Dog Walking Robot: Leashes, Robot Dogs and ABB

A dog walking robot is still mostly a patent or prototype. See the history of dog walkers, Kawasaki's robot dog of 2026 and what ABB robots could add.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

10/19/20265 min read

A dog walking robot is still mostly an idea, and this post says so up front. Robot dogs exist, and in October 2026 Kawasaki Heavy showed one, but it is a companion for older people, not a walker. For walking itself there are patents, student prototypes and a few quadrupeds. This post follows dog walking from the first paid walkers and dog-powered treadmills to today's robot dogs. It then asks what ABB's arms and mobile robots could contribute and where the real problems of safety and trust lie.

Small groups of people and dogs on a snowy hillside with a city skyline behind
Small groups of people and dogs on a snowy hillside with a city skyline behind

Dog walkers with several dogs on a hillside above Calgary, 2011. Photo: JMacPherson / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

How people walked and exercised dogs before robots

For most of history, an owner or a servant walked the dog. Paid dog walking came late. Jim Buck is believed to have started the first professional dog walking service in the United States, in New York City in 1960, and he died in 2013 at 81. Cities then added rules. San Francisco, for example, requires walkers to be licensed, limits them to eight dogs, caps leashes at 2.4 m (8 ft) and requires liability insurance. A walker is paid to manage leashes, traffic and other dogs as much as to supply the exercise.

A man in a coat holds leashes for six dogs on a wet path in Central Park
A man in a coat holds leashes for six dogs on a wet path in Central Park

Jim Buck walks six dogs in New York's Central Park in 1964, four years after he started his dog walking service. Photo: Neal Boenzi / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Early machines for dogs made the dog work instead of exercising it. The Smithsonian holds an 1878 patent model for a dog-powered treadmill, and a dog-powered butter churn was made in New York in 1881. Exercise treadmills for dogs came later. A Gizmodo item points to a 1930 Los Angeles dog show, though we could not verify it, and by 2008 a Utah firm, PetZen, was selling the DogTred for $499. A treadmill covers the exercise but leaves out the outdoors, which is the part many owners want.

A spaniel in a bright life vest swimming while a handler holds it in a pool
A spaniel in a bright life vest swimming while a handler holds it in a pool

A dog in a life vest on an underwater treadmill, a modern exercise machine for dogs. Photo: MAJic2288 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Before any quadruped could walk a dog, someone tried wheels. A 2005 University of Florida student report describes a three-wheeled prototype meant to take a dog around the block and bring it home without help. It used color sensing to keep the dog on the sidewalk and pulled it back from grass, obstacles and other dogs. A Toyota patent reported by Motor1 describes a similar leash-attached vehicle. Its leash extends and retracts, a distance sensor keeps it from running over the dog, it can follow a preset route, and it stops when the dog pulls hard.

A man in a yellow shirt walks a group of dogs on leashes along a city street
A man in a yellow shirt walks a group of dogs on leashes along a city street

A dog walker leads several dogs along a street in Mumbai, 2026. Photo: Rudolph.A.Furtado / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Robot dogs in 2026 and what ABB brings to the walk

The October 2026 news is about robot dogs, not walkers. On 6 October Kawasaki Heavy showed a prototype dog-shaped social robot called Home LEO at a business briefing in Tokyo and said it targets a launch in fiscal 2028. It talks with older people and fetches items on command (the demo retrieved a smartphone). It is meant to alert family or nursing staff after a fall or a fire hazard. It is about 640 mm long and 675 mm tall. Nothing reported says it can walk a dog or be walked, and no price has been named.

A small white robot dog beside a charging mat
A small white robot dog beside a charging mat

Sony's aibo robot dog next to its charging mat. Photo: Aniol / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Other robot dogs are further along as tools. Unitree's Go2 quadruped has been used by the Romanian mountain rescue service Salvamont, and Unitree robot dogs appeared at the Japan Mobility Show in 2025. These machines are built to walk, but we found nobody selling one to walk a pet. A robot that leads a real dog has to read the leash, judge the dog's mood and avoid being treated as prey or a rival, which today's quadrupeds were not designed to do. For the guide role, see our post on robot guide dogs.

A small four legged Unitree robot standing on a floor
A small four legged Unitree robot standing on a floor

A Unitree Go2 quadruped robot used by the Romanian mountain rescue service Salvamont, 2025. Photo: HotNews Romania / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

ABB does not make legged robots or walkers, and no ABB dog walking project exists. Its relevant skills lie elsewhere. The Flexley Mover P603 and P604 mobile robots navigate with 3D Visual SLAM, a camera method for mapping the space around them. The GoFa cobot stops when it feels contact, and ABB's SafeMove software monitors the speed and position of its arms. Those ideas could carry over to a robot that tows a lead, though a street is far less controlled than a plant. ABB's more likely role is in making such robots, with arm cells that could weld, screw and test them.

An ABB Flexley Mover mobile robot in a showroom
An ABB Flexley Mover mobile robot in a showroom

The ABB Flexley Mover P604, which navigates with 3D Visual SLAM. Photo: ABB

What dog walking robots still have to prove

The first hurdle is the leash. A dog can lunge, stop or wrap the line around a lamp post, so the robot has to measure tension and react in fractions of a second. The Toyota patent's stop-when-pulled mode and the Florida prototype's pull-back both point at that need. Cameras must also tell a dog from a cat, a child and a bicycle. Teams would test those cases in simulation before any real dog is involved, using tools like RobotStudio for the arm side of the work.

A yellow four legged Spot robot standing on a stage
A yellow four legged Spot robot standing on a stage

A Boston Dynamics Spot quadruped robot on display in Milan, 2022. Photo: Saggittarius A / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The benefit is mostly human. A 2011 Michigan State University study found that dog walkers were 34% more likely to meet the benchmark of 150 minutes of activity a week. A robot that replaces the walk would remove the thing that keeps owners moving. That is why the likelier home products are the ones in our robot pets post: companions that play, watch and call for help while the owner still holds the leash.

Two people walking a brown dog on a leash in front of a large fountain
Two people walking a brown dog on a leash in front of a large fountain

A couple walks their dog on a leash past Buckingham Fountain in Chicago. Photo: Marmstrong21 / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Liability and trust are open questions. Cities license human walkers and cap the number of dogs, and we found no city rules for a robot with a lead in its hand. A dog bite, a crossing accident or a stolen robot would raise questions that owners, makers and insurers have not settled. For factories the path is steadier: the same arms and mobile robots that already build appliances could build robot dogs, and the first useful walker may be a person with a robot beside them.

Several ABB GoFa cobot arms of different sizes
Several ABB GoFa cobot arms of different sizes

ABB's GoFa cobot family, arms sized for work next to people. Photo: ABB

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