This article appeared in Hampshire Life on Friday, April 27, 2007
Used with permission.

A dog's life: Making it better is a growing business
 BY DAVID MALOOF

"The number-one thing on my Christmas list every year was a dog," says Sarah Schatz of Hatfield. Growing up in Sharon, she got other pets, even a horse, but never the animal she wanted most. Now, at age 26, she has made up for it. Schatz and her husband, Noam, have four dogs and she estimates that in the past seven years she has gone on 12,740 dog walks. "My life is dogs," she says. "I'm around dogs more than people."

She runs a dog-walking, pet-sitting business, Sarah's Pet Services, which is one of a growing number of dog-related operations that help to solve a modern human-canine conundrum: How do people have a dog when people don't have the time it takes to have a dog?

The answer, for many: Pay someone to help.

"It's exploding," Schatz says of business. "When I started seven years ago there was one other dog walker. Now within a 10-mile area there's probably 10."
When Beth Ostrowski-Parks began It's Pawsible Dog Training Center & Day Camp in 1995 (then in Easthampton, since 1997 in Westhampton), there were two other people in the area that did training, she recalls, and there was no day care.

Lots of people have dogs, providing a big market for people like Schatz and Ostrowski-Parks. According to the Web site of the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association, 43.5 million American households -- that's about 40 percent -- have at least one dog.

Ostrowski-Parks began her business after seeing signs of ignorant or overwhelmed dog owners. "I noticed how many dogs end up being tied up outside, and how many dogs there are but how few you actually see out on walks," she says.

"It's one thing to have a dog," says Fred Davis, whose dog day care business Luca's K9 Playhouse opened in Belchertown last year, "but dogs need things to do -- they need to be exercised, and they need socialization." And they need to learn how to toe the mark. "People bring a dog into the family," Davis says, "and the dog needs to behave. A dog needs a leader."

"Generally speaking, dogs are very uncomplicated," says Ostrowski-Parks. "A dog needs food and water, companionship, and somebody to be in charge." That first need is easy. And the other ones would be easier if people had more time for their animals.

That's how Schatz, Ostrowski-Parks and Davis make their living -- providing busy dog owners the means to exercise, socialize and control their pets.

At It's Pawsible, which Ostrowski-Parks runs with her husband, Wayne Parks, the goal is to instruct owners how to give their dogs some freedom while setting boundaries. As any observer of canine-human relations (or of the popular National Geographic television program "The Dog Whisperer") knows, if a person doesn't take charge, the dog will.

But what does it take for a person to become the leader of the pack?

Patience, for one thing.

On a recent Saturday morning, Beth Ostrowski-Parks stands inside It's Pawsible's modern, bright 5,000-square-foot building, speaking through a wireless headset microphone to the students -- 12 puppies and their owners. The people are a mix of individuals, couples, and parents with children, all sitting on folding chairs, their dogs at their sides.

One of the more excitable dogs is a male beagle named Sampson, who is here with Beth Wright of Easthampton and her daughter Kerissa. "This is our first time owning a dog," Wright says, "and it's kind of difficult living with him in his natural state" which includes "typical potty-training issues, jumping on furniture, nipping, biting, barking and jumping on people."

With some help from her three assistants, Ostrowski-Parks is showing the dog owners how to teach their pets to lie down. As she later tells them, "Food is your best friend. ... Food will get your puppy's attention on you and off something stimulating that's going on."

But they need to learn how to use it. For most of the people in the class, it's no simple task as each one tries to use a treat (either a soft dog biscuit or a small piece of meat) to lure the dog to the floor and then reward the animal. Most of the dogs are focused on the treat, all right, but aren't yet sitting or lying down to get it. "Be very patient," Ostrowski-Parks urges.

The command works, she says, when the person issuing it is clear and confident. In this class, the interactions are tentative. When, after some feints and fakes and near-gyrations, one dog finally lies down, Ostrowski-Parks takes note: "See how patient you have to be?"

"The big agenda in dog school is the owners are learning more than the dogs are," says Tom Kalt of Shutesbury, who later in the day is taking a training class with his wife, Ellen, and their chocolate Labrador retriever, Selkie.

The contrast between beginner and professional is clear when Ostrowski-Parks steps in with a dog that is standing. She calmly, confidently puts her hand over its nose -- and the dog sits. "I didn't even have a treat in my hand," she says, "and she knew what to do."

Her ready success, she explains, is based on experience. "I've been doing this so long that I know how easily a dog reads 'sit' using a hand signal." She keys into a dog's learning style and body language, she adds. "What makes a good dog trainer really good at what they do is knowledge and confidence."

