if anyone is interested in speaking? if not, feel free to address anything that comes up. next i want to invite up sally stephens from the animal welfare commission and has a dogs, and martha fields. if the two of you would come out from the dog owner or guardian perspective. >> i am sally stephens. i am chair of the animal welfare control commission and the chair of s.f. dog. as a history, about eight years ago, people went to the dog advisory committee, which is part of rec and park, to get a dog walking permit. it passed the d.a.c. unanimously. the number was six they came up with, and rec and park did nothing with it. about three or four years later people went to the animal

welfare control commission, and the commission at that time recommended a number of eight dogs as part of the process. again nothing has had for four years. now supervisor wiener has brought this forward. that is the history. speaking as the head of s.f. dog, we very much support the number of seven. we could live with six or eight, but seven seems like a nice compromise. there is kind of a perception that just about anybody can walk a dog. you don't know that they know what they are doing. this will elevate the perception of dog walkers.

it is important as a dog owner to know that they will be out and walked. it will increase the safety for dogs. things like requiring first aid safety and vehicle protection are important for dogs. people can feel more confident when they see a dog walk ner a park. it is important that a.c.c. get additional money to administer the program if at all possible. i think as regards to having the same number versus any organization, seven and six are close enough. i don't think that is a significant difference. kind of given the history of not particularly being helpful

in working with us, we shouldn't allow them to be telling us what we should be doing in our parks. thank you. >> miss stephens, i did have a question. i am a cat person. i have questions, not dogs. how much does a person pay to have your dog walked, and how come is it among dog eners? >> as common. most of us work, and you can't always -- i worked at home for a lot, so i was able to walk my dog in the middle of the day. but when i worked at home, i didn't. i go with the professional dog walkers estimate of 500 dogs in the city. people that go have their dogs in larger groups can pay less money than someone who does a dog walk individually. speaking personally, i had my

dog walked by someone who did a single walk. she had some behavioral issues which that walker was able to train out of here. she was a little fear aggressive, and it worked out. i wanted her to walk with someone focused on her. at the time i was paying about $25 or $20 a day for a dog walk, and i think the largers groups should pay less. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, i am the co-founder and chair of the chrisy field dog group. we are a non-profit organization with over 600 members based here in san francisco. before i begin, i would like to thank and recognize supervisor weesh for authoring this important legislation. it has been a long time coming, and scott has had the foresight

and fortitude in moving this forward. during the many years we have been working on doing-related issues, the number one concern over and again is to ensure that commercial talking walkers have the proper training and sentiment to handle the dogs correctly. it would be a good practice to have a clear set of rules in which dog walkers need to follow here in the city and county of san francisco. after speaking to various user groups, i know this legislation has a lot of support from individual dog walkers, hikers, surfers, wind surfers, kite boarders, picnickers and bikers. so there is a lot of support for this legislation from a variety of groups. so it is with great relief and gratitude that this legislation is being considered here today. as i said before, it has been a long time coming, and again i applaud supervisor wiener for moving this important

legislation forward. i just from my experience working on the issues and how it works with the various counsel -- i support receive dogs. i understand why a.c.c. is coming from, but i think there needs to be a compromise between six and eight, and seven seems to be a good number. i have been working on this issue for a long time and cannot express the gratitude for having the dog walkers being professionalized. any questions? thank you. >> is someone here from the spca? yes. >> hi, good afternoon. i am the director of the adomings center at the san

francisco spca. also i spent a good number of years on the commission of animal control and welfare, the dog advisory committee and would like to thank you, supervisor wiener, for bringing this forward. this has been a topic that has been discussed for many years. as martha said, it is a topic where there has been interest and support from user groups. that is unique. our main concern is the welfare of animals. we are big advocates for responsible animal care for the good of the animals and the community. the legislation that you have drafted here is really good. since we are a city that has more dogs than we have children, this is wonderful rmed to -- time to highlight the fact that professional dog

walking is a skill, and advocating business licenses and things that recognize this as a professional. we have a wonderful community of professional dog walkers already who are doing wonderful things and being responsible about their dogs, the parks and so forth. this will help when there are changes or when there are people who need a little bit more so we can continue to celebrate the success of professional dog walkers in our parks. as dog owners know, we are putting our dogs into the hands of conscience us people who are skilled. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> you made a comment about the relationship between dog walkers and the parks, and i haved nod over the years that a lot of times the professional dog walkers are the ones -- they are in the parks so much, they help keep it clean.

