How to Become a Dog Walker: Not Your Typical Walk in the Park

Two dogs are going in completely opposite directions, and there's somebody coming down the street, and you can't pull them in because they don't want to.
You know, you're dealing with somebody that's gonna get mad coming at it.
Hi, I'm Ravozeri, and welcome back to How Much Can I Make?
The space where we talk all about jobs.
For all the dog lovers, I'm here with Barry.
Barry is actually an artist, and I haven't seen him in years.
And then when I started with the podcast, I called him and I said, Barry, I need you.
I need to interview you about dog walking.
So that is a great gig I know from a few people.
Let's dive right in and find out how much money you can make and what is the job all about.
I'm excited about it.
So, first of all, Barry, thanks a million.
You're welcome.
After all those years that you just immediately agreed to do that.
So tell us how did you become a dog walker?
I didn't know what I was gonna do when I came back to the city.
I needed to have a gig.
Actually, by that time, I think I had formed the idea that I would do that.
Did somebody give you that idea?
No, nobody gave me the idea.
I knew all I knew a lot of the dog walkers from having a dog of my own and taking my dogs to Washington Square Park, and then I also knew a dog trainer who gave me my first shh, I think she gave me my first job, which was to pick up a dog.
She was doing all the training for the Broadway show.
Dog training for Broadway show?
Yeah.
The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime.
Oh so every four weeks they had to switch out the puppy that was in the show.
The puppy only came on at the very end of the show.
We would pick them up at eight weeks, and they would be out of the show by twelve weeks.
So each dog would be there for just four weeks?
And then a member of the cast or the crew or somebody would adopt that dog.
And they were always golden retrievers or labs, and I would pick up the puppies at a breeder, usually in Pennsylvania.
The first job we had to go to the airport.
The G dog was coming from Ohio.
Oh, wow.
And then I had also sent out a couple emails to people that I knew had dogs from the neighborhood I lived in previously, which was West 10th Street.
Immediately got a response.
That was the way I got to clients, was through people I already knew.
The dog trainer became a client.
The few people that I emailed became clients, and through another dog walker, she gets jobs from all over the place.
Within a year, I was definitely working hard.
Wow.
It looks easy from the outside.
It's not easy at all.
Well, what is the challenge?
The challenge is that you're walking you're walking all the time, you're learning all the time, you think you know a lot.
You think it's just like leashing up the dog and taking it out for a walk, but there's a lot more of the ends up dealing with other dogs in the street, dealing with people in the street, dealing with obstacles, all different things.
How how many the health of the dog?
You know, you just learn all this stuff about animals.
You thought luckily I had had one of my own, so I knew some things, but not nearly what I know now.
Why?
Because you you pick up and you deal with different breeds, or yeah, you learn about different breeds.
You just learn that every dog is different.
Every dog has a completely different personality.
Each dog can react different ways in different situations.
So how do you handle it before you get to know the dog?
You take the dog for the first time.
I usually take it on a test walk, but that's not always how they're gonna act going forward.
Right.
I mean, I was I was basically lucky, I got great dogs right away.
But when you say you take for a test.
And I got after three years, I got these two that I man I got the first one that they they got a lab first, and the two of us just bonded immediately.
And that's my main client.
I manage everything.
I manage the health, I manage the everything.
Order the food.
Wow.
But that's not typical.
It's not typical, but it's a way to grow if you have the right the customer.
It's a way to make the job the way you want it to be.
I saw an opportunity and it didn't happen right away.
I mean, I did kind of start managing them right away, but it kind of evolved over it's seven years now, so it's Wow.
So how long have you been doing dog walking?
Ten years.
I mean, Lydia the trainer hired me right away.
And this other woman, Victoria, and my few emails got me like everything I have now.
Huh, wow.
How many clients do you have?
I've dropped a lot because I didn't want to work as much.
I had about 14 dogs at the at the height, but because Cleo and Dash, the two that I manage, take up so much time that I don't really want much else.
Right.
I have like maybe five families.
And you walk each dog alone, or do you walk them together?
No, no, I some of them walk together.
What's the number of dogs that you walk at the same time?
I don't walk more than three.
How do you handle aggressive dog?
You don't I don't walk them.
But what if a- Or you walk across the street or you you learn avoidance in situations.
You can feel it, you can see it, you can that's what I mean.
You don't know what you're getting into at the beginning.
And do you walk them every day?
I have one family that lives in Washington who come here quite often.
They have an apartment on Fifth Avenue as well, and I walk that dog twice a day.
Also, I bring him here sometimes and keep him for the day.
I do a lot of stayovers.
I board the dogs that I take care of.
So is that a way to board?
But the way I do it and the way somebody who really has to make a living at it does it is completely different.
Why?
Because they don't they walk more than they're like they have to do a lot of work to make a lot of money.
You can't make a hundred thousand dollars doing it the way I'm doing it.
Uh let's talk about money for a second.
How much the average dog walker charge?
Uh I would say for a half-hour walk twenty to thirty, and for an hour from thirty-five to maybe fifty.
