from Hacker News

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

by griffinmb on 1/18/19, 2:29 AM with 442 comments

• by james_s_tayler on 1/18/19, 3:26 AM

  This is mildly fascinating. Though not entirely unexpected.

  A quick Google for "pet sitting dog died" turns up a number of these stories. It seems a number of them are through these dog sitting services like Wag or Rover.

  Here's an interesting one I found not through a dog sitting service but just a roommate that had been asked to sit the dog while the owner was away.

  https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/t7kv7/currently_...

  It must be awful for everyone involved. I suspect it's nothing unique to dog sitting services but that it occurs with a certain (albeit low) frequency as a phenomenon but that it's showing up through dog sitting services because there is a (1) a paper trail of the transaction and (2) a stable, visible entity on which to lay the blame.

  In the pre-sharing economy days this still happened. Only you vetted the sitter first and so you feel less justified blaming them because on some level you know you signed off on them. You also couldn't really go public and say "14 year old Jenny from Ashmore killed my dog" because you can't make a common enemy out of her and while people will feel for both of you, it's not actionable information for anyone.

  It's fascinating what phenomenon our society is making visible through new structures made possible by technology.

  It's awful for all involved to have this happen.

• by thomasec on 1/18/19, 6:22 AM

  We had a similar (but thankfully, less serious) thing happen with Rover. We booked a dog sitter for 4 days with a woman named "Leslie". When we showed up to "Leslie's" place, the lady who we met did not match the person in the photo, and barely spoke any english. We were on our way to the airport, so I really didn't have a choice at that point but to leave our dog (I realize now I should have done more vetting, or met this individual in-person ahead of time, but the person I booked - Leslie - had dozens of positive reviews). After dropping off our dog, we received extremely vague updates/text messages over the next few days, and no photos. Things like - "Your dog is doing great", "he is behaving so well", etc... Whenever I asked for a photo, they would say they'd send one the next day.

  Needless to say, it became obvious that whoever was watching our dog was not the person we were communicating with. Thankfully, our dog doesn't have special medication, or a specific diet that we needed to monitor. Who knows what would have happened if there was an emergency, and we needed to get in touch with one another.

  These services like Wag and Rover have literally one job, and that is to make sure you trust the individuals watching your pet. The response from Rover was completely thoughtless, and it was clear they were going to do nothing to investigate the situation. The fact that they don't care that people like this woman who clearly has some sort of questionable scheme going on just shows how little they care about protecting their customer's pets.

• by yegle on 1/18/19, 3:33 AM

  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...

• by fanzhang on 1/18/19, 4:50 AM

  The Streisand effect strikes again. This is what happens when the legal department has no customer empathy, and to these lawyers, everything is a nail to their hammer of a contract.

  Some people mentioned that Wag should have offered more and demanded less -- absolutely!

  But think about if Wag even said "sorry this happened, that's all we can say for your terrible loss" even without a compensation offer and without an insulting NDA. It probably wouldn't have pushed the owner to post this and for it to end up on HN -- and now the world knows.

  I honestly believe Wag and Rover and other large companies that offer pet walking services should put up a very high liability bond for pet injury -- on the order of $10K or more. That way they have skin in the game to vet their walkers better. Most owners value their dogs above that, and that incentive is the only way to get these corporations to listen.

• by hessproject on 1/18/19, 3:10 PM

  I stopped using Wag due to their terrible customer service. I had an incident where a walker, despite explicit instructions, did not put my young puppy (~6 months) back in her crate and left her free in the apartment unsupervised. The walker report card said "I saw you said to crate her but she looked thirsty so I left her out!".

  I called several times where they said "we tried to contact the walker but couldn't so we can't help you". So I had to leave work early and still came home to a torn up couch and plenty of chewed up plastic that had to be surgically removed by a vet. Wag compensated for this by trying to offer me a "5 dollar credit for your next walk!"

• by idontpost on 1/18/19, 3:21 AM

  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.

• by ravenstine on 1/18/19, 3:37 AM

  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 the agreement, we were told that the agreement would remain available in case we changed our minds. The next day, we received an email stating that the agreement was now “null and void.”

  What assholes. (Wag) All these gig economy apps are super shady.

• by Judgmentality on 1/18/19, 3:56 AM

  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.

• by dbg31415 on 1/18/19, 3:58 AM

  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?

• by sammycdubs on 1/18/19, 3:38 AM

  This is a fantastic way to completely destroy your business. What a naive way to try and cover for a lack of investment in safety.

  My heart breaks for that dog and her family. Absolutely unbelievable.