they are part of that park community. that is an important point. thank you. >> thank you. >> next i would like to invite up two professional dog walkers with whom i worked closely on this legislation. alison and nancy will speak. come up. >> if good afternoon, supervisors. i am nancy stafford, to correct some misinformation quoted in karl nolte's problem. the aspca estimates 178,000 dogs in the city. according to a 2009-2010 survey, 39% of households have dogs. currently a 2011 parade magazine said 42% of households

have dogs nationwide. we have been working with various agencies eight years to establish a permitting process and are anxious to ledge mies our profession. supervisor wiener has worked extensively with the community. we support the legislation and hope the supervisors will consider favorably the amendments. i think the licensing requirement versus an education , you forgot to mention that one. >> which one was that? >> for the license. >> the grandfathering? >> no, no the dog license that all of our clients would have to have. >> thank you for pointing that out. in the original legislation it required dog walkers to ensure the dogs they were walking were licensed, but there was no

punishment for it because it would be unfair to punish the walkers instead of the owners. but i have changed that to a requirement that once a year the walkers would provide the owners a sheet on the importance of licensing. >> if anyone has any questions? i believe 500 dog walkers is a fairly good estimate. >> thank. >> my name is alison, and i am with the dog walker coalition. we wanted to thank supervisor wiener so much for everything you have done. i don't know if the other walkers understand 40uf6 care he has taken in considering our needs. we really owe him a great debt of gratitude. i just wanted to touch upon any kind of irritation anyone might have with the regulations.

training needs to be mandatory for new dog walkers. a well behaved group reflects well on all of us. we have been condescended two or judged by private owners due to the poor behavior of an unskilled walker. these regulations are going to benefit all of us in the long run. we will be strengthening the integrity of our profession and demanding the same respect that would be given to the skills that our job demands. i want to thank scott for allowing an internship program. classroom is great, but interning with a veteran is extremely valuable for learning the skill needed for dog walking. i wanted to touch on the

numbers. seven is great. eight would be better and this is why. financial reasons certainly. we love in a tough economic time. any of us who have or are trying to start a family. that little bit of extra money comes in handy. if you are planning for retirement. we don't have any 401-k's. we also are dealing with a lot of overhead. some people don't realize that. i personally put $30 to $40 gas in my car every day. i just had a $500 bill from dog hair in one of my fans. we deal with that all the time. they are certainly things that people don't think about that. there is no car that is made for what we do. other reasons are pack cohesivenesses, keeping dogs that work well together.

keeping the older dogs to teach the younger puppies. smaller groups don't allow for that. this is a big deal. to illustrate a point, i have a client who was a doctor. he was called in all day. he called me up and said could you please come and get her. i said absolutely. having eight as the number made the difference for me to go to the house and get her out for the days. thank you for listening. thank you very much for helping bring some respect and validity in what we do. any questions for me? thank you. >> thank you. we will now proceed to public comment. are there cards? if anyone wants to do public

comment and has not filled out a yellow card, please do so. comment will be for two minutes. when you have 30 seconds, you will hear a soft bell. when you have zero seconds left, you will hear a loud bell, and you should finish up. natalie, kathy, crystal. i cannot read your last name. maria taylor, walter and steve. walter, you can go first. >> thank you. how much is a doggie in the window? the one with the baggley tail? how much is that doggie in the window? i do hope i can walk that dog ok y'all.

