Cheap Pet Insurance

September 27th, 2009 by Ree Adams

If the title of this article has you chuckling, that’s okay. I pick up dog poop for a living and I’m willing to share some insider secrets about it.

Why did I choose this field of endeavor you ask? Why would any seemingly intelligent, older individual pick up dog poop for a living? The answer may surprise you, because it’s about simplicity.

Picking up dog poop is inherently a simple process. Simple concept, simple tools, simple routes, simple collection methods; everything about it is very basic and straight forward. I like that.

You have only two simple tools; a long-handled scoop and an over-sized hotel lobby dust pan (also with a long handle so there’s no bending over). When you arrive at a customer’s house you unload both and line the bin with a small plastic garbage bag. Go the yard you need to clean and begin making systematic sweeps back and forth in paths about five feet apart. When you encounter piles, stop, set the bin behind the target and make a smooth sweep with the scoop depositing the pile in the bin and move on. Continue like this until you’ve covered the whole yard. That’s the process!

Once you’ve got all the waste picked up you go out the gate again making sure it’s secured as you leave. Back at your vehicle, you take out a larger and heavier garbage bag and place the small bag from the bin into it. You also place your scoop into a bucket containing about six inches of water with sanitizer in it to clean it between stops.

The time it takes to complete the process can vary due to the size of the yard and the number of dogs. It averages in our case to between 15 and twenty minutes per stop.

Maximizing your route comes from organizing stops to be as close to one another as possible. If done right you can manage up to 3 stops per hour without too much effort.

Most companies charge by the dog. On our routes, we have averaged about $16 per week per stop so if you can do three stops per hour, you’re getting paid the equivalent of nearly $50 per hour to pick up dog poop! Are you beginning to get a sense of why we do it?

Our routes are not completely full yet, so we don’t come anywhere close to these numbers. We’re so spread out in some areas it drops our overall average down to about 1.6 dogs per hour, but that’s more than $25 an hour even at that. As we improve our routes with more customers to fill in the blank spots it will only get better.

There are also many other good traits to this kind of work. You set your own hours, very little investment money is required, no special tools needed, you’re not generally dealing with the public and most of our customers pay on time.

Some people wouldn’t do this because their pride is too great. But can you buy food with pride? I don’t think you can. We buy our food after we pick up dog poop!