Learning Hub · Policies
Dog Walking Unavailable Dates
What does this policy do?
Block the dates when you do not walk at all — Christmas Day, a holiday, a day off. A blocked date is greyed out on the walking calendars, yours and your clients', so it cannot be picked for a group walk, a solo walk or a test walk. Walks already booked on that date stay as they are. This list is for walking only: your Closed Dates for boarding and daycare do not touch the walking calendar, and this list does not close a Meet & Greet. The dates count while the switch at the top of the policy is on; with it off, no walk is refused.
How it works
Click a date to block it
Move through the months with the arrows. Click a date to block it; click it again to unblock. Dates that have passed cannot be clicked. The line under the calendar counts how many dates are blocked.
Switch on, then save
The switch at the top turns the list on or off. Save Unavailable Dates writes both the switch and the dates. With the switch off the dates are kept, no request is refused and the booking calendars ignore the list; only the Daybook's Edit Booking date picker still greys the listed dates out. The card's line then reads "Inactive — no dates blocked".
What the client sees
On the walking and test walk calendars a blocked date is faded and cannot be selected. The same happens when a client edits a walk or a test walk and picks another date.
The server checks a new request
A new walk or test walk request from a client that still names a blocked date is refused, and the client is told "Dog walking is unavailable on the following date(s): …". A booking you create yourself as admin is not refused by this policy, on any plan — that is the admin override. Your own calendars grey the date out all the same, so you will not pick it by accident.
Repeat bookings skip the date
When a repeat walking template is filled — at its first fill, when you generate a month by hand, and in the monthly automatic fill — a blocked date is left out and the rest of the month is still made. The fill also leaves out your Closed Dates for walks, even though the walking calendar does not show them.
Gaia knows the dates
Gaia reads this list. Asked in the app by you, a team member or a client, she answers "no walks on …" with the upcoming blocked dates. With the switch off she treats the policy as switched off and does not quote the dates. With Branding, and "Website assistant may answer policy questions" on under General, the assistant on your website reads the same lines. A save reaches her straight away, or within two minutes.
Your team
A walker's screens do not read this list; Gaia is the only place a team member meets it. A blocked date gets no new client walks; what was booked before stays in the Daybook. Days of the week you never walk are not set here — they are the walkers' working days in the Dog Walking Scheduler.
Who sees this policy
It sits in the Dog Walking group, shown when your plan sells walking: Starter, Walker and Pro, or Sitter and Boarder with the walking add-on. Only an admin can save it.
The rest of walking
The Dog Walking group also holds the Scheduler (walkers, slots, capacity, solo walks), the Extra Walk for full days, the walking Cancellation, Sickness and Retainer policies (Retainer is not on Starter), Extreme Weather, Key Holding & Access, Incident & Emergency, and the Dog Walking Agreement Sections.
Tips
Block Christmas and your days off as soon as you know them — a date can be booked right up to the moment it is blocked.
Blocking a date does not cancel the walks already on it. Deal with those yourself from Bookings.
A full day is a different thing. On a plan that sells capacity — Walker, Pro, or walking by add-on, not Starter — a day with no room closes by itself when the Scheduler's capacity is on, and may offer the Extra Walk. A date blocked here is closed whatever the capacity and never offers the Extra Walk.
Dates that have passed stay in the list and in the count on the card. They do no harm, but you cannot click them away.
The list is kept while the switch is off, so you can prepare next year's dates and switch them on later.
Check the list the first time you open it. Walking set up from the platform's walking template — the setup wizard, or the Dog Walking add-on — can create this policy for you, switch and dates included.
Learning Hub • Dog Walking Unavailable Dates