NEVER POOPED OUT.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

PALMDALE - It might help to have a nose for business, but in Jerry Conaway's line of work, it's best to check the olfactory senses at the door.

For the past five years, Conaway has scooped up dog poop for a fee for customers in Ventura County, and now he wants to expand his business to Palmdale and Valencia.

His daughter, Sasha Pereyra of Palmdale, has been posting fliers advertising Professional Pooper Scoopers, whose motto is, ``They poop it, we scoop it.''

``It's not the most glamorous thing in the world, but why not?'' said Pereyra, who gets embarrassed just saying the company name. ``You do it in the morning when people are not home. You don't see them; they don't see you.''

The demand for such service is increasing, if the increase in the number of dog-waste removal firms in the last 13 years is any indication.

There are 340 such companies today, mostly in United States and Canada, compared with a handful in 1988, according to Matthew Osborn, who founded such a business in 1988 in Ohio and sold it a decade later for more than $219,000.

He now maintains an industry Web site and sells a start-up guide titled, ``The Professional Pooper-Scooper: How to start your own low-cost, high-profit dog-waste removal service.''

Osborn calls this the age of specialization, a time when people pay others to mow their lawn, water their indoor plants, buy their groceries and put up their Christmas lights.

``I think it fits in with other trends. A lot of people are so busy. They are in two-income households. People work long hours, and they have money but not much free time,'' Osborn said. ``With the little bit of free time they do have, there are things they would rather be doing than cleaning up after dogs.''

Other customers are older or disabled and can't pick up after their pets themselves. Then there's what Osborn calls the repugnance factor.

``There's a lot of people who love their dogs, but that's one thing about the dog they don't love, and they want to get somebody to take care of it for them,'' Osborn said.

One thing seems sure: Canine waste, like death and taxes, is a certainty, with countless dog owners and back yards. At his company's busiest, Osborne said, his seven employees were shoveling up 2,000 tons a week.

A comment from his brother about people's back yards inspired Conaway, a 52-year-old resident of Thousand Oaks, to start his own business after working 15 years giving driver tests for the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

``My brother at the time was working for Verizon,'' said Conaway. ``He was digging the telephone lines. ... One day he came by my house and said, 'Jerry, you know every back yard we go to is full of dog poo.' For some reason, I said now I know what I'm going to do.''

He has 50 customers throughout eastern Ventura County. Equipped with a lined wastebasket and a scissorslike shovel-and-fork scooper, Conaway can personally clean up 15 to 20 yards a day - five to 10 minutes a yard - and deposit the droppings in the owners' trash cans.

The charge for a once-a-week cleanup is $10 for one dog and $2 more for each additional dog. There's an additional $3 charge if a customer wants him to come more than once a week.

``Once you get a rotation going, it doesn't take that long at all. There's no overhead. It's all profit,'' said Conaway, who says he makes a good living.

``It's nasty sometimes. It just doesn't bother me. I don't smell it anymore,'' Conaway said.

By the way, neither Conaway nor Pereyra owns dogs.

``Un-unh. I have a big pool and a deck, patio, barbecue. A dog would mess it up,'' Conaway said.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) Jerry Conaway of Thousand Oaks, a former driver examiner, cleans up dog feces for a fee in his own growing business.

(2) Jerry Conaway uses his pooper scooper for pay in a back yard at Moorpark.

Joe Binoya/Special to the Daily News