K9 Janitor, scooping dog poop so you don’t have to

Businesses and non-profit organizations regularly open and move in Saskatoon. Today the StarPhoenix talks to Max Harwood, who opened K9 Janitor in February.

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K9 Janitor offers a simple service that is easy to understand, summarized in their slogan, ‘Dogs poop. We scoop!” They will come to your house in Saskatoon either weekly or biweekly and do the dirty work for you.

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Q: What is K9 Janitor?

A: We are a very simple business and just perform dog poop scooping services for residential addresses in Saskatoon on a weekly or biweekly basis.

Q: Why did you open K9 Janitor?

A: I have another home-service business in B.C. It’s a lawn-care business. My wife and I and our kids moved here last September. I wanted to do another business in the home-service space, and had heard about poop scooping and how profitable it can be as a business and also straightforward to run. It seemed attractive, and there’s a lot of overlap from the experience that I had with the other home-service business.

Q: What kind of background do you have with dogs?

A: My parents had a few dogs when I was growing up. Cleaning up after them was sort of a necessary step with having an animal, but I hadn’t done it professionally or anything. I go to church with a guy who has a lot of promise and I saw a lot of potential in him. So I thought we could work together, and he could do more of the field work and then I would do more of the business side in terms of the marketing and the sales and getting the operation up and running. That’s worked out well. And I’ve hired a couple others to assist him.

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Q: You have a simple phrase you use, “Dogs poop. We scoop!” Is it as simple as that?

A: We’re using that one. I can’t say it’s original to me. There are other poop-scoop companies that use that phrase, but we like to use it as well. This industry is fairly new. I think in the States it probably started in the 1980s or so. But a lot of people don’t know about it yet, so it’s just about educating people about the service, although it’s a very short education cycle. It’s not something complicated like technology. But a lot of people just don’t know about the service yet.

Q: What kind of packages do you offer?

A: We do month-to-month subscriptions, so if someone wants to cancel or pause in the future they are welcome to do that. And then we also do a first cleanup free. We have a 30-day money back guarantee. It’s very easy to start service with us, and then there’s a lot of flexibility if someone finds that they don’t need it or maybe they just want to sign up over the winter so they don’t have the buildup of dog waste in the spring.

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Q: What is your pricing?

A: We only have two prices, so it’s very easy. If it’s one to three dogs and it’s a weekly schedule, it would be $132 per month. The first clean up is free. And then if it’s the same amount of dogs for a biweekly service, once every two weeks, it’s $99 per month. We do charge a tiny bit more if someone has four or more dogs, but we’ve only come across a few people that have four dogs. The vast majority have one to three.

Q: What can people expect from your services?

A: We always make sure the gates are closed when we’re done. You definitely don’t want to leave that open, so part of the process with the crew is that at the end of each visit they have to take a picture of the closed gate attached to that specific visit. By having that tangible action that they perform, it helps to ensure that it’s always closed.

And we disinfect after each service. We use a disinfectant called Virkon, which is a sort of standard disinfectant for kennels and other places. We do want to be careful because there are certain sicknesses that can pass through dogs fecal matter so we take that seriously.

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Q: How did you decide on the name K9 Janitor?

A: We wanted something that was immediately understandable and short. We are the janitor for canines. We also wanted to try to keep it a little more professional by not referring directly to the dog waste. There’s lots of companies that will use sort of punny names like pew crew or do duty. I don’t know that people directly want to talk about dog poop so I thought something like K9 Janitor just sounds more approachable.

Q: Do you provide services for other pets who are not dogs?

A: We’re focused strictly on dogs and our service is just scooping up after them.

Q: What kind of response have you had to your services?

A: It’s been very positive so far. I think that it’s a task that people aren’t very fond of, for obvious reasons. I think having the first cleanup free helps a lot with that.

Q: Do you do any work outside of Saskatoon?

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A: Right now we’re just focusing within Saskatoon city limits.

Q: Is it hard to find workers in this field?

A: Not so far. There are people who want to work outside and they’re excited to have a job that’s year round. A lot of outdoor work is quite seasonal. We’re somewhat unique in that it can provide a fairly good wage. Right now we’re paying anywhere from $20 to $25 an hour, and it can be more than that as we optimize the business and (for people) that are able to work outside year-round. Some people just love to be outside.

Q: How would you describe workers for K9 Janitor?

A: I find workers that are very professional in how they are conducting themselves. Everyone that is working for us has to have a clean criminal background and they go through a personality test. Also, when I’m interviewing potential candidates I try to make sure that they are approachable and friendly. Because I think — not that this is necessarily a trait — but with home services more generally, it’s super common to have technicians on site that are kind of grumpy, or you’re really not 100 per cent sure about them. So I try to find people that are outstanding and the (positive) reviews happen naturally because of that.

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Q: Is there an average time that it takes to complete your services?

A: Anywhere from 20 minutes to six hours. In some cases, we’ve had two guys on site for initial cleanups for three hours each.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

K9 Janitor

Owner: Max Harwood
Hours: Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Closed Sundays.
Phone: 306-700-5249
Email: info@K9Janitor.com
Website: www.k9janitor.com
Check: Facebook, Instagram

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