Dog walkers experience peak demand with return to face-to-face work

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With the return to face-to-face work, dog walkers have had more work. According to them, requests to take the animals for a walk have grown a lot this year.

“I had a lot of demand for four months now. October started full. Just this week I had more than ten contacts asking for services”, says Erick Roque, 32, codename Erickão. A resident of the east side of São Paulo, he entered this business in 2018. At the time, he charged R$240 a month for tours twice a week. Today, the same package costs R$400.

“As there was great demand, I separated some regions to serve, so I don’t have to travel a lot from one client to another. Today, I focus on Tatuapé, Penha and Anália Franco”, says he, who attends 30 animals a day and a helper.

Fernando Lopes, 63, of Red Dog Walker, which operates in Higienópolis and Pacaembu, has also seen growing demand. “The dog population has increased a lot in the pandemic. The dog has become a Rivotril.”

However, at the height of the health crisis, the tour service fell by more than 70%, according to professionals. Many people who were at home started to go out more with their pet, or ran out of money to pay. “Many people see it as something superfluous, and the first thing to be cut was the stroller. It was a terrible moment”, remembers Lopes.

With the return to face-to-face work, the game turned to walkers, as it became impossible for tutors to give the pet the same attention as the pandemic. The saleswoman Samara Semidi, 29, for example, returned to visit customers throughout the week, and this year rehired the service of a walker for the dog Mel.

“She doesn’t pee inside the house, so we always need to think about how long she’s going to stay without going out”, comments Samara. “When my husband or I go out with her, we take a 10, 15 minute ride and come back. But the hired tour lasts 40 minutes. She spends a lot more energy and comes back better”, she considers. “It’s not a very cheap expense, but it’s worth it.”

Despite the high demand, walkers heard by the Sheet said that prices are relatively stable and that raising the value is difficult, given the uncertainty in the economy and the informal nature of arrangements with customers. The service is usually paid on a monthly basis and can be canceled easily.

“We have a thermometer of how things are going, but it is not possible to use an index such as the IGP-M. I have had the same table for three years”, says Lopes. “Elections and the World Cup affect the country so much that I had some tour cancellations. It’s not the time to increase. But later on I’ll need to review this.”

“Before the pandemic, the average price was R$ 450 per month. Now we see an average of R$ 480”, says Fernando Baiardi, president of ABDW (Brazilian Association of Dog Walkers) and CãoAtivo, which provides training in the area. The value varies according to the number of tours per week and the region of the city.

With the high demand, veteran walkers end up indicating and training new professionals. The preparation usually lasts a whole day and includes lessons on how to interpret the signals given by the dogs, avoid perrengues on the street and tactics to win the first customers.

Baiardi says that demand for the training course has been rising, but it is still a little below the pre-pandemic level. There is an average of 30 students per month.

“We train pack leaders, not just dog escorts,” he says. “The simple fact of putting the dog on the side, instead of leaving the apartment with him in front, already makes the dog leave as a follower”, she teaches. Depending on the case, walkers also end up training their dogs a little, or offer this service separately.

Baiardi says that there are no precise figures on how many people work in this service in the country, but that his course alone has trained more than 7,000 since 2010. Many of them wore the shirt after years working in offices.

André de Campos, 59, became a walker four years ago, after making a career as an executive in the airline industry. “I earn about 20% of what I earned five years ago, but my standard of living is much better. The animal is happy to be in your company. When I worked in multinationals it was the opposite. another. Today is much better”, he reflects.

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