Emma Garner says she has no problem ‘picking up poo’
Emma Garner has told how she was able to buy her £195,000 four-bed detached house with the money she has earned scooping dog mess(Image: SWNS)
An animal lover has told how she has been able to buy a house – from picking up dog poo. Emma Garner, 45, has told how she was able to buy her £195,000 four-bed semi-detached house with the money she has earned scooping dog mess.
She started her pet waste and care business – The Dog Poo Professionals – in 2014 but took it on full-time in 2016 after deciding to leave her 9-to-5 as a claims assessor, where she had worked for 11 years.
But over the past decade, the animal lover has told how she now earns over four times as much as she did when working at the law firm – which was £20,000 – now pocketing in the high five figures. Emma has said that she is now fully booked up, having hundreds of customers from the West and South Yorkshire regions who she visits weekly. Her prices start from £14 a week for one dog and £4 extra per dog.
Emma, of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, says the job is the ‘best thing she has ever decided to do’. Emma said: “Picking up poo has changed my life. It has given me a great work-life balance and no stress, which was something I was dreaming of when I was at my law job.
“It has also enabled me to buy a house and be financially free, which I never dreamed of. Luckily, I have scooped it all of my life owning dogs and horses so I was lucky I didn’t have to get used to it.I’d say the worst thing about the job is long grass as it means you have to go fishing for it, which isn’t good – especially if they have a runny bum.”
Emma opened the business after she found her job overwhelmingly “stressful”. Prior to her leaving, she had already begun to research starting her own scooping business and had a few customers that she visited in her spare time.
“I saw an article about a man in America that had a dog-poo-picking business and I couldn’t get the idea out of my head. I put on add on Facebook and within 10 minutes I had my first customer.
“The first job I did was a big one, the garden hadn’t been sorted in a long time. I did think to myself, ‘God, what have I got myself into’, but it really wasn’t that bad once I got started.”
But after being reassured that her job at the law firm was safe, she received a phone call on her day off telling her that she was being made redundant. However, Emma used her redundancy as an opportunity to pursue her dog-poo-picking business full-time.
Emma said: “Picking up poo has never bothered me. I now have hundreds of customers from across Yorkshire from all backgrounds and it’s given me so much more freedom.”
Emma says she works a third of the hours she used to but earns four times more money. She said: “It has given me a great work-life balance and no stress, which wasn’t the case with the law job.”
Emma also wants to dispel the idea that her customers are lazy or bad pet owners, as many of them have complex needs. She said: “It annoys me when people assume that my customers are just lazy.
“I visit people that are in wheelchairs, have terminally ill children, people who have a broken leg, visually impaired, pregnant, elderly people. Even surgeons and beauty therapists that want to keep their hands as clean as possible for work – it all boils down to your situation and your preferences. I have someone clean my car because I absolutely hate doing it.”
Emma currently also offers pet nail trimming services. She is now looking to recruit a new staff member so she can semi-retire.