If you think the dog walking business can’t bring in enough money to make a decent living, think again. There are certainly many people who do it as a way to make some extra cash, but there are also those who put their whole heart and soul into it and turn it into a lucrative business.

Last summer, Rebecca Davis and her boyfriend were at one of the outdoor tables at Vesuvio in Philadelphia, having coffee or wine or whatever, that’s not the point. The point is that when she wasn’t gazing lovingly into his eyes, she noticed a dog getting a short walk around a small park.”The owners seemed disinterested,” Davis recalls, “and the dog looked frustrated.” Davis is a marathon runner. “I thought, that dog needs a run. Maybe I should start a dog running service.”

Three days later, with her computer-savvy boyfriend’s help, she set up a Web site for Run Philly Dog Run, offering, for $40 an hour, to take dogs for a leashed cardio workout at their pace of choice.

Today, the 27-year-old research assistant at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is running six to 10 dogs a week and hoping to turn her budding business into a full-time profession.

Over the last five years, the dog walking/pet sitting industry has grown exponentially. Young entrepreneurs have found profitable careers doing what used to be mere after-school chores that paid little more than change for popcorn and pinball.

[…]

Dog walking still does not rate its own classification from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Since many in it operate off the IRS radar, it would be difficult to obtain accurate numbers anyway.

“But anything related to companion animals is absolutely booming,” says Henry Kasper, an economist in the BLS Office of Employment Projections. (He has a cat.)

Claudia Kawczynska, editor of the magazine The Bark, says the growing number of dog walking/pet-sitting franchises shows a clear trend.

Franchises of the national chain Fetch have opened in the Philadelphia region. The company, founded in 2002, reports 1,000 “service areas” across the United States.

Dog walking, says Kawczynska, “has become one of the biggest growth areas in the pet sector.”

Those who have been in the business for a while say increased competition is no problem. The demand for reliable animal-tenders willing to go out, even when the wind chill shatters the enamel on your teeth, is so great that there’s room for all comers.

“It hasn’t affected me one iota,” says Richard Whiteside of Blue Beagle Promenade.

[…]

“The work is physically grueling,” says Anna Nagy, who lasted 18 months. Nagy, 36, who has a master’s degree in public administration, was working as an associate director of a research center at Penn in May 2006 when she quit to become a dog walker. “I was looking for a different lifestyle,” she says.

After a year of 15-hour days, she tried to hire someone to help share the burden, but found few she could count on.

“I was working so much,” she said, “that I had no time to give the quality care I wanted to. By the 10th walk, you can’t give the same attention to a dog that you’d like.”

In September, she went back to work at Penn.

Here’s the rest.

The work can definitely be grueling, which many people don’t understand until they dive in head first and actually start working in the business. Many decide to be a dog walker or pet sitter thinking it’ll be a fun way to play with pets. It can be, but there’s also a heck of a log of work involved…it’s not just about spending time with the pets. What they don’t take into account is the time spent in the car going to and from households from early in the morning until late at night – seven days a week. And on top of that there’s all the paperwork, marketing, finances, and much, much more.

Taking care of pets can be a great business for someone who likes to be on the move all the time, has a genuine love for animals and people, and doesn’t mind a heck of a lot of work.

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