• by Johnny555 on 1/18/19, 4:31 AM

  I've never heard of Wag, but my wife signed up to be a pet sitter for a competing site Rover and they never did any evaluation or background check.

  She signed up for an account, uploaded a photo of herself and our dog, and within a few days, she started getting petsitting requests.

• by ajmurmann on 1/18/19, 6:06 AM

  The most outrageous part to be always are the NDAs attached to settlements. Those should be illegal. It should not be for the two parties to decide to withhold information from the public. Usually it's the public who has an interest in this information becoming widely available and not the person agreeing to the NDA.

• by issa on 1/18/19, 5:24 AM

  I realize this wasn't the point of the story, and I'm so sorry this happened to anyone's dog. But please do not buy dogs from breeders when there are plenty of amazing dogs waiting to be rescued at shelters.

• by Fins on 1/18/19, 4:34 AM

  Seems to be something that, sadly, is to be expected from this generation of SV and SV-like companies that believe than any problem (usually a very First-World problem) can be solved with technology, and all the bad things, and negative externalities, can and should ber swept under the rug on the way to a billion dollar exit.

• by jopsen on 1/18/19, 8:59 AM

  To be fair aren't most dog walkers paid extremely little? (Below minimum wage even)

  Many of these services like uber are effective means to underpay people. It has upsides too, such as people having a job (beats having no job).

  But I'm not surprised the walker didn't want to confront the client. Clients are very unlikely to be calm reasonable people in this situation.

• by gnicholas on 1/18/19, 7:10 AM

  Just looked up Wag's Terms and Conditions:

  > WAG!’S SERVICES MAY BE USED BY YOU TO REQUEST AND SCHEDULE PET CARE SERVICES WITH PET CARE PROVIDERS, BUT YOU AGREE THAT WAG! HAS NO RESPONSIBILITY OR LIABILITY TO YOU RELATED TO ANY PET CARE SERVICES PROVIDED TO YOU BY PET CARE PROVIDERS OTHER THAN AS EXPRESSLY SET FORTH IN THESE TERMS

  Obviously this does not excuse Wag's behavior here. They should obviously have given the owners information about the walker so they can find out what happened and bring suit against him/her if appropriate.

  But it's not surprising Wag forces customers to disclaim liability here. I'd guess that we'd need to see several of these incidents in a short period before the backlash gets strong enough for Wag to modify the liability waiver. Hopefully they'll change how they handle cases like these just based on the justifiable outrage (assuming the author is fairly describing what happened) from this one case.

• by krisoft on 1/18/19, 6:58 AM

  How do the owners know the dog is dead and not stolen?

  Wouldn't a successful dognapping look the exact same from their perspective?

• by whistlerbrk on 1/18/19, 1:49 PM

  We had a nightmare story with Wag. My sister's dog was being walked by a new walker through Wag. The sitter brought our dog to a nearby fenced-in handball court and let him off leash, which he was not supposed to do. Her dog went to retrieve a ball that was stuck between the concrete padding and a chain link fence and in so doing severed several arteries in his paw.

  The handball court looked, no joke, like a multiple murder scene. Dogs have 7 arteries iirc through their paws and so there was blood - everywhere.

  I know this because I happened to have left work early and was eating dinner with my family nearby when my sister, away at work, gave me a frantic phone call that the walker called, freaking out, that her dog hurt himself and 911 refused to pick him up.

  I ran to my car as far as I could, drove down to this park, wrapped up his paw, carried him into the car, and drove, breaking every light to the animal hospital. Along the way NYPD pulled me over and upon finding out what was going on, proceeded to escort us to the hospital, clearing the way (shout out to the 88th).

  If I wasn't home, I'm not sure her dog would have lived. He needed several days in the hospital, blood transfusions and minor surgery. The walker could not have handled it poorer, he was hyperventiliating, completely freaking out, and couldn't get control of himself. I was nice to him, gave him water, calmed him down, but jeez he was a mess. No training, no proper incident response.

  Don't use Wag.

• by azhenley on 1/18/19, 3:54 AM

  Having just got a puppy less than two weeks ago, this is terrifying. I can’t imagine the feeling of helplessness and shock that they must have felt.

• by michaelmrose on 1/23/19, 1:35 AM

  Public response from wag https://wagwalking.com/daily/an-open-letter-to-the-wag-commu...

  In particular

  >Separately, we’ve taken a close look at one of our standard processes when paying a claim. In the rare instance when there’s an incident in which we need to work with the pet parents to make sure their needs are addressed, we’ve required them to sign an agreement — a common practice in the business world. It was so routine for us, in fact, that we didn’t pause to see if it made sense for every situation...