While learning how to take charge is one goal for the humans in the class, the dogs are taught how to get along. So, for part of the class, owners take their pets to one of two enclosed outdoor areas, where wood shavings cover the ground and a heater hangs overhead. "Don't pet the dogs," instructs Ostrowski-Parks. "This is their time to be with each other."

When the dogs' leads are removed, they become calm -- sniffing, checking things out, none of them barking. One small dog wears a sweater on this chilly morning, another one a jacket. After 10 minutes, some dogs start running and playing. A golden retriever romps aggressively with a smaller dog, and Ostrowski-Parks gently moves the larger dog away. Another dog goes after Sampson, who hides behind the legs of Beth and Kerissa Wright.

Once back inside, the focus moves from socialization to control. "Don't give [your dog] too much freedom," Ostrowski-Parks says, adding that keeping the puppies in crates at home for periods of time is a good thing. "You have all these other things going on in your life besides your puppy," she says.

This puppy-training class lasts four weeks and costs $100, while the basic training class that follows on this morning costs $150 for six weeks. In this class, which is in its second week, one lesson is getting the dogs to come when called. When Ostrowski-Parks asks the owners whose dogs won't obey this command, all but two of the 12 raise hands. "Nine out of 10 times, your dog should come," she says, adding, "That's the most important thing." When teaching this behavior, she instructs the students, link the dog's name to something it wants, like a walk or a car ride. "That's when you want to call them," not for something they might deem unpleasant, like taking medication.

Seeing Ostrowski-Parks with her own three dogs, Makana, Treasure and Phlip, is an illustration of devotion and order. Wayne Parks calls them "Team Beth" and they demonstrate meeting what he calls "the challenge to get the human to communicate in ways that are appropriate for the dog." These include not "over-verbalizing" (repeating a command the dog has not understood the first time), being consistent (sticking to rules) and not getting too emotional (showing anger or frustration with the dog).

It's Pawsible is no modest mom-and-pop business. In addition to training, it offers day camp, a small retail area, a training DVD, telephone consultations (at $35 per half hour) and individual training. "I could work nonstop from 5 in the morning to 9 at night," Ostrowski-Parks says, "but I always take an hour during the middle of the day to give [my three dogs] a good walk."

Those walks, she says, are key to shaping a well-behaved dog.

"Dog walking is important for balancing out their needs -- exercise, stimulation both mental and physical, and when they go off on a walk they're using their nose -- that's how they see the world. They lift their leg, they leave their mark -- that is an important part of their need. These days people are so busy it's hard to get that walk in, but it's so important."

Which is one reason Sarah Schatz, whose Sarah's Pet Services focuses on dog walking, says "I have almost too much business at this point."

Schatz had walked dogs in the Boston area before she began her own business somewhat accidentally. That happened when she entered an Amherst store with her dog, struck up a conversation with the owner and ended up walking the woman's dog. As a student in the University Without Walls program at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, she wrote an undergraduate thesis on small business development, specifically a dog-walking service.

Schatz, whose business went full time four years ago, puts 30,000 miles per year on her car. Her husband, Noam, who is a professional musician (and who offers pet photography services), walks dogs for about two hours a day, and she has another helper for two hours, three days a week. Among them, they walk 10 to 15 dogs per day. The fee is $20 per hour, $14 for a half hour.

The premise of Schatz's service? "I will tire your dog out so [it] will be good in your house." Often she is "tiring" more than one dog at a time, such as on the daily "mega walk" that accommodates three or four dogs at once. It's hard to keep an eye on more than four, she says. Also, four dogs is the most she can fit in her car.
On one recent late-winter day, Taiko, Schatz's 7-year-old lab/shepherd mix, and three other dogs -- Cisco, Hattie and Kona -- are headed out with her to a wooded trail in South Hadley.

Three fundamental dog traits -- adherence to routine and senses of territory and hierarchy -- are evident as the dogs pile into her Subaru wagon. Each dog goes to its usual corner in the back, like commuters carpooling to work.

The only sounds are human voices as the dogs sit or lie down silently, at ease. To be part of a mega walk, says Schatz, a dog must be off-leash, well-trained and friendly and it must like other dogs. "You have to think about how you're grouping dogs," she says, noting two dogs not on this walk, one of which "annoys" the other.

At the trail, it's dogs and nature, the animals moving freely among the trails, streams and trees. As trainer Beth Ostrowski-Parks says, a walk is the dogs' time to be dogs and on this trip being dogs means sniffing the scene, keeping to their routine (Taiko likes to stay up front, Kona and Hattie in the middle, with Cisco lagging behind), and responding to Schatz when she calls or signals treat time. But she also lets the dogs run and play in an open field, showing that balance of freedom and boundaries that Ostrowski-Parks preaches.

