Palstride

I’ve been a Palstride customer for several months, and they are a great company. Julia is a total gem and is the key to keeping customers like me happy. She’s always responsive and gets what I need ASAP. Milo, the owner’s husband totally cares about your pet and if you get him as your walker, you’re golden. Four stars here because I have experienced the dog walker turnover every few months, and it’s an adjustment trusting a stranger in your house that you haven’t met (or pay the extra fee for the meet and greet).

I’m so overdue on this review.
This is by far the best dog walking company I’ve had to date. From the professionalism to the dog walkers and the ease of arranging my dog walks.
I’ve been with Palstride for about 9 months and i haven’t had not one bad experience.
One particular time stood out. I was doing a lot of travel over the summer and i arranged one walk on Friday and one on Sunday. Me knowing that i was out of town, i called my dog walker and the company and they accommodated my Saturday request, with no problems.
They also leave daily notes and a GPS tracker, everyone knows their dog so when i get a note saying oh she just wanted to sit out side and take in the sun or it rained outside she wasn’t up for walking. I knew that was my dog. I appreciate the interest they show in my dog as I feel safe when i am away.
I recommend Palstride for your dog walking needs.
If it helps I lived in Kingstowne.

I have had an outstanding experience with Palstride over the past 4 months. They have really helped make being a new rescue doggie mama much easier — first dog for me. I love that they daily leave notes with updates and the GPS tracker is great too. While we have had several different walkers they have all been extremely reliable and seem to really care about my puppy. Julia who answers the phone and also does the scheduling has been OUTSTANDING and I have found their business practices to be sound and reasonable so far. Thanks to all of you — highly recommend.

Palstride had been a life saver for us the past 4 years. Very professional. It’s obvious the owner, employees and walkers/​sitters are pet lovers. We feel confident and secure whenever we away working and on travel.

Take your business elsewhere! As evidenced by other reviews over the past few months, there has been a sad trend with this business: initial mostly positive interactions, followed by very poorly managed last-​minute personnel changes and extremely poor customer service.
My fiancé and I found Palstride on Unilocal several months ago, and were set up with someone to stay in our home and care for our pets. We paid $ 14 to meet this person, do an initial walk-​through, and provided two sets of keys as required in their terms of service. When we returned from our trip, we were greeted by two happy pets, though our pet-​sitter had left his garbage strewn about our house.
Upon our return, we decided to book this same person again for a trip a few months later. One week before we were scheduled to travel, Palstride informed us that our original person was no longer able to take care of our pets, and that they thought they might be able to find someone else to come for 8 hours a day instead of our originally booked 12. On top of that, Palstride immediately issued an electronic invoice for $ 14 (without mentioning this charge on the phone) when we asked to meet the replacement — a replacement that was the result of Palstride’s scheduling, not our request.
At this point, we chose to sever ties with Palstride, and have taken our business elsewhere. When requesting our keys back, Palstride emailed to say our keys would be mailed for a cost of $ 12. We didn’t want keys to our house sitting in our mailbox, so we requested to pick them up ourselves, but Palstride oddly stated that we are not allowed to pick them up. Instead, they had the original pet sitter drop off one set of keys — Palstride is either still in possession of our second set of keys or has lost them, but refuses to acknowledge that they have or had them. After multiple calls and emails, we finally received an inappropriate, rude email stating that «if you think hard, I’m sure you’ll realize that they (the second set of keys) were never given to us.» The attitude conveyed in this email displayed a complete lack of respect, and we will be filing a claim against this company for withholding (or losing) our property.
The Palstride employee monitoring Unilocal reviews will most certainly comment that the company doesn’t have a customer by my name — let me preemptively state that this is just a user handle and not my actual name.

I will say, the owner ended up contacting us and apologized for everything we had to deal with. We are disappointed this partnership did not work out for us.

