Dog owners working in an office are in a ruff situation.
With more employers requiring additional in-office days per week, workers are saying goodbye to remote life — and being guilted by Fido more often.
As more Big Apple pups are home alone, NYC dog walkers and sitters are once again booming in business, with fur parents desperate to ensure their four-legged friends cooped up in tiny apartments get fresh air.
Lauren Michelson, who has walked dogs through Rover for two years and charges $24 for 30-minute walks, said that many of her clients started out simply needing a sitter for a long weekend. Now, they’re reaching out because their work-from-home policy has changed.
“People being in the office, they need walks or day care,” Michelson, 27, told The Post. “I’ve received maybe 40% more [requests].”
That matches data from Rover provided to The Post: Dog walking bookings in NYC, which range in price from $10 up to $250 per walk, have increased from July through September 2024 by 25% year-over-year.
“As pandemic era remote work policies begin winding down, we’re seeing an uptick in demand for dog walking services,” Megan Teepe, Rover’s senior vice president of global growth, told The Post. “Dog walking bookings on Rover have officially surpassed pre-pandemic levels. A factor that could reasonably be driving this is that teams are being called back to the office.”
Michelson, an MBA student at Columbia Business School, said that she also gets a lot of requests from folks starting new jobs with different work-from-home policies.
“Some people have been changing jobs and they reach out to me and they’re asking, ‘I know you watched my dog for a long weekend while I was out of town, but now I have a new job — or now my work-from-home policy changed — and I’m going to need someone to walk my dog during the workweek,’” explained Michelson, who’s starting her own pet-sitting business, Lauren’s Besties, due to increased demand.
Andrea Leach, a certified professional dog trainer whose sessions start at $150 an hour, said she first noticed a year ago that more clients wanted in-home boarding and dog training to ensure Fido is safe at home.
The 34-year-old Manhattan dog trainer said others in her industry have noticed an uptick, too.
“A lot of the walkers that I do know are having to set a limit when they’re at capacity,” she shared.
Heather Briggs, a “star sitter” on Rover who works full time in finance, noted that many people got puppies to have company during lockdown — but now the pandemic pups are the ones alone.
“People kind of put their own anxieties on these dogs — they can’t be left alone, they’ve never been left alone,” she told The Post. “They felt they needed that extra support, which definitely caused my business to blow up a little bit.”
Dr. Eliza O’Callaghan, managing veterinarian for Small Door Vet’s NYC practices, told The Post that many dogs are struggling more with separation anxiety as their owners return to the office.
“These dogs became used to a world where their humans were constantly around, so the abrupt shift can be unsettling for them,” she shared. “Now, as people return to the office, many of these dogs are struggling with significant separation anxiety. It’s been an adjustment not just for the dogs but for the owners, too, as they navigate how to manage this stress.”
O’Callaghan noted seeing an uptick in services such as Rover as owners want to ensure their pets are cared for during the day when they can’t be home. Briggs agreed, and “only sees Rover going up” in business as more people shift to in-office work.
“Especially clients that work part time in the office, when they go in, they feel a little guilty,” she added.
Briggs, who charges $40 per walk, said the uptick in requests is likely because people simply don’t have the energy to do all their daily chores after a full day in the office.
“It’s like, you got this dog during the pandemic and now you have all these responsibilities that it is a little bit much,” she said.
Post-pandemic travel — both for work and play — has had an impact as well.
Jessica Cho, a 23-year-old media campaign coordinator who walks dogs as a side hustle, shared that requests for dog walking are often due to the owners’ work travel schedules.
“People are going on work trips more often, so it is inevitable for them to leave their dogs to be taken care of [in] others’ hands,” she told The Post.
But Leach noted that no dog is created equal, and what works well for one dog might not work for others. She advised dog owners to look into what their dog walker or day care center can offer before choosing one for their four-legged friend.
“If you’re just looking to have a walker come in … instead of being outside walking for an hour, maybe it’s something where we’re going to do a walk for 30 minutes of that hour and then 30 minutes with just the caretaker in the home with the dog, playing with the dog,” she explained.
“Just doing long walks and getting your steps in isn’t always the best thing for dogs mentally.”
