My Response to Stephanie

Thanks for filling me in and letting me know what happened. We were clients in the late fall and were not aware that you had a substitute walker filling in for you. It is actually a little disconcerting that you provided our keys to and sent an unknown person with obvious dishonesty issues into our home without telling us. I know we did receive an e-mail once stating that you were unable to complete the walks one day, but we never received the communication about the substitute dog walker. Perhaps we were mistakenly left off of that mailing.

Since we were under the impression that this was an owner-run business with you as the only dog walker and the fact that you had keys to our home, when we noticed that walks were not being performed, we didn't feel comfortable complaining to you. Prior to the day I went home sick from work, we had suspicions about whether the walks were taking place. We tried to do things that would let us know - like leaving a treat where our dog would eat it if he was actually taken for a walk or a piece of tape on the door so we could tell if it had been opened. When these items often hadn't been disturbed when we came home, our suspicions only mounted. However - someone always came by on Fridays to pick up the check! We thought the irresponsibility was solely yours and discussed mentioning it to you, but decided against it since we didn't think that we could trust you anymore anyway and opted just to cancel the service. I'm sure you can appreciate the situation we were in, being under the impression that it was only you doing the walks. I wish we had been told that it was another walker performing our walks and we would have gladly brought our concerns up to you as soon as we started to have them.

I doubt a refund is an option because I don't have a record of the days we suspect our dog wasn't walked. I'm ready to chalk this up to a bad experience and move on. I am very sorry to hear of the circumstances that led you to employ another walker and hope that 2009 is a much better year for you.