Where canines go, DoodyCalls

By Greg Goldfarb

Correspondent

NORFOLK COMPASS

Scott Waitzer loves dogs.

He has four of them - two German Shepherds and two Rotweillers.

But as a busy commercial real estate developer, he has little time to clean up the mounds of pet waste accumulating daily behind his waterfront home.

"With so many dogs, it's just a lot easier to let someone else deal with it," said Waitzer, a Meadowbrook resident and 1982 Norfolk Academy graduate. "You can't have feces get into the water system and you don't want to step in it. That wouldn't be a good situation."

Waitzer hasn't cleaned up after his dogs since last spring, when he hired DoodyCalls, a full-service pet waste removal company owned by Suburban Acres residents, Doug and Sarah Barnhart.

"I like working with animals and with the environment," Doug Barnhart said. "Even though picking up poop for a living is challenging, I like the money."

His fee depends on the number of dogs in the yard, its size and how many times he cleans it a week.

Twice a week, Barnhart spends about 20 minutes - with rakes, shovels, buckets and disposable bags - to remove pet waste from Waitzer's yard. He also cleans and disinfects the area - all for $120 to $150 a month.

Barnhart opened a year ago, spending $25,000 for a DoodyCalls franchise agreement, and another $25,000 for equipment, including a truck.

At that time, he had no customers lined up. Two months later, the self-proclaimed "pooper scooper" had five clients. Last summer, that number was up to 20.

He now has 40 residential and two commercial clients, and makes up to 15 stops a day, collecting up to 100 pounds of manure for the landfill. His five-year plan calls for hiring five employees, to serve 300 customers, while generating annual gross revenues of $425,000.

A former shipping industry executive, Doug Barnhart, 47, grew up in Minnesota. Sarah Barnhart, 45, a homemaker, grew up in McLean. Married for 22 years, they have two sons: Drew, 17, a Norfolk Christian High School junior; and Bill, 22, a Washington and Lee University senior.

Barnhart said his biggest challenge "is getting the word out. A lot of people need this service." There are at least 50,000 dogs in Norfolk, he said, leaving behind tons of potentially dangerous waste.

"Just one gram of feces contains 23 million fecal coliform bacteria," Barnhart said. "Up to one-quarter of the fecal coliform in the Lynnhaven River is from pet waste."

Human exposure to coliform bacteria, Barnhart said, can lead to heartworms, whip worms, hookworms, tapeworms, roundworms, parro virus, giardia and salmonellosis. Such exposure can cause abdominal cramps, diarrhea and other intestinal illnesses, he said.

Greg Goldfarb, greggoldfarb@msn.com