A South Tampa couple is accusing a dog walker they hired of simply not walking their dogs. In security video inside of the couple's home, the dog walker is seen walking inside, turning off the alarm, writing on a dry-erase board, pulling leashes out of a drawer, setting the leashes on the counter, setting the alarm, then leaving without ever letting the dogs outside.
Shelly Scamardo and her husband have two rescue Yorkies. She and her husband work during the day, so they hired a walker to take the dogs outside about 8 months ago.
"Once a day, around lunch time." Scamardo said.
For the first few months, she says the dogs had very few accidents inside. That changed about 5 months ago. So, the couple set up a camera to see what the dogs were doing during the day.
"We didn't even think that there was a possibility that she wasn't walking our dogs," she said about the hired walker.
But in the video, it appears that's exactly what happened.
"And we saw her do that each day," she said.
Scamardo says her husband confronted the walker about the video, that's when the hired help admitted to not walking the dogs.
We are not identifying the walker, who owns and operates her own business, because she has not been charged with a crime. But we did go to her home to ask her about the allegations.
"Okay, I don't want to talk about that," the dog walker said, telling us she has an attorney before she closed the front door.
Scamardo says they want to warn others about this type of behavior. They suggest requesting activity logs, daily pictures, and setting up security cameras to make sure your dog walker is actually doing what they're being paid for.
"We feel really taken advantage of," Scamardo said.