  How about admitting that trying to make you doing the right thing conditional on them agreeing to be legally gagged was a horrifically morally repugnant way to handle the situations. There is no situation where such an agreement is beneficial to society and as such should be wholly illegal in all possible cases.

• by ubermonkey on 1/18/19, 2:45 PM

  So, Wag is behaving appallingly here, but holy COW I would never trust this kind of effectively anonymous service with my pets. I'm fine hiring a rideshare, but for things that involve actual trust and stewardship of your precious personal items when you're not around, it's FAR FAR BETTER to find an actual human you can deal with consistently, and build a relationship with.

  A somewhat lower-stakes (and older) version of this is hiring a cleaning/housekeeping service like Merry Maids instead of an actual human. Sure, maybe they're insured and bonded and have background checks and all that, but it still seems riskier to me than finding an actual human who does that work, and who comes recommended by a friend or colleague.

  This is even more true of someone you'd trust your pets with.

• by azhenley on 1/18/19, 3:33 AM

  I hope they get a lawyer and keep us posted with updates.

• by vectorEQ on 1/18/19, 11:00 AM

  im just wondering why get a dog if you don't have time for it. seems cruel in itself. a lot of people get dogs and can't walk them or have actual time for them, yet they say they are like family or kids.... i'm sure you do have time for them though :/

• by iamnotadogowner on 1/18/19, 3:04 PM

  Dogs are not people, people who have dogs have a responsibility... it annoys me, as it does with children when it comes to teachers and daycare, that abdication of this responsibility is largely monetary and comes with little consideration. You cannot tell me that an app is the only way out of these things. Try any number of normal human situations like paying a friend or neighbor you trust.

  The dogs should be looked after, but you should also not be exploiting people who are worse off than yourself, for your own personal, convenient, cheap abdication of responsibility.

  (If you can't pay a friend or neighbor, possibly you are asking too much for too little)

• by baroffoos on 1/18/19, 3:34 AM

  There is obviously fault to be attributed to the walker by lying about what had happened but I think its worth thinking about how many animals are killed by cars on a regular basis. We probably all know someone whos pets were killed by cars and the local wildlife is regularly splattered across the roads. I think we need to seriously slow down the speed of our roads to avoid killing so many pets and endangered wildlife.

  Its possible the walker was doing nothing terribly wrong and the dog was hit and then the walker panicked and made some wrong choices in communication.

• by duggan on 1/18/19, 12:58 PM

  Not the first time Wag has made the news for mishandling (and killing) pets[1][2].

  [1]: https://nypost.com/2018/05/14/embattled-dog-walking-app-lose...

  [2]: https://www.ajc.com/news/national/pet-dies-after-dog-walker-...

• by old_but_gold on 1/18/19, 2:58 PM

  Can't believe you naive people who put your trust in apps and these types of services. The responsibility is entirely yours. You have to understand what responsibility means.

• by damm on 1/18/19, 3:54 AM

  I think this is the problem with social media / networking... it used to be when I was a young kid that if someone wanted t heir dog walked ... you would find someone in your neighborhood that you knew.

  Now we use online services and trust people blindly...

  As far as the person who lost their dog; I am sorry. I know I did not cause the harm; but it's the only thing I can say.

  As a pet owner I would be mortified. I also don't trust anyone with my pets (and they don't trust anyone). So it works out.

• by craftyguy on 1/18/19, 3:08 AM

  I actively block any/all facebook domains for privacy reasons, is this mirrored elsewhere? The 'web' link here in HN is not showing anything useful.

• by ezoe on 1/18/19, 4:05 AM

  I was more surprised that service like Wag exists.

• by A4ET8a8uTh0 on 1/18/19, 6:03 AM

  I can relate and no doubt fellow dog owners do as well. Random death of a family member can make a sane man mad. The author seems to handle it better than I would have.

  For a company that seemingly specializes in this service, it should be, if not a dead blow, then a very painful lesson.

  That said. Experian was never punished for what they did. Maybe if they killed a puppy, people would care.

• by crispytx on 1/18/19, 5:12 AM

  That's the problem with lawyers and administrators. Wag should have just ignored their lawyers and did the right thing. It's pretty easy to see what happened here, the executives/administrators/lawyers at Wag are cowards, and were too afraid to compensate these poor people without some sort of legal agreement covering their asses.

