How This Dog Walker Became a Dog Photographer
Here’s how after working for 20 years in corporate America, I took a leap of faith and became an entrepreneur. I started my own dog walking business See Spot Run Charlotte in 2009 and in 2016, I officially launched my dog photography company BARKography.
Here’s my story.
I’ve always wanted to work with dogs but life happened and when I graduated from college at UNC-Chapel Hill, I found a normal 8-5 job. A career path that lasted 20 years.
Buddy and me. I hired a photographer in 2013 to photograph us.
Here’s my only claim to fame and I might be stretching that but this happened at my first job out of college.
I worked for a temporary agency interviewing people who were looking for clerical or warehouse jobs. For any Carolina basketball or NBA fans, Antawn Jamison’s dad Albert worked at a warehouse for my temp agency. This was when Antawn played for the Carolina Tarheels, before he got drafted as the 4th overall pick in 1998. Albert knew I was a Carolina grad, so every time he came into the office, we’d chat about Carolina Basketball.
After 11 years of working on the temp side of the business, I was recruited to join a headhunting firm that specialized in Accounting and Finance. My bachelor’s degree is in business and I’d considered getting an accounting degree so this seemed like a logical fit.
I enjoyed this work for 5 years. I was good at it. The problem was I worked in this field for 9 years. The last 4 years were dreadfully painful.
I lost my job in November 2008 when the economy tanked. At the time I didn’t see it but looking back, this was a huge gift. Lifechanging actually.
At the time, my dog Sloan was 12.5 years old. She’d been in and out of the vet and I knew something was wrong. She was my first dog as an adult. We’d been through a lot together and she was my heart dog.
She was diagnosed with hemangiosarcoma (cancer of the spleen.) Surgery wasn’t recommended. I made the heartbreaking decision to let her go on December 13, 2008.
Leaving my corporate job was an unexpected gift. I got to spend the last month of Sloan’s life WITH her. I didn’t have to leave every morning to go to a job I hated. I stayed home with her and we comforted each other.
One of my biggest regrets of my life is not having any good photos of her. I have a million of her but they’re not any good. Here’s a recent blog I wrote about her with a couple of those photos and why I think photos are so important.
After she died, I was so lonely for her and the thought of going back into an industry that I no longer enjoyed was disheartening.
So, I decided to follow my heart. I took a leap of faith and I started my own dog walking business. I became an professional dog walker on April 4, 2009. My first dog walking client was a young, gorgeous golden retriever named Mojo and I’ll never forget him.
Mojo had a ton of energy so he and I would jog around his neighborhood. I learned several lessons those first few days as Mojo’s dog walker:
You should always carry one more poop bag than you think you’ll need. Sometimes the sides of the bags aren’t sealed properly and that’s a problem. Especially with big dogs.
Dogs that run poop a lot. Mojo always pooped twice on our runs. I made sure I always had 3 bags with me.
When running with a dog, it’s ideal to run someplace that has lots of trash cans around. Running and holding a bag of poop isn’t ideal. Luckily Mojo lived near Queens University.
Apologies if this is TMI. I’m a dog walker. You should read my texts to my clients. They’re all about pooping and peeing.
Because I had a recruiting background, I knew how to market my business. My sales by year three exceeded my wildest dreams.
I continued at that pace for two more years. The downside was I was working ALL the time.
For those unfamiliar with pet sitting, I would go to my clients’ homes while they were out of town to care for their pets. 3-4 times per day every day that they were gone, I’d be in and out of their house. My day started at 6-7am, then I’d be back again at 12pm, 5pm and 9-10pm.
I worked every weekend. During the summers, I’d pet sit while everyone else went to the beach for a week. I started counting. In 2012, I had 22 days off then entire year.
Over the holidays I’d have 7-8 pet sitting jobs on my calendar. I’d worked crazy, long hours and I rarely saw my own family over holidays.
I needed a change. I needed some work life balance so I started brainstorming about other business ideas and ways I could continue to earn a living but not work every weekend.
I’d always loved photography and I loved dogs so why not get a nice camera and start offering dog photography? It seemed like a perfect fit.
In August of 2014, I bought my first Nikon.
At the time, we had a black lab named Buddy. I loved Sloan like I’ve never loved another dog. She was my first dog but Buddy was the best dog I’ve ever owned.
He was such a GOOD dog. When we adopted him, the rescue estimated his age to be between 7-10 years old. I told my husband not long after we got him, “However long we get to have Buddy, it isn’t going to be long enough.” It was a wonderful 6 years.
Buddy is the real reason I bought that first camera. He had a health scare in August 2014. The vet suspected nasal cancer. I didn’t know how much time I had left with him and I wanted to make certain I had decent photos of him.
If you read the blog I referenced earlier about Sloan, one of my biggest regrets is not having decent photos of her. I didn’t want to make that mistake with Buddy so I went out and bought a camera.
Do you know what? This is how naive I was: I had no idea that I needed to learn about photography in order to use a DSLR camera. I needed to learn how to use my camera. I needed to learn how to edit a photo using Lightroom and Photoshop. I needed to understand light and everything else that makes photography so complicated.
I also didn’t realize that starting a photography business was a big investment. I didn’t know anything about photography and I needed to learn, so investing in my education was (and still is) one of my biggest expenditures.
I actually quit for a while. I was so frustrated because I couldn’t figure out how to use my camera, I shelved it for almost a year. But I kept thinking about it so eventually I took it out again and started reaching out to other photographers about learning from them.
Once again my background in recruiting and networking, helped me become a photographer. I found out about a dog photographer workshop called Barkelona being taught by three well known dog photographers in Barcelona.
It was at that workshop that I fell in love with photography. I remember the exact moment. It’s a feeling I will always remember.
The moral of the story is, don’t be afraid to follow your dreams. Since I was a little girl, I’ve dreamed of working with dogs.
In 2009, I made that dream come true when I started my dog walking business. But when I became a dog photographer, I found my why.
Dog photography has given me purpose. Because I don’t have any decent photos of my first dog Sloan, I see it as a privilege when clients hire me to photograph their dog. It’s an honor I will never take for granted.
I still have my dog walking and pet sitting business too. I had scaled back on the pet sitting so I wasn’t working nearly as much (by choice.) I had a great set of regular dog walking clients that I’d see Monday - Friday while their parents were at work.
Needless to say everything changed in 2020 when covid-19 happened and now the dog walking and pet sitting business is a shell of what it was. I expect the dog walking will pick up once people return to their offices because so many families have adopted dogs or gotten puppies.
The past several months have made me so appreciative of my camera and my dog photography business. It has given me something to do during covid.
My photography has allowed me to continue to earn income and perhaps even more importantly, it has kept me company in these strange times. I am grateful.
If you’ve stuck with me through this long story of how this dog walking became a dog photographer, congratulations. I feel like I just wrote a novel.
This is a blog circle and next up is Terri J Photography specializing in dog portraits in the Toronto area. Be sure to click the link at the bottom of each blog to see what each pet photographer has to say about our topic this week which is "anything we want to write about.” There should be a wide variety and of course, lots of cute doggo photos.