Inside the Pawtrero Bathhouse and Feed, the air is pungent and thick with the muddy smell of wet dogs. It loses its potency as a pleasant, soapy, floral fragrance disguises the stench seeping into the rustic dark wood of the building. Strolling through the store’s quaint wooden gate at the corner of Mississippi and Mariposa streets, dogs bear witness to the high Victorian ceilings of a room that could fit two entire bars.

Allowed to roam off their leash once inside, dogs browse through the racks of treats, toys, food and pampering supplies. Owners call them toward the back, into the damp musk and weathered tiled floors, where an impressive sterile sparkle of metal awaits. For $15, owners can treat their dog to the warm water and organic bubbles in supply. Guiding their precious animal though a door on the side of the stainless steel tub, owners give the dog a thorough rinse before drying them off with the neatly folded towels placed on the rack above. Only the best treatment for the city’s most beloved animal.

Dogs are the kids of the city. Walk through San Francisco’s loveliest parks and you’ll find leashes, not strollers. The SFSPCA estimates that there are 150,000 dogs in San Francisco. Compare this to the 31,633 children under the age of 5 and it’s obvious who people are dedicating their hearts to in this city. And many business-minded people are making a living off the city’s four-legged love affair.

There are 59 professional dog walking and babysitting services registered with the San Francisco Animal Care and Control Department and about 14 ads posted by private walkers/sitters every day on Craigslist. And a far larger amount of people are helping take care of their friends K-9s and making money strictly by word of mouth.

Athena Gabriel has been working as an independently contracted dog sitter in San Francisco for nearly 10 years. She works at Pawtrero during the day, but the dog-sitting business is so good she doesn’t even have the time to accept references from the store anymore. She gets attached to the dogs she knows and finds it too emotionally taxing to continue taking on the ever-increasing population of unknown customers.

Gabriel charges $55 a night to stay at the homes of friends and strangers who are away on vacation or business trips. She makes sure the dogs get fed, get outside for potty breaks, receive their medication and a plentiful share of tender loving care. Three nights is an average stay, but sometimes dog sitting can last up to three weeks. In that case she’ll cut them a deal, but only because of her love for certain dogs. They become her responsibility and her best friends. She concedes she gets along with dogs better than people.

“A lot of smaller dogs get carried around like babies; they don’t get a chance to be dogs,” says Gabriel. She sleeps in the beds of the owners with the dogs. The only exception in all her years of sitting kept her up all night worrying about the dog downstairs.

“It’s a lot of work to have children, but these kids never grow up,” says Shireen Nyden, co-owner of Pawtrero along with her business partner Suzie Yannes. They opened their second store, South Paw, about a year ago to accommodate their customers, who come inside and find a meeting place for dog culture. Walkers, sitters, groomers, doggie dentists, K-9 massage specialists and nutritionists all network inside.

Marisa Broudy has been walking dogs for Metrotails for the past three months. She is already starting her own dog service business called CityDog. Charging $20 a walk per dog is the industry standard throughout the city and the price being undertaken by Broudy. A dog walk entails supplying your own vehicle to pick up multiple dogs at once and a lot of time spent running around the more pleasant terrains of the city, cleaning up after them.

“So how was Daisy’s shit today? Was it solid?” Broudy asked.

Through references and postings she is already developing a strong clientele that will make her a living. Like any other 9 to 5 job, she works five days week, sometimes carrying over to the weekends.
It’s a wealthy clientele.

Half the people who hire dog walkers aren’t even at work. It’s just an errand they’d rather not run. And yet they remain tightly attached to their kids, as all dog walkers refer to the owners as parents.

They are pack animals to the tee and many city-dwellers are convinced that the concrete jungle is a cruel place to keep a dog captive, locked in an apartment all day while their owners go to work. But people like Nyden firmly believe dogs have a far better home in the city than in suburbia. Like its people, San Francisco’s dogs get to enjoy a rich social life. They interact with friendly strangers on a daily basis instead of brewing angst and isolation in a backyard separated from the world like prisoners behind a fence.

CONTACT NUGENT AT NJNAUM@SFSU.EDU