Is that why I see sometimes a dog walker with ten dogs?
In one hour they make three hundred and fifty dollars.
Probably.
What would you say the quality or the skill that makes a great dog walker?
Just loving the dog and wanting to do it.
Is there any kind of training?
I mean, yeah, I think some of the companies train them.
There's apps.
What what apps?
Uh WAG, um, rover.
And you know, usually they say it's one person doing one walk and you'll never see them again.
And here are you in the middle of Manhattan?
You walk them on the streets or do you take them to a park?
Uh now, just on the street.
I used to take a lot of the dogs to the dog run and like play with them, and I don't go there anymore.
So you have to pick up the poop after each dog.
Do you ever run into problems with people uh commenting on something or kids?
No.
I run into problems with people on their phones that aren't looking and just the general the the flow of traffic in New York since the phones is unbearable.
Nobody looks up.
And they run into you?
They don't necessarily run into you, but it makes it very difficult to navigate.
That's one thing I didn't think about.
You know, when somebody's looking down and you're walking a dog that could be reactive, and they're not paying attention, or you think that you they might actually see you, but you have no way of knowing that.
If anything, the the least it is, it's just annoying.
Right.
Didn't think about it.
The the whole phone thing is horrendous.
And the bikes, the delivery people on their electric bikes on the sidewalks, and the city bikes going the wrong way, and it's a mess.
How do you handle it?
Just have to navigate it.
It can be really maddening.
What's the biggest misconception people have about dog walkers?
Well, I think there's a misconception about the people that walk a lot of dogs at once.
I think it's good.
A lot of people don't want it, they think it's dangerous, but I think the dogs fall into a pack.
What's the physical challenge of the job?
The weather.
You can slip.
All the different ways that you get pulled and turned and your body is like wrapped.
Do you do it six days or seven days a week?
It depends on if I'm doing if I'm taking care of dogs around the clock.
Like tonight I'm picking up a dog at eight o'clock and he's staying with me.
We're gonna go between my house and his house for the next five days.
Wow.
He's gonna- He sleeps at my house.
During the day, we get on the train and I bring him back to his apartment.
He'll stay there.
I'll walk him from there and then do the other work I have to do, and in between I'll bring him here.
He's mine for five days.
Right.
He's like it's like my dog.
Is it not usual that dog walkers will upgrade their services to dog city?
A lot won't do boarding or stayovers.
But that's a way to make extra money, good money.
Yeah, you could add on a nice amount of money a day.
If you had the choice to walk one breed for the rest of your life, what would that be?
The smallest dog.
Any breed of a small dog?
Because they don't pull, why?
I have to say my favorite dog that I walk is a lab, but they're horrible to walk because they don't.
I mean, she's not, she's a really good walker, because dogs can be really bad walkers also.
In what way?
They can pull, they can there's a lot of different things that they can do to make it difficult.
Especially pulling.
The one I'm picking up tonight is small.
He's a Kava poo, I have a Kavachan, I have two like Puggle mixes.
They're small, but stubborn, they might as well be elephants.
They're not really fun to walk.
They're adorable dogs.
I love them.
In the house, I adore them.
But walking is like, you know, also it also depends on what the investment that the owner has made, how much training the dog has had.
Do you get into training a little bit?
I mean, I know more about it now.
I know certain things.
For some of the dogs, I might have gone to the training sessions.
What advice would you give somebody who wants to get into this business?
Probably try it out on one of, you know, like through one of the apps or get with one of the companies if you don't know anybody and learn the ropes a little bit.
Can somebody Or try to do some cover work for another, you know, if you do know a walker, put the word out there that you're willing to do.
Like if they can't do a certain walk, you'll do it.
It's not what you think it's gonna be at the beginning.
Well, what do you why?
What do you mean by that?
It's like anything else.
It's just there's a big, there's a learning curve.
You have to really love them.
You have to be really patient, willing to put up with the weather, like anything else, you might not make much money at the beginning.
You build relationships with all these people.
I mean, you're handling something that they love.
Right.
And they can see that you love their dogs.
So how did uh doing this job change your view about dogs or dog ownership?
It made me much more patient.
I realized, like I was impatient at first.
Impatient with the dogs?
Impatient, yeah.
That was one of the things I didn't go into it thinking about.
But I quickly realized I if I wanted to do this, I had to become patient.
And you still lose your patience every once in a while.
Like if two dogs are going in completely opposite directions and there's somebody coming down the street and you can't pull them in because they don't want to, you know, you're dealing with somebody that's gonna get mad coming at you.
What do you think would surprise people about dog walking?
That it's not hard to pick up the poop.
We talked about the challenges.
What's the biggest reward of um?
The biggest reward is having a relationship with the dogs.
The dogs are fantastic.
I love every dog that I have, and the time I get to spend with them, I feel like I'd rather be with them than anything else.
Nice.
It's great.
Alright, well, thanks a million.
That was very interesting.
Okay, this is it for today.
And meanwhile, until next time, remember that studies show that walking your dog is good for your health.
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