Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
This is quite an enjoyable book. My dream job would be a dog walker. The variety of dogs and their mostly bizarre humans makes for a laugh out loud book. The author's mom seems a bit over dominant but she was pretty funny. (She wouldn't like that I don't own a gravy boat either!) And the author's husband is slower to warm up to the idea of being dog parents but deep down you can tell he loves his dog.

This isn't my typical genre, but I LOVED this book. I think this is such a lovely memoir and it was such a great idea to start a dog- walk agency in her 20s. I also loved learning about the author and her life. I must admit I am a dog lover so I may also be a tad bias.

Read if you: Want an entertaining read about a professional dog walker.

This is a collection of amusing anecdotes about the various dogs MacDougall walked as a professional dog walker in London. There's nothing particularly dramatic or upsetting in this memoir, so read it if you want a fun read with a bunch of dogs.

Librarians/booksellers: Purchase if animal-related memoirs are popular.

Many thanks to William Morrow/Custom House and NetGalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Having been a professional petcare/dogwalker for several years not so long ago, I thought this might be a fun read but ultimately decided that wasn't good enough to keep me reading past 25%. The book wasn't bad but it never gained enough traction for me to stay interested. However, if you are intrigued by a young, clueless adult attempting to be self employed at a job they have no natural aptitude for, give it a try. I found the primary character quite annoying (intentional?). Another DNF despite a promising summary.

London’s Number One Dogwalking Agency: A Memoir

When Kate Macdougall’s latest and last costly mistake as a London auction house employee results in termination, she decides that a lifelong affection for canines is sufficient justification for setting up as an urban dog-walker—despite the fact that she hasn’t had a pet dog since childhood. So begins this delightfully witty and utterly immersive memoir of the travails and the joys in her quest for personal fulfillment and monetary sustenance.

In 2006, when she starts her business, dog-walking wasn’t actually a profession, a fact her divorcee mother will constantly point out. Alternating from certitude, ignorance, bravado, and doubt, Kate cobbles together a collection of clients even more idiosyncratic, demanding, and eccentric than their pampered pets. Her most sterling and useful characteristic is the ability understand of dogs as a species and as individuals with unique needs for exercise, companionship, discipline, and diet. Her fond acceptance of their habits, quirks, phobias, and preferences enables her to match them with appropriate members of her own staff, each of whom also presents certain eccentricities that must be coped with or dealt with.

An added complication is the dog owners, who in the main prove more difficult to handle than their precious but often neglected pets. Here, too, Kate eventually excels, through trial and error, resignation and resolve, keeping in mind the needs of the animal each time she confronts the difficult, demanding, and judgmental humans connected to them. Alert to class indicators, within her own broken family and those of her clients—the comfortable, the classy, the creepy—she not only matures, but earns insight into her own neediness and hopes for the future. She and her employees gamely navigate the city’s challenging geography and the intricacies of transportation logistics as her clientele expands. But just as her reputation seems assured, the financial collapse of 2009 and ensuing recession threaten her small measure of success with corporate ex-pat Americans and Londoners who abruptly decide that a dog walker is a luxury too far in hard times. It is then, amidst all the stress and panic, that her canine-averse fiancé suggests getting a dog of their own, an adventure in itself, and a first true test of their solidity as a couple and their readiness for marriage, parenthood, and an inevitable search for the ideal location in which to live.

This is a memoir about dogs—endearing and memorable and challenging ones—but it’s also very much about humans. How they relate to their pets and other people, their ease or difficulty in doing the right thing for themselves and their animals, how their good traits and bad ones are revealed through their interactions with the dogs and the dog-walkers. Not only is it beautifully, cleverly written, ultimately it is deeply moving memoir of a flawed, funny, and determined young woman's ability to overcome difficulty of many kinds, and in the process discover her true identity and purpose.. (William Morrow, hardcover/ebook/audiobook, 6 July, 2021)

I'm a sucker for a good memoir, and some of the best aren't from celebrities or well-known individuals. That's absolutely the case for this one by Kate MacDougall. Reading this felt like I was sitting and chatting, just catching up with an old friend. I related to Kate in so many ways career-wise, also coming from an art history background and finding the sector lackluster, often just wanting to do something with my life I actually enjoyed and gave back a bit to my community. As a lover of London, I appreciated seeing the city from a dogs-eye view and loved the setup of each chapter through different dogs.