Bethany Lane, 35 years old, she wore black leggings and a puffer jacket as she walked down Bleecker Street in Manhattan last Friday afternoon. with a pack of three goldendoodles and a bernedoodle named Tinkerbelle. They popped into the Whalebone store for some goodies, before jogging through Hudson River Park and snapping photos with various tourists.
After an hour, Lane led them to a stately semi-detached house owned by a professional couple in their forties. who have done very well in real estate.
“My job is to make dogs happy when their owners are busy.” Explain. “I fall in love with these dogs. They are like my children.”
Lane started walking dogs 11 years ago after graduating from Rutgers University and moving to New York City to pursue a career in public health.
“I had to pay rent and student loans, so I got on Craigslist,” she says. “I saw that someone was going to pay me to walk the dogs. Since I’m an animal lover and obsessed with dogs, it was perfect.”.
Life as a dog walker in New York
When business took off, Lane founded Whistle & Wag in 2014 as a luxury pet grooming service in the West Village. At one point, he was working 12-hour days and was able to pay off his student loans and hire more dog walkers.
Now, nearly three years into the pandemic, it can’t keep up with demand.. After raising his fares (he charged a customer $35 a ride) and taking on dozens of new customers, he thinks he could have made six figures last year.
He’s so confident in business that he bought a weekend home in Tuckerton, New Jersey last summer.. “It’s a three-bedroom house, but it has a nice garden and it’s on the bay,” explains Lane, who rents a two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood with her longtime partner. “I can go to the restaurant I want, when I want. I can go on vacation. I’m very lucky”.
“If I told my younger self that I would take care of dogs for a living,” he adds, “I would never have believed it.”
It’s a lucrative time to be a dog walker, especially for pet entrepreneurs who cater to the wealthy.
Although searches of Rover and other job sites reveal that entry-level dog walkers in Manhattan charge just $14 for a 30-minute walk, experienced dog walkers with wealthy clients earn nearly triple that and make $100,000 or more a year.
Walking dogs – a profitable business
It’s a thriving market for pet sitters. According to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, more than 23 million American households (nearly 1 in 5 nationwide) have had a dog or cat during the pandemic. With many Americans back in the office, someone has to walk all those pandemic puppies.
“Before the pandemic, I was getting a call or two a month from a new prospect,” Lane says. “Now I get several calls a week. That’s a lot of puppies.”
Traditionally, dog walking has attracted those looking for stable employment, but also the flexibility to pursue other passions. It was an attractive job for actors, musicians, writers, students, retireesas well as fathers and mothers who stayed at home and for those who considered what they wanted to do.
The rise of pet owners, coupled with the rise of pet care, has turned dog walking into a businessnot just normal walks, but also more exclusive services for city dogs, such as nature walks, day trips to farms, training camps and dog spas.
Michael Josephs, 34, who worked as a teacher for special needs children in Brooklyn and trained Willy, his Labrador mix, in Prospect Park after school, is among those looking to capitalize on the moment.. “After three months I could ride my bike to the park and the dog would run after me,” she said. “People would see our relationship and ask me if I could train their dog,” she explained.
In 2019, Josephs decided to quit her teaching job to start Parkside Pups, where he charges $20 for a 30-minute group walk. He has about eight clients in a month, works about five hours a day, and earns $30,000 a year.
The pandemic and the rise of pets
Business ground to a halt during the 2020 pandemic lockdowns, but has since recovered. “In 2022, we did very well,” said Josephs, who lives in Middletown, New Jersey.
“Before, we mostly saw customers in downtown Brooklyn or around Prospect Park. We now see dogs in neighborhoods where you didn’t see many before, such as Ditmas Park and Windsor Terrace.”.
Parkside Pups now offers puppy training ($60 per hour), pet sitting ($65 per day), and quick 15-minute visits to puppies ($12) and earned more than $100,000 last year.
Josephs’ wife, Clarissa Soto, helps him run the business, and the couple are considering expanding it into a dog day care center near Prospect Park and an overnight camp in western Connecticut.
“The most important thing for us is that we now have financial security for our child,” says Soto, who gave birth last year. “We have a savings fund created for him, we have a university fund.”
They also have more disposable income. “We just spent six days vacationing with our families at Disney World,” Josephs explains. “We went to Miami. We were in Canandaigua for a wedding and stayed for a couple of days. We can spend freely”.
Source: Clarin
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.