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KINGSTON — For Karen Sims, changing professions meant a lifestyle change as well.
Sims left the medical profession to become a full-time pet sitter/walker in 2014. She said she’s so busy that she sometimes doesn’t have weekends free.
“I get up at 6 a.m. and come home around 9 p.m.,” Sims said during a break on a recent Wednesday.
Though she said she’s “always going,” she tries to take a Sunday off to spend time with her family while not disappointing her client base.
“I hate to say no,” Sims said, noting there are times when she has to shift her schedule to include everyone who asks for her services. “I try to find a balance between personal and private life.”
Sims, who held different jobs in the medical field, including as an X-ray technician, said social media is a “plus” when it comes to growing her client base. She also relies on word-of-mouth referrals.
Although Sims runs a one-woman business, Rover.com and Care.com are online services that match dog walkers with potential clients.
Rover.com was founded in 2011 by Greg Gottesman in Seattle and has grown steadily. According to a company spokeswoman, Rover.com was founded after the owner’s “negative experience” with a traditional kennel.
Gottesman was on vacation when his dog, Ruby Tuesday, was injured at a high-end boarding kennel in Seattle, according to an email from Leah Almeling, Rover.com’s public relations manager. “When his 9-year-old daughter said she would have paid to take care of someone else’s dog, Gottesman saw a business.”
Many of Rover.com’s clients are in metropolitan areas such as Philadelphia and New York City, but the company says 92 percent of the nation’s population lives within a short drive of a pet sitter or dog walker on Rover.com.
“We have more than 100,000 pet sitters and dog walkers across the country,” Almeling said.
Angelo Greco, of Kingston, grew her business in 2016 though Rover.com.
“I’ve always loved dogs; I’ve owned a dog my whole life,” Greco, 34, said, noting she used to watch or walk dogs for her friends and neighbors but wanted a “side hustle” in the economy and found Rover.com a perfect fit.
Greco charges $20 per walk for a 30-minute dog walk and $20 for a 30-minute check-in on a dog while the owners are away.
For Sims, a typical 15-minute walk would cost a pet owner $13, and a 30-minute visit, which Sims said is the “most popular,” is $15. Sims has other options, including an hourlong visit or a “field trip” — where the pooch can explore the great outdoors within a 10-mile radius of its home, to such places as Frances Slocum State Park in Kingston Township, or Seven Tubs Nature Area in Wilkes-Barre.
Almeling said Rover.com walkers set their own prices, but a typical walk averages $15 to $20. Walkers keep 80 percent of their price, while the other 20 percent “covers benefits for sitters, including insurance, the costs of processing payments, and ongoing promotion of sitters on Rover.com.”
Sims and some Rover.com walkers are fully insured. On Rover.com, icons accompany the potential sitter’s name and details, indicating they are background checked and have completed a Rover.com class on pets and are insured.
Potential walkers could have all or no symbols.
The insurance Sims offers is liability, including if something happens to the dog or something breaks while sitters are in the pet owner’s home.
“You’re responsible for people’s precious pets,” Greco said, noting dog walking and/or sitting isn’t an easy job — it requires time and care.
Care.com spokeswoman Natasha Gavilanez said she didn’t have figures on the number of pet owners and walkers involved with her company, which is based in Boston.
