For over two decades, Linda Sadiker, 60, has worked as a dog walker in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. She walks 17 to 19 dogs at a time.
“The question I get asked the most is, ‘Are they all yours?’
“I say, ‘Well when they’re in my care, they’re my dogs.’ And the second-most-asked-question is, ‘How do you pick up all the poop?’ And I say, ‘Well, I pick up the poop!’”
“I started walking dogs about 21 years ago. There were people out there walking dogs back then, but not as many. There were only five or six dog walkers at the time.”
“During the week I get up and out by 6:30 a.m. and start picking up the dogs. We go to off-leash fun. After that, the dogs that stay with me all day, we go back to my apartment. We have some drinks. We relax for a little while and then we head out and do a two-and-a-half-hour walk around the park.”
“I listen to music when I walk. I have my playlist and I listen to everything from Meat Loaf to Bruce Springsteen. Some LL Cool J. We have some disco going.”
“At the beginning of the pandemic I only had nine dogs — that’s a huge difference. It was slow for everybody. I was very fortunate, because some of my long-time clients who didn’t want their dogs to walk were still very good to me.”
“Now we’re totally back to normal. And there’s even more dog walkers!” “It’s a community of dog lovers who look after each other. It’s what I’m all about.”
“I love talking to the dogs all day, but I love bumping into the other dog walkers. They always look at me and shake their heads. A lot of them walk one dog at a time and they see me with my 17 to 18 dogs and laugh!”
“I love all the dogs. There’s 19 of them. I love Rosie and Kiwi. There’s Jenny— I’ve had her for 10 and-a-half years. Same thing with Lamar. There’s Buddy and Joey and Louie. The dogs are very good dogs. They know each other and they get along well.”
“My office is the park! It doesn’t get any better than that.”
“Financially I do OK. I tell people that want to get into dog walking: ‘You make as much as you want. You don’t walk very much, you don’t make very much. You walk more, you make more.’” “I imagine that instead of retiring, I’ll be lessening. Maybe I’ll take less dogs at some point.”
“On the weekends, I hang out with my dogs — Baby and Beau. I’m always with dogs. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
