Let's talk about dog walking with DivaDog's Shelley Goldberg

In New York City, a good dog walker can be hard to find. Dog owners open up their homes to them, and put their most beloved and vulnerable family members in their care, but a majority of walkers have no training or even interest in their chosen career. DivaDog is a walking company that strives to bring professionalism to the industry. Annie interviews its owner, Shelley Goldberg, about her three decades in the business, her hiring and management practices, and finding meaning and soulfulness in the pet care industry. You can reach Shelley at 707-DIVA-DOG Show Notes - 11 questions to ask a potential dog walker - Music: Rockin' Robin cover by Danielle Anderson - School For The Dogs - Store For The Dogs - Instagram - Facebook --- Partial Transcript: Annie: Hi, my name is Annie Grossman and I'm a dog trainer. This podcast is brought to you by School for the Dogs, a Manhattan based facility I own and operate along with some of the city's finest dog trainers. During this podcast, we'll be answering your questions, geeking out on animal behavior, discussing pet trends, and interviewing industry experts. Welcome to School for the Dogs podcast. **music** Annie: So at School for the Dogs, we often get asked to recommend a variety of different dog service providers in New York City. And a lot of clients ask us to recommend dog walkers. Now this can be tricky because dog walking is a field where there's so much turnover, that it can be really hard for us to recommend anywhere because we're never sure that the walkers that we like are still going to be with the place. And as trainers we’re really well aware of all the things that can go wrong with a not good dog walker. You don't even have to have a dog who has a lot of issues to have a dog that can be really adversely affected by even one bad walk with a walker. And that might not be a walker who's necessarily nefarious or anything. It might just be one who's not that experienced. And, it's a job where most people do it as their careers. Most people kind of dip in and out of dog-walking. So over the years we have created a very small list of walkers that we tend to recommend. And today I'm speaking with the owner of one of the companies that we recommend, the company is called DivaDog. It's owned by Shelley Goldberg, who's based in the East Village. And some of the reasons why we recommend DivaDog, first of all, Shelley is a career dog walker. She doesn't walk dogs herself anymore. She runs the business, but she has been doing walking since 1990. And she's going to talk about that a little bit. Other things that set her apart, she is a lot more expensive than all the other walking companies that we recommend. And I don't know what she pays her walkers, but I'm guessing she pays them enough to make them stick around for a while, which I think again is important because a lot of the times dogs, especially really sensitive dogs, don't react well to having a new walker every three to six months. And it seems like she has some really good retention with her walkers and really devote some time to training her walkers. Something else that I appreciate about Shelley's business is the simplicity of it. Her walkers are not GPS tracked. She does everything on paper. She prefers to be contacted by phone then via email or in any other kind of way... Full Transcript available at SchoolforthDogs.com/Podcasts/ Get full access to Don't Be a Dick to Your Dog at dogtraining.substack.com/subscribe