>> and i know you can walk your dog on the land, the best that you can, walk your dog you can all the doggie fans. what a city plan, to walk the dogs on the land. walk the dog that can the best you can. you walk the doggie. i want you to walk the doing, you can, the best that you can, walk 'em on the city land that you can. what a city plan, and land commission land. walk a doggie you can on the city land ♪

>> thank you, mr. paulson. >> that is tough to follow. i will do the best i can. >> we try to get them warmed up for everyone. >> my name is natalie. i am a dog walker and trainer. my company is called top dog ss. i want to say thank you for all of your help. your feedback as been great, and you are responsive and helpful. thank you. i think it has been an overdue net for a long time in our profession. a couple of things i want to talk about is the number of dogs. i think you can have four really bad dogs or you can have eight great ones. it is in terms of enforcement and regulation. i hear a lot about everybody having a hard time for funding, a.c.c., park and rec and so

forth. i'm not sure about how all this works, but if there is a way we can come up with some kind of alternative for funding to make sure this is enforceable and keeping it going so that it is effective. we want to make sure that it does really stand up, which i think you are doing a really good job up, but it is hard to maintain if there are 500 walkers and x amount of parks that everyone can go to. that is one thing. and also to have some kind of accountability form in terms of not just the website or some kind of way to main -- maintain about who is in charge of doing the apprenticeship program or violating the rules or codes. i am concerned. we are fighting a lot of things with the dgnra. we need to work with them.

again with the training program, there should be some kind of level of expertise in terms of who can be a trainer or in apprenticeship other than just you have been doing it for x number of years. thank you for your time. >> were you advocate fog a particular number? >> as a small business owner, eight would be best. >> thank you. next speaker? >> hi name is kathy chen. i own and operate the rec center. we do a lot of things, but we also have a dog walking arm. i support this legislation. i think this is great and thank you very much for bringing it up to us. we already do a lot of what the legislation is actually requiring. everybody is trained. we all got certified through dog tech, and we limit our dog walking grooms to eight dars. to answer chairman mar's question earlier about pricing,

we price for a group walk for $25 a walk. for a private walk for taking somebody's dog around the block is $35. i acquired this business from someone else. so i have people who are paying down to $15 per walk and all the way up to $25. i would like to see the eight-dog limit. for me, if he average about $20 per dog walk, and i take two groups out per day, that averages out to be about $9,000 a year. that is a lot of money for us considering month to month we are looking at expenses such as -- somebody was saying earlier a brand new vehicle issue or something like that. on average i spend about $500 a month on gas, $400 a month on insurance, which is all the

liability insurance, and then car repair. i budget about $250 a month because we change orbrakes, et cetera, et cetera. and we do a lot of city driving, which is stop and go. i actually have one employee, so i am interested in how this is going to develop with do i license every single employee or do i license the business as a whole and how do we go from there? >> it would be a business license for the business and each watcher would have to have his or her other permit but not their own license if they are working for you. >> thank you. >> next speaker. come on up. >> hi. my name is chris a-t-l. i am an independent contractor. mostly i want to talk about the dog limit. i first want to say that i am all in favor of the legislation of us being regulated. i think that is a good idea.

most people i have talked to think it is a good idea but the limit we really have to consider. i believe this legislation is being put in place to do good. i think what we have to be careful about, though, is running people out of business who are good dog walkers, and who love their jobs, and who want to continue their jobs. i have heard people say oh, you know, six or eight, it doesn't make a difference. but believe me, it does make a difference. one dog could be the difference between $100 a month. and then you take that to a year, you can do the math on that. and for an independent contractor like myself, it is paramount that i be able to take on extra dogs. i usually do anywhere between 5-7 dogs a walk, two groups a day. but a lot of my business come from customers saying can you

take fifi for the week, which may give me like seven dogs for the week. other people may have emergencies and they want me to take an extra dogs. that also means we can't take vacations. if i want to go away a couple of weeks, i ask a couple of our dog walkers, can you talk -- take a couple of my caution? my customers don't want a lot of different people with keys to their house or the codes to their garages and things of that sort. that is also important, i think. but i think it is really that we have to take seriously that most of us dog walkers, most of the people i have talked to have sedate would work for them. it would be hard, but it would work. >> thank you very much. next speaker. >> hello. my name is maria taylor.

