If you've ever dreamed of ditching your 9-to-5 job to spend all day playing with dogs ... join the crowd.
A growing number of corporate types are living the dream, exchanging their suits and heels for paw-print-stained jeans and muddy sneakers. And for the most part, they haven't looked back.
Five years ago, the thought of becoming a dog walker had not even crossed Ayesha Esteves's mind. A former executive recruiter who went into corporate sales, she knew she didn't love her job, but didn't know what else to do.
"I just couldn't stand the office politics and the ridiculous bureaucratic crap," she says.
When she moved to the tony Yorkville area of Toronto, she struggled to find someone to care for her dachshund while she toiled at her cubicle. She started asking her former downtown dog walker questions about her clients and hours, and a light bulb went on.
"I thought, 'Wow, there's a lot of potential in picking up poop.' " So Ms. Esteves quit her job in August of 2006, took out a loan, and that October City Dogs on the Go was up and running. On her first few walks, she says, "I couldn't stop smiling. I'm thinking, 'I'm getting paid to walk dogs - this is great.' "
Not that everything was dog biscuits and roses. She missed the social atmosphere at work. And her business plan was thrown for a loop when she discovered that she's allergic to cats and dogs. Luckily, she can control the sneezing with medications.
The transition from stressed-out office drone to blissed-out dog walker can be harder than people expect. Like Ms. Esteves, most pet caretakers say they long for the camaraderie of human co-workers. (Dogs are great listeners, but their conversation skills leave something to be desired.) And there's a certain predictability and order to corporate life that you just don't get when you work with the four-legged.
"Cleanliness is something that I miss," says Jenny Wisenberg, owner of The Bark Zone, a doggie daycare service in Toronto. Gone are the days when she'd don a suit for coffee-fuelled meetings in slick offices as a public-relations expert specializing in high-tech firms.
Her moment of conversion was sparked by personal loss; a friend let Ms. Wisenberg's dog off-leash during a walk, and it was hit by a car and killed. Ms. Wisenberg was so devastated that she had to take a leave of absence from work; the time off prompted some soul-searching.
"I had to do something that I was passionate about, and at the end of the day I realized that was not corporate communications," says Ms. Wisenberg, who started her dog walking and training business 10 years ago.
Business expertise comes in handy in the furry world. Ms. Wisenberg researched her market extensively, and calls upon her corporate communications skills to interact professionally with clients who expect to be informed of every last detail of how and where Rover went wee-wee. Ms. Esteves used her sales background to brand and market her dog-walking business as the choice for hip young urban professionals.
Of course, the big trade-off is money. Even the most ambitious dog walker will have trouble matching the financial rewards of corporate Canada. And even this business isn't immune to a slowing economy: In the past year, many walkers have seen people cut back on their services to save cash.
"I could be making twice as much as I do right now," Ms. Wisenberg says. But "you don't get into dog walking because you want to make money, you get into dog walking because you love dogs."
Besides, as these corporate refugees have learned, dog walking comes with its own set of bonuses.
"I just love seeing their little waggy tails," Ms. Esteves says.
