Rapidly melting snow this week has many across the Twin Cities eager to get started with yardwork, with the exception of picking up the dog poop that went untouched during the cold and snowy winter months.
While some people opt to pick up the the dog poop themselves, others call in the professionals to do the dirty work.
Sonja Tengdin, owner of ScoopyPoo DoggyDoo Pickup in Edina, is one of those professionals.
"We're super busy," Tengdin said. "I would say now I'm working about 12 hour days."
Tengdin started ScoopyPoo DoggyDoo Pickup after leaving her job as a bond trader to raise her children.
"Where it started was trying to get my kids to scoop the poop," Tengdin said. "From there it was like, 'Oh, why don't we make it into a little company?'"
Business was fairly slow at the beginning, but started picking up in the late 2000s. Today, Tengdin says the business serves over 600 clients on a weekly basis.
"It really took off in 2013/2014 because we were coming out of sort of a recession in 2008. I feel like that slowed it down, but we got to the point where it has just taken off."
This year is one of their busiest yet. Tengdin and her team of about 13 scoopers work from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on a daily basis picking up dog poop by hand.
"It's nonstop and it's physical exercise because we pick it up by hand," she said. "We don't use the little shovels or anything. And we've already started our spring specials. Those started in February."
There's plenty of room for fun when you operate a business named Scoopy Poo Doggy Doo Pickup. In fact, the team of scoopers drive Mini Coopers that they call "The Mini Scooper."
"You add an 'S' in front of Cooper and you have Scooper. It's the perfect car for us."
The poop picking up process is fairly straightforward. Scoopers walk a grid in the yard to cover every inch, pick up the poop, and stick it in a bucket. Due to dog poop being labeled as hazardous material, Tengdin and her team cannot transport the waste from the site in their own vehicles.
"Now when the weather is this beautiful, it's so much more fun to be out there," she said. "We go out in the rain. The only thing we can't do is when it snows more than two inches because we can't find it. Otherwise we're out all of the time."
Picking up poop for a living might not be what many people dream of doing, but for Tengdin, there's more to it and the end of the day.
"We're a company that makes fun of what we do. We're not serious. It's about having fun. Dogs are great animals to have and everybody should have a dog. It's a wonderful way to have a dog, and not have to necessarily take care of the icky stuff. For families, this service is great. We're so busy with our kids that you don't have to wait until Saturday when you don't have time anyway to do it. It's done during the week, we come and pick your yard up, and it's a very simple premise. We've kept it plain and simple."