I normally don’t write these reviews unless I had an extraordinary experience or a terrible experience and want to warn others to beware. Today I’m writing this review as a concerned dog owner about the horrible experience I encountered not once, but multiple times.
My experience with Palstride started of very well, I met with a dog walker to make sure that my dog was a right fit for them. Everything checked out, we ready to start scheduling appointments for dog walking services. Scheduling appointments is very easy you go online and register for the dates/​times you’d like, (if you book less than 24 hours you get charged extra). Again everything started great, we booked appointments, the dog walker came left notes about how the walk went, great.
Fast forward a month or two later, we come home one day to discover our dog went without getting walked. We were livid, no one from Palstride called to let us know that the dog walker wasn’t coming that day, had we known we would have made other arrangements. We expressed our concerns to management at palstride they apologized and the only reason they gave for the no-​show was that they had one of their dog walker quit suddenly (I guess, fair enough can’t control people just quitting). Personally, I didn’t think this was a good excuse, I think they should have sent someone else or at least called us, but nothing, instead our dog suffered.
We decided to give them another shot. Big mistake. Again, something else came up with Palstride and our dog again went without being walked and suffered. I honestly don’t even remember the reason they gave, I was so upset with them that this happened AGAIN, not a week after the last incident. We decided to give them one last chance, just because palstride was convenient for us and we didn’t have time to find someone else.
For the next couple of weeks, things were fine. We kept getting different dog walkers, but no big issues. Then finally early this week, we were convinced that our dog went without being walked. The manager insisted that they did come via GPS, but we are not convinced. Our dog was very anxious to go outside that day, way above his normal (and not to mention pee’d alot when he finally got out). We expressed our concern and the next day and simply asked that someone call us just to confirm the dog walker came, I was told this would happen. It never did, they couldn’t even give a courtesy call to us. That was the last straw, we terminated our service with palstride. Looking at other reviews on Unilocal,I can see I’m not alone in this happening. I strongly urge any pet owner to think twice before using their service, I don’t want to see anyone go through the same experience that we did.
Honestly, words cannot even express how upset I am with this company. As someone who also works in retail/​customer service, I am outraged by the lack of customer excellence. I sincerely hope the owner sees my comment and works to improve their company to bring it to the level of service it should be giving to their customers.
***UPDATE***
I increased my star rating for prompt response from the owner of the company and for taking time to explain to me what happened during our time with Palstride. It seems Palstride is going through a bit of a rough patch (at least for Maryland customers), I can’t bring myself to recommend them due to the issues I experienced, but would consider using them in the future if I hear that these issues have resolved.

These people have terrible business practices. I did everything per their request (filling out forms online, etc.) and scheduled a consultation (which they charge for). The morning of the consultation I canceled via email because of my work schedule. I got a call from the dog walker the night of and she wanted to «confirm» our meeting and I said I had canceled with Julia because of my work schedule. She said not a problem and the conversation was done. I spoke with Julia who said she hadn’t checked her email and apologized for the «mix up» and said I wouldn’t be charged. A few months later I requested two walks on a weekend using their online portal. It took them nearly a week to let me know they couldn’t do it because it was pet sitting. No, it’s dog walking. Well on the weekends it’s called pet sitting. It’s insane that it took them nearly a week to respond and that if they were booked it wasn’t told to me sooner. I also noticed they charged my credit card and when I spoke with Julia afterward she said I never canceled and the dog walker showed so I needed to pay. They told me they’d check with the owner and get back to me. That was a month ago. Maybe these guys are great with pets but their business practices suck and I wouldn’t use this company.
Update — Responding to the company’s reply. I don’t have my real name on here because I’ve found business to be vengeful but my name is Stephanie W. and I live in North Potomac, but when I put in the zip code it automatically comes up as Gaithersburg since they share a zip code. Nice to know you respond to reviews but not customer emails. And if you message me your email I’ll forward you every email exchange I had with your company.

Palstride was GREAT! My brother usually dog sits for me, but when I found out at the last minute there was a change of plans and he couldn’t watch my pups while we went out of town for the weekend I was freaked. Enter Palstride. They really saved the day! I called their office and did the remaining transactions and instructions through their website. It was a breeze and Caitlin was a saint! She even texted pics of my pups to me per my request to help ease my mind and kept a daily journal of all her visits. She also gave our cats attention even though we didn’t sign them up for services (we were only gone a couple days and they are, well, cats). I will definitely be using Palstride in the future when I need a petsitter in a pinch!