i have been a professional dog walker in san francisco for 17 years. thank you so much. this legislation is amazing. i think you for your care and time with it. i personally self limit at six dogs. i support a six-dog limit and would compromise with the seven. one issue i want to bring up. i have watched the big explosion of dog walking in the city in the time i have been doing it, and what i have seen is sometimes dog walkers will kind of normalize -- maybe not necessarily having control over the pack. even though somebody has been doing it quite a while, it doesn't necessarily mean they know what they are doing 100%. some people do. what you have to consider perhaps in addition to -- the end result in getting the licensing, having some sort of test that people have to complete. you say we all have different styles, but we want the same

end result, dogs that are well under control so that we can all be in the same parks with each other, that we are not scaring families, chasing kite boarders and things like that. the result is a well managed pack of dogs. they may have different weighs, but can we have some sort of test that people have to pass, written or something, or having animal care and control to see how they manage the pack, but just so that we have the same end result. i have seen people normalize behavior, and they say well, you lose dogs sometimes. that is not the way i operate. even though somebody has been doing it a long time doesn't necessarily mean they have picked up all the skills necessary. thank you. >> i just want to respond to a question you asked about the testing. one of the goals that i have tried to achieve in the legislation is simplicity. so having basic -- training or

an apprenticeship, although testing would be terrific in terms of administering that for animal care and control. that would be, at least under our current world, not doable, but i very much do appreciate that sentiment. >> thank you. >> next speaker. >> hi. steve hooker, hooker's hounds. like everybody else, thank you, thank you, thank you. i appreciate it as well. however, do have some concerns. i'm a resident since 1976, a home owner since 1991. i have been doing this since 2009. i am a relative newcomer to the business, but not to dogs or walking groups of them. that is what we did when i was a kid. we walked them all over the neighborhood. i am a dog walker, not a sex

offender. why are we going to post our pictures on a website if we miss a poop? don't do that, please. also, people who do what i do contribute greatly to the local economy and provide a vital service. removing our profitablity is a bad idea. i really hope you will go with the eight-dog limit and the personal dog. if you can't find your way to that, the seven-dog limit plus a personal dog would be a step better. $20 is your average. that is twice a day, $20, five days a week, 50 weeks a year. that is $10,000. that is the potential for how much you could lose. we usually run below our maxwell so that we can take on extras to provide that flexibility other people have

talked about. we won't be able to do that. there are a lot of other things we won't be able to do as well. we need a lot of nngs in this industry. we need standards for responsible behavior, education, ability to take a rest or go to the doctor. all dogs identified with a walker's tag and owner's tag so we can get strays back to the people they are with. are we done now? >> yes. thank you. i will note, i don't know if you were here in the beginning, in the amendments, i am proposing one of them that to make it on the website, you have to have a violation three times in a 12-month period. anyone can violate it out of minor injure, and we are trying to get a-- minor negligence, and we are trying to get away from that. >> there are people walking dogs without any identification and other safety issues for the

dogs, like how to properly restrain dogs in cars. they are being tied down in ways not safe. >> thank you. are you mar e.r.a.? >> no. i am julia frank. here is my card. >> let me call mar ya taylor, suzanne emmett to speak after you. go ahead. >> one of the things i wanted to talk about was the vehicles, they said about having to restrain the dogs in the vehicles. i think that can actually be potentially dangerous. it kind of depends on the vehicle and the set-up, but i would find that hard. and that each vehicle needs to be approved. often i have to rent advance or vehicles because somebody's car has broken down. i have my vehicle which they can usually use, but there are occasions where i have to rent a