood the dog survives.

I call this "The Hard Problem of Delineation". You can't delineate between who will and won't kill your dog no matter what system you use. That's the problem.

Though I take your point about the cold, uncaring, capitalist dog walker. Hmmm.

Edit: now that I think about your point I can see what you mean. The "sharing economy (Uber for X)" has become a widely known abstraction that people realize they can exploit for monetary gain and thats likely to attract more people walking dogs who wouldn't otherwise care about, be familiar with and/or know how to handle dogs. I agree, at least in principle, that may be a phenomenon that is occurring.

Re: My dog was killed on a walk with a walker ordered through Wag

#32

Incredibly stupid decision to respond this way by Wag. How bad to you have to be at PR to screw this up? It's not hard. Liability in the case of harmed pets is extremely limited, so you just pay it all and apologize profusely. There's no way the bad press will be worth saving a couple thousand maximum. Absolute idiots.

"It takes years or even decades to build community trust. It takes about 15 minutes to destroy it." - my old boss

Re: My dog was killed on a walk with a walker ordered through Wag

#33
I admittedly wasn't a huge fan of Wag ever because it always seemed like taking the lowest available bidder to walk your dog (instead of someone who truly loves dogs and has years of experience training them), but I'm curious how much of an influence Softbank has been since their investment.

Everybody talks about how Softbank is the smartest money in Silicon Valley. Obviously time will tell, but I feel like Softbank is actually the dumbest money and just has more cash to throw around than anyone else.

That said, this is really an unnecessary tangent to what is truly a horrible incident and I grieve for the dog owners.

Re: My dog was killed on a walk with a walker ordered through Wag

#34
I went on a few dates with a girl who was a walker for Wag. She had just moved to the town I'm from, and she was between jobs. She had a background as veterinary assistant, was great with my dogs, and seemed over qualified for the work.

One day she was upset and I asked her why. She said it was because Wag had terminated her employment and deleted her profile, with over 100 high reviews. (She had been very proud of the number of perfect reviews she had gotten.) She said it was because she called animal control on one of the clients.

At first, I was like, "Holy hell, don't narc on your customers... no wonder they banned you... anyone who pays for a dog walker would surely be a good dog owner..." But then she showed me the pictures of what was clearly an puppy mill. My friend was only there to walk one or two of the dogs, the dogs that were used for photos, and there were 20+ other dogs locked in cages.

She did the humane thing, documented the issues, reported it to Wag... Wag did nothing, didn't even bother to move her to a different client, or block her from being sent back to that client. So on like the third visit, she escalated it to animal control. Naturally the client got mad and complained to Wag, and that's when Wag fired my friend. But... seems like the right thing to do in that situation.

I saw these pictures on her phone, dogs that looked so sad. Penned up in cages where they could barely turn around, and all very pregnant. Anyone with a heart would have done what my friend did. And anyone working as a dog walker should have a heart. Wag is a business, they only care about the bottom line. It's not a service I would ever use for my own dogs.

Edit: Went from +7 to -2 pretty quick. Hmm, maybe Wag PR is listening in?

Re: My dog was killed on a walk with a walker ordered through Wag

#36

Incredibly stupid decision to respond this way by Wag. How bad to you have to be at PR to screw this up? It's not hard. Liability in the case of harmed pets is extremely limited, so you just pay it all and apologize profusely. There's no way the bad press will be worth saving a couple thousand maximum. Absolute idiots.

Seriously. It should have been the easiest decision in the world for them - a persons' dog is more important than most other humans to most dog owners, yet the law treats dogs as nothing more than property. Pay up and grovel to these people. In-action doesn't make these things go away. EDIT: just read the non-disclosure section. I understand the impulse to do that, but it's a MUCH better gamble to just kill the story…

> a persons' dog is more important than most other humans to most dog owners, yet the law treats dogs as nothing more than property

Something I've always found particularly infuriating is how police dogs are considered officers and often carries a worse punishment than attacking an actual police officer. Not because I am upset that the dogs are being protected, but that the police basically can shoot other people's dogs but nobody can touch their dogs.

Jesus I am just going off on tangents tonight. I need to take a break for a bit.

Re: My dog was killed on a walk with a walker ordered through Wag

#37
post #11

This happened recently: Wag! dog walker charged with animal cruelty; customers concerned about industry background checks http://www.ktvu.com/news/wag-dog-walker-charged-with-animal-... EDIT: and the settlement letter sent from Wag: https://www.scribd.com/document/397139013/SNews-Copie1901081...

Wow. The walker kicks and whips the dog until it vomits blood and Wag offers a refund and a $100 credit as settlement.

Who in the world wants Wag credits after an experience like that. If Wag wants to buy these folks’ silence, shouldn’t they at least make a non-insulting offer?

Re: My dog was killed on a walk with a walker ordered through Wag

#39

I was going to reply with a reply about this being "statistically bound to happen", until I read this: > If we wanted to be compensated we had to agree not to tell anyone what happened, we could not leave any negative reviews, we could not make posts on social media, we could not hold Wag or the walker responsible, and only then would Wag reimburse us for Winnie’s cremation. When we responded that we would not sign t…

Wag are jerkoffs it seems, but it's still 'statistically likely to happen'.

Accidents happen in all things, so I think it should boil down mostly to whatever the reality is there.

... though Wag has shown some bad form obviously.

Re: My dog was killed on a walk with a walker ordered through Wag

#40

I was going to reply with a reply about this being "statistically bound to happen", until I read this: > If we wanted to be compensated we had to agree not to tell anyone what happened, we could not leave any negative reviews, we could not make posts on social media, we could not hold Wag or the walker responsible, and only then would Wag reimburse us for Winnie’s cremation. When we responded that we would not sign t…

I feel like part of why they're shady is because some of the people that partake in them are shady. It's relatively easy to get accepted to them (especially services like this).
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