When I suggested that you make money on pets as part of my 20 ways to make more money, little did I know how much a person could make by simply walking dogs and sitting for pets.
Just how much can you make, you ask? Well check out this person from Parade Magazine's recent "What People Earn" issue. Here's her profile:
Tammy Roussin, 37
Pet sitter/dog walker
St. Louis, Mo.
$100,000
This entry REALLY caught my attention when I saw it in the magazine. I thought someone could make maybe $30k a year or so doing this. Who knew you could actually make six figures?
A few more thoughts:
1. Tammy's only 37 years old. Not a bad income for someone that age.
2. $100k in St. Louis is like $300k in New York, isn't it?
3. I thought that maybe she owned a pet sitting/dog walking business. I couldn't imagine that she made that much on her own simply sitting for/walking pets. So I went Googling and found this website. She does own a business, but she's one of only three employees, so it's not far from a one-person operation.
4. At $50 for an overnight stay to $16-$18 for a dog walk/cat visit, having a pet can be very expensive. Don't say I didn't warn you. ;-)
It's unclear if the $100k is total revenue, total profits, take home salary, pre-tax salary, etc. Does she need to divide the $100k among the 3 workers?
Posted by: Dave | April 22, 2009 at 04:19 PM
"Absolutely Pampered Pets will visit your home to walk your dog for a fee of $16-$18 per visit. A surcharge applies to each additional cat or dog. Clients usually schedule between two and four visits per day when they are out of town"
Four visits per day!? To walk a dog? There are some truly stupid people in this country.
Posted by: Pop | April 22, 2009 at 06:56 PM
I've been reading Parade Magazine's "What People Earn" issue since I was 10. Over time though I've come to the conclusion that only about half of those figures are representative of reality. The rest are several standard deviations away from the norm.
Does that lady really make $100,000 a year walking dogs? Yeah, she probably does. Is the median income of a dog walker 100K? Heck no. If that was the average income, people would be falling over each other trying to be dog walkers. I'd be in on that action if I thought that I could realistically pull 6 figs walking dogs.
Posted by: SaveBuyLive | April 22, 2009 at 07:43 PM
The "when they're out of town" part is important. I assume they're also feeding and watering the dog in that case.
They're basically competing with kennels, which pretty much start at $30/day and go up, sometimes way up.
Posted by: Foobarista | April 22, 2009 at 07:44 PM
I don't know anyone who pays for a service like that, *shrug*
Posted by: MLR | April 22, 2009 at 09:07 PM
Dog walking can be very profitable. If you're a go getter, love dogs, and want to be your own boss, make good money, and keep your own schedule you should seriously consider dog walking.
Posted by: J.D. Antell | April 22, 2009 at 11:16 PM
I met a professional dog-walker in Manhatten. She gave me the impression that many in her career in NYC make over $100K/year.
Posted by: Paul | April 23, 2009 at 10:10 AM
100K in St. louis is more like $200K in NYC and not $300K
Posted by: Becca | April 23, 2009 at 01:58 PM
Becca --
It's $242k according to CNN Money (St. Louis versus Manhattan), so you're closer to being right than I am. Still, the point holds.
Posted by: FMF | April 23, 2009 at 02:21 PM
WOW!!!!!!!!!! I want to get paid to walk dogs!
Posted by: SavingDiva | April 23, 2009 at 07:07 PM
I'm not buying it. With 3 employees including the owner, they'd each have to walk or house sit an awful lot of dogs each day for the owner to make that much money. Maybe that's gross income for the business but even so, she's working a lot of hours to get it.
She said in an interview she submitted her info to Parade because she thought it would be good advertising. I think she padded the figure.
Posted by: CK | May 04, 2009 at 02:43 PM
one ALWAYS has to work hard to make good $$.
No revelation here.
Posted by: Diana Ruth Davidson | March 24, 2010 at 05:03 PM
I work EXTREMELY hard and its is very easy to make $300 a day - thats only $16 visits, less if you have overnights or keep pets at your house. no padding I had to pay about $20k in taxes!!!!!
Posted by: Tammy Roussin | September 30, 2010 at 01:41 AM