A year ago, if you told me that I’d be spending a Thursday morning wrestling a 200-pound St. Bernard during a New York City snowstorm, I’d laugh in your face. I’d laugh even harder if you told me that I would eventually have to return this St. Bernard to a SoHo studio apartment with a sex swing installed in the ceiling. I’d be on the floor in hysterics if you told me there’d be a topless woman in said sex swing and that the dog’s owners’ were watching cartoons on the couch when I got there, stoned out of their minds.
But I’m not laughing now, because this kind of situation is common for dog walkers in the city. And I am a dog walker. For full-time college students, work can be hard to come by, or to make work with a school schedule. So, when I learned of the possibility of becoming a dog walker who can make her own hours and potentially earn more than I would if I worked at Chipotle, all while getting to spend time with a multitude of canines, I jumped at the chance.
Thus began my dog-walking journey.
After submitting my application online, I did a phone interview, which led to the final step of the initiation process: heading to Brooklyn and putting a harness on a fake dog to show the company that I knew my stuff. This was surprisingly nerve-wracking, There were about 20 people in the cramped office also hoping to get hired, a diverse bunch ranging from 18 to 50-years-old. These characters included a young man in an NYU sweatshirt who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else, a dapper middle aged man in spiffy Oxford shoes, and a gaggle of whispering teenage girls that looked like they were there purely for the bonding experience.
When it was my turn to tackle the harness test, I was escorted into a small room where a bored-looking 20-something woman with a tattoo of her French bulldog on her arm watched me slip the “Gentle Leader” harness onto a blue foam dog figurine. Luckily, I passed. Then I waited in the office with my new company t-shirt, watching those who failed the test do the walk of shame to the elevator.
The survivors were then escorted to a nearby park, where we got microphones clipped to our shirts and were gave testimonials into a Nikon camera about our dog-walking qualifications with great (forced) enthusiasm, as 15 MPH freezing winds whipped angrily behind us. It all felt strangely post-apocalyptic. Another fresh recruit gave me an intense up-down stare while we were walking to the park and asked me if I worked at Anthropologie. Her reasoning? “I don’t know how else you’d be able to afford that dress. If you could, why would you be walking dogs?”
I didn’t tell her about a little something called the clearance rack.
I grew up with dogs, and I always considered getting to play with them more of a privilege than a chore. Admittedly, one of the reasons I applied for the job was because I missed my own dog at home, a shifty little white mutt who acted like he was raised by cats most of the time.
It turns out that fairly intense security precautions are to be taken when you’re handling someone’s pet for a living. After my harness boot camp and testimonial video, my passport was scanned and my background was checked. I scanned my brain for any potential crimes I might have committed, and luckily I passed. Just like that, I was a certified dog walker. For $12 per 30 minute walk, and $20 per 60 minute long walk (plus tips), I would be walking dogs as many times a week as I could fit into my schedule.
And boy, did adventures follow. There was the time I picked up a labrador and a bulldog in Alphabet City, subsequently leading their owner to give me a hearty sniff, exclaiming, “You smell really good.”
Ok.
The very first dog I walked was in Queens, a tiny little chihuahua mix who was a real trooper. The dog’s harness was a red strappy number with about ten different buckles and holes. After I spent way too much time putting the harness on his tiny body, we finally ventured outside, where it was pouring rain. Serious, torrential rain, with a few hailstones thrown in for good measure. When I brought the dog back to the apartment, we were both soaked and disgruntled. I took the train home wondering if this was really worth it.
It turns out that it is. You learn a lot about someone when you enter their apartment and put leashes on their dogs. I’ve found that the amount of original Rothkos in any given living room is a great indicator of the person’s level of wealth and prestige.
This particular living room that I found myself in on one sunny afternoon near Washington Square Park told me that the woman who inhabited it was a lawyer, judging by the case files strewn across her coffee table. I had knocked gently on her tenth floor apartment door, where a frazzled blonde woman opened the door, promptly scanning me up and down.
“You’re awfully stylish for a dog walker,” she said, one eyebrow raised. (Feel free to let me know how one is to respond to a comment like that, because I’m still at a loss.) She then held up three jackets, and had me help her assemble an outfit. It felt strangely like a scene right out of The Devil Wears Prada: if this scattered woman was Meryl Streep, I was her puzzled young Anne Hathaway. By the time I had the leash on her elderly Labradoodle, I felt like we had formed a special bond. Her tip amount further reinforced these feelings.
The truth is, working as a dog walker isn’t what most people expect. Yes, you surround yourself with adorable furry friends for a few hours every week, but you also surround yourself with New York City’s bizarre elite. So, if you’re looking for a job that’ll keep you active and earn you sizable tips, think about scrapping your retail application and trying out dog walking instead—if not for the animals, then for the the wild anecdotes you’ll collect.
Illustration by Yasmin Ahram