The hard part of her work, she says, is dealing with owners who don't handle their pets properly. "I get frustrated with people who do [foolish] things with their animal," such as not training it, she says. "Having clients with unruly pets is difficult because I don't have the power to change behavior in an hour a day if there is no practice at home." Schatz says she does her best using positive reinforcement and recommending a class or trainer when needed.

While Schatz keeps busy providing exercise and companionship to dogs left home alone for long stretches of time, some pet owners prefer full-fledged day care for their animals. That's where Fred Davis comes in.

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At Luca's K9 Playhouse, where paintings of dogs decorate the walls of the 2,500-square-foot basement on the former Belchertown State School property, the focus is socialization and exercise. Dogs cooped up all day are overly excited when their owners come home, jumping, barking and pleading "Come on, I want to go out," says Davis. And, he notes, a dog which isn't around other dogs can become fearful, which leads to aggression. "Dogs learn from other dogs," he says, and one thing they learn is "manners."

So it makes sense that Luca's is located in a former elementary school, as learning still occurs there. Davis is the human boss, and the usual four-legged honchos are his two German shepherds, Luca and Abby. But on this particular day, those two are home sick.

That doesn't mean that there is no leader. Kaiya, an excitable hound mix, gets on the nerves of Rikka, a German shepherd who fills the leadership gap by "vocalizing" (as Davis puts it), then "giving [Kaiya] a little bit of a grab. But she didn't bite her," he says.

The unfamiliar sometimes prompts aggression, and both the physical setup at Luca's and the procedures for introducing new dogs are designed to guard against that. The basement is divided into several areas, allowing dogs and people to be separated when necessary, such as when a new dog arrives.

A prospective canine customer (and its owner) begin with a meeting with Davis where the dog is let off-leash so that it can walk and sniff. One at a time, Davis allows his regulars into the area where the dog waits. When the two dogs settle down, they play together, with Davis observing. If all goes well, Davis repeats the process with another dog. If all continues to go well, an appointment is made for the new dog's first full day of day care.

On that first day, the new dog's owner is instructed to have the animal at Luca's before the others begin arriving at 7:30 a.m. This allows the dogs to view the newcomer as belonging there, says Davis.

Once the dogs are dropped off, there is no specific regimen, says Davis. The dogs play or lounge around, while he keeps an eye on them.
"Fred takes the time to work with every dog he gets," says Sue Darlington of Belchertown, whose dogs Rikka and Charlie are regulars. She says he keys in on how they're getting along, how they react and which ones need more attention to settle down.

Nap time from noon to 2 p.m. is "the only thing set in stone" in the dogs' schedule, Davis says. The lights are turned off and the radio tuned to classical music on WFCR. Each dog gets a rubbery treat-filled dog toy called a Kong. "It occupies their minds so they won't think 'Oh, I'm confined,'" he says.

The dogs can come for day care from one to five days a week at full day's cost even if the dog does not stay the full day, which ends at 6:30 p.m., says Davis. The price is $24 per day for one to three days, $20 per day for four to five days a week.

"I can't tell you how many times people tell me how calm their dog becomes [after starting day care] and they can take the dog on a calm walk instead of the dog being ballistic," says Davis. Darlington confirms that. She says that before day care, she found it hard to control Charlie, a 90-pound German shepherd, when he came across another dog during a walk. But having a place to go during the day has changed that. "He has calmed way down," she says. "Now he sees other dogs, he gets excited but he's so much easier to handle."

Darlington's work day also has calmed down, as she no longer has to head home during lunch from her job at Hampshire College to tend to the dogs.
To create happier canines, dog owners need to have what Wayne Parks of It's Pawsible calls "the ability to humble themselves and say, 'What do I need to do to help my dog?' "

Sampson (and Beth and Kerissa Wright) have completed their puppy training class Parks' school, and have moved on to an obedience class. "He's much more mild," Beth says of Sampson. "We're gone all day so he's in a crate, and when we come home he just wants the attention." But, she notes, they have learned to give him that attention for good behavior only, and now are working on teaching him to heel and to come when called.

When Tracy Green and Sheila Cleary of Florence recently cut back on using Schatz's service for their dog Kona, they noticed a difference. "He became more bark-y and antsy," says Green. So, they put Kona back in Schatz's pack and their pet seems more content now that he "has his own life" again, she says.

"It's a very long relationship and commitment," says Wayne Parks of having a dog. "They can really enrich your life," he says. He points to the three dogs in the Ostrowski-Parks home. "Last night we muted the TV to listen to all three of them breathing. To us it's very soothing, and it's good to know that they're happy and content."

David Maloof, a freelance writer who lives in Belchertown, can be reached at www.ProWriting4.com.

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