Henrico Small Business Spotlight: Tuckered Out Dog Walking

Austin Tuck has long been enamored by animals of all kinds. Tuckered Out Dog Walking allows her to turn that passion into practice by walking dogs with busy owners as well as dogs in need at the local animal shelter.

Tuck, 31, first started walking dogs as a side hustle in 2013 while she attended the University of Virginia. She continued making time for dog walking even as she began working her 9-to-5 in Richmond upon graduation. For her, it was a much needed escape.

“I found myself rather unhappy when I was in an office sort of environment,” Tuck said. 

Then, the COVID-19 pandemic came and went. And Tuck saw an opportunity to take her love for dog-walking full-time.

“There would be a lot of people who found themselves very suddenly without reliable care for these puppies that they had adopted while they were working from home,” Tuck said. 

Fast forward to 2021, and Tuckered Out Dog Walking became official. Today, the company offers walking services from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. every Monday through Friday and serves most of Richmond city and Henrico County.

Tuckered Out also participates in a program with Richmond Animal Care & Control to give shelter dogs exposure to potential adopters and give them time away from the kennel. That partnership, in particular, is something Tuck wants to highlight for the greater Henrico community.

Tuck gives credit to Josh Rickey, a former dog walking company owner, for setting her up with the tools to help RACC – Richmond's only open-admission public animal shelter. He was coordinating efforts to help the shelter dogs for about a decade before he closed his business and passed the torch to Tuck in March 2024.

Today, Tuckered Out Dog Walking allows you to sponsor an adoptable dog at RACC for the cost of $45 per month or $50 for a one-time donation. That support can come from members within the local community, as well as outside of it.

“What that donation does is it funds a roughly 60-minute outing,” Tuck said. “Our walkers would go to RACC, RACC would let us know which dogs were really struggling or had been there for some time and needed to get away, and we would then grab that dog from the kennel and take them on an outing around town.”

Tuck says the main goal of these trips is to allow for these cooped-up pups to get some one-on-one time and decompress. The other goal is to give these adoptable dogs public exposure.

“When someone's looking to adopt a dog and you show up at the shelter, you're not really necessarily seeing that dog's full personality come to light because they might be stressed inside of that kennel or they might be overstimulated because it's incredibly loud or there's a bunch of dogs and so you don't really get to meet with them one-on-one,” Tuck said. “So when we take them on these outings, it's an opportunity for people to see what these dogs are actually going to be like in the real world.”

Nearly all dogs adopted within three months

So far, Tuckered Out Dog Walking has completed more than 330 outings. And Tuck says “about 98 percent of those [dogs] get adopted within 90 days.” Isabel Adkins, the shelter supervisor for RACC, says Tuck’s efforts have made “a huge difference.”

“Richmond Animal Care & Control is incredibly thankful for our partnership with Tuckered Out Dog Walking and the community members who sponsor these outings for our adoptable dogs,” Adkins said. “These adventures provide our shelter dogs with exercise, enrichment and a break from the shelter environment, helping them return happier and more relaxed. 

“The photos and stories shared afterward also help showcase their personalities and connect them with potential adopters. We’ve had many people come to the shelter and mention seeing the posts of our dogs out on outings.”

As far as the company’s standard services go, Tuckered Out Dog Walking focuses on – you guessed it – dog walks.

For starters, there’s the classic dog walk, which typically means a walk through a client’s neighborhood with their four-legged friend. Then, there are field trips. This service usually involves a car ride with the walker to new locations like Pony Pasture, Hollywood Cemetery or Swan Lake for some added fun. The third option under the dog walking umbrella is called enrichment visits.

“Maybe they are a brand new puppy and they're not fully vaccinated yet and their vet has advised that they don't stray too far from home. . . or they have an old dog who is dealing with some medical things and is unable to walk, or they just have a dog that doesn't really like going on walks and they want to play fetch in the yard instead,” Tuck said. “That's what the enrichment visits are.”

There also are “specialty packages” to choose from if your dog has specific needs that go beyond a single daily walk. The packages include offerings like puppy socialization, working dog adventure and senior comfort care.

But before accepting new dogs for any services, Tuck makes sure to do a meet and greet. That’s because Tuckered Out Dog Walking operates using a team-based approach. In other words, they don’t assign one walker to one dog.

“We send somebody into the house to meet the client and the dog, and I'm partially gauging how the dog is going to be receptive to this new individual coming into their own turf,” Tuck said. “If there's any kind of protective instinct or any kind of fear or anxiety that is displayed there that might be an indication that we should be referring them to a company that can promise the same walker every single time.”

To schedule that meet and greet, book an appointment on the Tuckered Out Dog Walking website. If all goes well and the dog seems like a good fit, Tuckered Out Dog Walking will create a profile for the pet and show the dog owner how they can book and manage future walks in the Time To Pet app.

Making a positive impact on people and pets alike

The Tuckered Out team shares in the care of all the dogs on the client list, in part, to accommodate for day-of bookings on which a walker can arrive in as little as two hours. To qualify for the last-minute bookings, Tuck just asks that owners book a walk at least once a month so they can keep up with the dog’s needs and make sure the dog stays comfortable with walkers.

“It is like a first-come, first-serve basis, so most of our folks do book us on some kind of recurring schedule,” Tuck said. “But if they had something come up, they had a meeting that ran long at work, they would have an opportunity to put in another walk request for that day.”

And though Tuckered Out Dog Walking does not offer dog training, you can also visit the company’s website to learn more about their partnership with an online dog training library.

A thread that runs through all of Tuck’s services is a steadfast belief in “fear free” principles, which were created to prevent and alleviate fear, anxiety and stress in pets. Austin, a Fear Free Certified Professional, herself, has engrained this ideology into her practice because she says creating a comfortable space for a dog makes them more cooperative and keeps everyone safer.

“We follow the dog at their pace,” Tuck explains. “The tasks that we do with them and the direction of the walk that we take and the speed that we're going is all based on what the dog wants and what the dog is comfortable with – within reason, of course.”

The overall mission of Tuckered Out Dog Walking is to make a positive impact on pets and their owners. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community running a woman-owned business, Tuck wants to make all animals and humans get the respect they deserve.

“I want everyone – staff, clients, the whole nine – to feel like they matter as an individual, that they have a safe space to be who they are,” Tuck said. “At the end of the day, we're here to just make lives better for not only the dogs, but the people who care for them, whether that's just, you know, a quick sort of walk around the block or introducing their dog to new adventures at a park. We just want to be part of the pets' lives and make the people who care for them feel like they matter.”

Head to the Tuckered Out Dog Walking website, Instagram page or Facebook page if you’re curious to learn more about services, inquire about job openings or support the company's partnership with RACC – the latter being paramount for Tuck.

“I really just want to spread the word about this program because even if you know you aren't able to sponsor a walk, just making sure that folks are aware of this program really does help us keep it going,” Tuck said. “It is fully funded through the community, and it's the support of the community members – whether that's sharing our posts on Instagram or telling their friends about it or actually sponsoring a walk – that helps.”

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