Local companion: A man walks several dogs at a Cipete housing residence in South Jakarta on Wednesday.(JP/Donny Fernando)

Jakarta may not be an altogether pet-friendly place, and as a Muslim-majority city may not be so welcoming to dogs, but busy pooch owners in the metropolis can still find dog walkers to take care of their furry friends.

Dog walking is a much-needed service for people like Lauvinia Amin, who runs a beauty salon business at her storehouse home in Pluit, North Jakarta.

Running the business from home and having two Pomeranian dogs means that she often does not get to spend much quality time with her pets.

“I work [from home] and don’t always have time to take them for a walk, while everyday they need at least 15 minutes of walking,” the 26-year-old said.

Finding herself in this situation, Lauvinia hired dog walkers so that her dogs would get proper exercise.

Twenty-four-year-old Jessica Ho is one such person that offers a dog walking service.

She said she started the business in January this year despite initially having no intention of starting such a service.

“I didn’t really intend to make a dog walking business, but I kept a lot of rescue dogs. So this could be an additional source of income for [taking care of] them,” Jessica told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday, adding that dog walking was her side job, as she also worked for a private company.

“I must make sure the dogs are healthy and keep them out of harm’s way as if they are mine. They shouldn’t eat anything dangerous and I must also pick up their waste,” she said.

She said that one of the main requirements to be a dog walker was liking dogs in the first place, adding that you must introduce yourself to a dog before taking it for a walk.

She charges Rp 30,000 (US$2.10) to Rp 70,000 per hour, depending on the size and energy of the dog, but she never walks more than three dogs per session.

Gabriel Rinaldi, 31, who initially moonlighted as a dog walker while working at a non-profit organization in 2010, has now switched to dog walking fulltime.

“Dog walking is fun. Every day I get to meet different dogs and different clients, which all have different characters, so I learn a lot about handling dogs,” Gabriel told the Post. “This is also healthy [exercise] and I work only four hours in the morning and four hours in the afternoon.”

To make his service stand out from other dog walkers, Gabriel has developed his own technique that he called structured walking.

“From putting on leashes and opening the gate, the dog should not start the walk. The dog must follow the human, not vice versa,” Gabriel said.

He said he always made sure the dogs were calm before starting the walk, so they would not initiate the walk themselves. After he lets the dogs go out of the gate and start walking, the dogs must be beside or behind him.

“I will give the dogs rewards such as sniffing around and relieving themselves only after they have behaved well during the walk,” he said.

After returning home from a walk, Gabriel makes sure the dogs only enter the house after he has invited them in.

“We start the walk with structure and end with structure,” Gabriel said.

His clients have told him that their dogs’ behavior improved at home after Gabriel had taken them for a walk.

Gabriel charges Rp 150,000 per dog per one-hour session, whatever the breed, mostly in South Jakarta.

“I usually limit my dog walking to three dogs at a time, because Indonesia’s streets are not supportive [of pedestrians and pets] and they are too narrow,” he said.

Sometimes, Gabriel meets people who are not too fond of dogs in the streets, but he does not respond much to that.

“They are public streets anyway. People usually like it if dog walkers and the dogs are calm. Even if some people are being negative toward me [while dog walking] I just smile and excuse myself,” he said.

For dog owners such as Italo Gani, 43, hiring a dog walker such as Gabriel not only gave his five dogs regular exercise around his house in Cilandak, South Jakarta, but also improved his dogs’ behavior at home or when he took his dogs for a walk by himself.

“I also take my dogs for a walk and learn about it more from Gabriel, such as how to take them out of the gate if they keep barking,” he said.

He said that professional dog walkers were sorely needed in Jakarta as some pet owners relied on their domestic helpers to take their dogs for a walk, but they were not properly trained to do so and left the dogs without regular exercise from the walk.

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