• by tmsh on 1/18/19, 9:12 AM

  Maybe if enough people cc the LA DA office they will investigate these complaints listed here and investigate. Just saying. It sounds like they’re violating a lot of laws.

  https://twitter.com/p10q/status/1086188664563163136?s=21

• by d357r0y3r on 1/18/19, 11:33 AM

  I'll get in any car with any stranger with Uber, no questions asked.

  I would never trust a stranger to walk my dog.

• by michaelmrose on 1/18/19, 12:52 PM

  Has wag or a rep actually responded to this?

  https://www.facebook.com/WagWalking/

• by sathishmanohar on 1/18/19, 10:42 AM

  I feel really sorry that this happened but I am absolutely scared for the future because the next stop is babysitting apps that doesn't give a damn about users

• by rb666 on 1/18/19, 9:41 AM

  So incredibly sad, and disgusting behavior by Wag.

• by jwilk on 1/18/19, 11:24 AM

  Archived copy that works with JS disabled:

  https://archive.ph/nPkP9

• by dustincnj79 on 1/18/19, 2:05 PM

  I myself would only entrust my pet to someone I would equally entrust my child to and it wouldn't be from someone or service purchased on the internet or whatever means it was saught out without meeting the individual first and requesting a background check of said individual. I feel sorry for the owner of the pet but they also need to do their due diligence.

• by antisthenes on 1/18/19, 4:27 PM

  Well, I never knew what Wag was before this, but I guess I won't be using them in the future.

• by bibinou on 1/18/19, 10:14 AM

  mirror / archive: http://archive.fo/nPkP9

• by hema_n on 1/18/19, 12:53 PM

  How rudely they responded.

• by King-Aaron on 1/18/19, 3:25 AM

  This makes my blood boil.

• by Siemens on 1/18/19, 2:09 PM

  Sounds like the dog was kidnapped to be sold for a profit.

• by dustincnj79 on 1/18/19, 1:28 PM

  I agree losing a pet is like losing a family member and in certain circumstances much worse. I have had many losses in my life including family members best friends who have died in front of me as well as pets who have died from illness or old age. However never have I lost a pet through using a device that is supposed to make something easier for a pet owner to accomplish a set goal like walk a dog. I am not sure what this device is or why it was being used, if it was out of necessity or laziness. However regardless of either situation I agree and believe that a company that produced this product should show overwhelming support for the family that lost the dog and do whatever it is they can do to make it right. Since this company manufactures products for pets they need to take a stand showing how important animals are in there mission statement as well as their actions after this incident. Imagine how frustrated and pissed off people get when drug manufacturers raise prices on necessary drug just increase their profit margin. I believe this is both immoral and inhumane however people do have an option of where they will purchase their pet needs from and likely they will not choose a company that is not show a sense of compassion for the species they are creating products for. It would be a huge blunder on their image not take such a strong stance as stated in the comments above. Just like people not all pets mean the same thing 2 the same people. However when you do find a best friend in a four-legged creature there is nothing that differentiates them from other members of your family in my opinion. My dog was not only my best friend but he had helped me through many issues that my family had abandoned me on. Therefore when my dog passed away from cancer around the same time I had end-stage renal failure I felt a sense of relief that both myself as well as my best would likely die around the same time because for me there was no life without my dog. However unfortunately I did get better and my dog did not which I cannot hold anybody accountable for but I did suffer from severe depression and anxiety greater than any I have ever suffered from losing a fellow human being maybe that makes me a monster but that is honestly how I felt. To me a life is a life whether it is your dog your family a cat or any other animal. Not one species has more of a right to live then any other. I do understand that not everybody has the same experience or thinks the same way as I do in this situation or many others people often have conflicting morals or points of view which prove to be based on a specific person's experience , individuality and morality which another individual also commented below. What I do know for sure is that when given the choice of supporting a company or no longer supporting a company in effect boycotting them that should only be done when the company does not stand behind their product or the species they are manufacturing products for.

• by black-tea on 1/18/19, 8:17 AM

  So people are paying to get their dogs walked now? What is going on? We're supposed to be working less, not more.

• by usr1987 on 1/18/19, 7:22 AM

  You should never be a dog owner. If you can't be there for them, you do not have them. I feel sorry for the dog, not you!

• by ncr100 on 1/18/19, 5:58 AM

  Trust is not bought or rightly earned through 5 stars.

  Our technology is being used to perpetuate tragedies.

  We have no ethics organisations, for encouraging ethical usage of Computer Science.

• by wewake on 1/18/19, 6:24 AM

  Are we going to link FB posts on HackerNews now?