We are not asking for special treatment. Just fairness.

We are a group of long-established, professional dog walkers and small business owners in Bristol—and we are now being forced into a position we never wanted to be in.
We support regulation. We support licensing. We support safety. In fact, we are hopeful that a proper licensing system will help address the real issues in the sector—particularly in smaller parks where unlicensed, inexperienced, and sometimes incompetent dog walkers operate without accountability or oversight.

What we cannot support is a blanket rule that is not based on evidence, not based on national guidance, and not based on how professional dog walking actually works in practice.

The council’s decision to impose a four-dog limit has been made without meaningful consultation and without clear, published evidence to justify it. This is despite the fact that commercial insurance across the UK—based on real-world risk assessment—commonly operates on a six-dog standard for professional dog walking businesses.
DEFRA statutory guidance is clear: licensing decisions must be risk-based, proportionate, and based on what is reasonable, not arbitrary numerical caps. It does not prescribe a fixed dog limit and instead emphasises assessment of competence, environment, and conditions on the ground.

Yet instead of this approach, we are seeing reliance on generalised guidance from the —documents intended for private pet owners, not professional, insured operators. There is no RSPCA professional framework recommending a four-dog limit for commercial dog walkers. Applying private ownership guidance to licensed businesses is a fundamental mismatch.

Even more concerning, there is no robust statistical evidence showing that professional dog walkers operating within insured limits are responsible for an increase in dog-related incidents or public safety issues. There is also no data demonstrating that reducing group size from six dogs to four improves safety outcomes in real-world conditions.

So we are left asking: where is the evidence?

We are not large corporations. We are small, local businesses. Many of us have built trusted reputations over years, backed by strong client relationships and public accountability. At the same time, we are already under intense financial pressure from rising fuel costs, insurance, and general operating expenses.

We can least afford a legal fight.
But we have no choice.

This is a David and Goliath situation. A group of small, responsible professionals being forced to defend ourselves against a policy that does not appear to be grounded in DEFRA guidance, insurance reality, or public safety evidence.

We are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for fairness, consistency, and evidence-based regulation.

We remain hopeful that a licensing system will improve standards and help tackle issues caused by unlicensed, inexperienced dog walkers—particularly in smaller parks where oversight is currently lacking. But it must be implemented fairly and proportionately.
We are ready to engage. But we are also ready to stand our ground.
Because if this can happen here, it can happen to any small business.
#Bristol #SmallBusiness #DogWalkers #FairRegulation #DavidVsGoliath