We began using Palstride to care for our cats last year; first impression was great. Owner of company personally cared for our kids while we were away and did a magnificent job. Several months later we submitted a request for a return visit, but was informed that owner will no longer provide service to us. We were provided a new sitter.
First day into the routine our security cameras gave no indication of the new sitter showing up within the allotted time frame they were contractually obligated to service us. We immediately contacted main office and spoke to the representative, same representative that all email correspondences and phone calls are received from. Representative was confused and had no answer as to why sitter had not shown; she promised to return a call with an explanation after further investigation. After 15 minutes of waiting we could not wait any longer and called representative, where she spent the next 5 minutes apologizing and conjuring up a strange excuse. Sitter finally showed and service was complete for days we requested.
Fast forward 6 months later and notification was given to same representative about our interest in their service once again. This time they were providing another new sitter; I emailed my grief over the constant rotation of new sitters but failed to receive a response. It’s a nice feeling to have the same person providing the service, rather than a handful going through your home. We were promised a return call to set up dates and time for meet and greet before we left town. During this exchange representative would fail to return phone calls or emails in a timely manner; soon it became but mere days before our departure and we had yet to hear back from this company after a month of waiting. We finally made contact with representative who completely forgot of our plans to meet new sitter or any other arrangement stating they had lost their phone.
Instructions were immediately given to cancel our membership and request for our key to be returned. Days went by without a response until I called and made a verbal threat on a voicemail that we would contact local authorities if our property was not returned. This triggered the representative to finally call me back and promised to acquire the key herself and return it under our mat by Sunday evening. I asked why her office did not have possession of our key and she explained that for some reason the key is locked in a car, inside an auto body shop receiving service miles from our home. Representative had no explanation as to why our key was not placed in a lock box since we have not used their service for 6 months, rather, located inside the last sitter’s vehicle being driven around town? She stated that this is the reason for the delay on the return of the key. The rep placed blame on the sitter for not dropping off our key; stating she gave orders to the sitter to return the key to our property, rather than doing it herself as promised.
We became exhausted listening to the constant excuses and apologies from this company; to the point even the company started apologizing for all the excuses and apologies they continued to provide.
I highly recommend not using this company! They know exactly who we are!

I am very new to using Palstride services but so far I am very happy. We have recently started using their monthly dog walking service twice a week. I have found their computer system to be very easy to use and access, Julia has been very helpful and responsive in all communications, and I am very happy with our dog walker, Nobel. He seems to really enjoy the dogs and leaves good notes. I will up-​date this review when I have been using the service longer but so far they are great!

Palstride will be my trusted pet-​sitter from here on out! We received an in-​person consultation before engaging Palstride the first time, during which they clearly explained their services and enthusiastically got to know our cats and their needs (where’s the food? which toys do they like? where do we toss the litter? which blinds should be opened each morning? etc). After each of our engagements, we came home to find a diary containing detailed notes on each of the (3x daily) visits they made to our home, including what activities they carried out and how the cats were behaving. At my request, I also got a mid-​trip report (with adorable pictures of the kitties) via email which was reassuring and a charming way to keep in touch.
I appreciate their reasonable rates, the thoroughness of their service, and the Palstride staffs’ obvious affection for the pets under their care.
Finally, although the Unilocal profile specifies «Manassas» as the location, Palstride’s staff are entirely capable of handling a location in downtown DC. FIVE STARS.

Luv luv the folks of Palstride. Very accommodating and reasonably priced. They take great care of my four legged kidz. Website is easy. Very responsive to emails and phone calls. Lockout reassurance its also a nice feature. Can administer meds and shots.

Inga and her crew at Tickled Paws are professional, responsive, caring, loving, thorough, and reasonably priced — what more could you ask for in a pet sitter?
We were going on vacation and needed someone to come in to feed our cats/​scoop their litter/​water the plants/​bring in the mail. I followed a craigslist ad to the Tickled Paws website and e-​mailed them with the dates and details of the services we needed. Inga responded within a day or so and we scheduled a free introductory session to discuss every aspect of what we needed, where things were kept, what the cats were like, etc. I appreciated that this introductory session was free because many places charge for this. I was prepared to pay if necessary, but it didn’t make sense to me. I was impressed that Tickled Paws gets that this is essentially my interview of them, not a service they are providing me.
Inga was a pleasure to work with. At our intro meeting she brought a new client packet with any info I would want. She thoroughly explained their procedures and took the time to learn everything she could about my cats, our apartment, and what we wanted done. Both prior to and during the intro meeting she clearly explained their rates, etc. and was honest with the length of session that would be necessary to get done what we needed done. She gave us a new client discount and the total I ended up paying was less than I had anticipated by a significant percentage.
After the intro meeting, Inga sent me a .pdf of the signed service agreement and log in info for my client profile on their website. She responded quickly to the e-​mails I sent her with some last-​minute details and sent a follow up e-​mail after the first day to let me know how it had gone. When I got home, the place was clean, the cats were contented and well-​fed, and there was even a log on the table detailing what she’d done at each visit, whether she’d visited with the cats, etc.
Most importantly, at every stage of the process, I felt that Inga genuinely cared for my cats. She payed attention to what I told her about them, she tried to make friends with even my very shy cat, and seemed genuinely overjoyed at making progress with them. I’m definitely not the type of person who thinks of her pets as children, but it really was comforting to feel implicitly that the cats were being cared for with the sense of affection and duty I’d use myself.
After having been disappointed with the quality and price of service from similar pet care organizations in both DC and Virginia, I was so grateful for Inga and Tickled Paws. We’ll definitely use them again.