Entrepreneur's Best Friend: Three Local Business Owners Find Fulfillment in Dog Care

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"GET A BOTTLE OF WATER," Lydia Wade-Driver orders her student, who, far from balking at the command, obediently opens the fridge, grabs a bottle and brings it over. "Good girl," Wade-Driver says without condescension. That's because her trainee is Chanel, a 3-year-old Labrador retriever who's preparing for work as a service dog.

"You can teach them just about anything," she says of assistance dogs. "I don't think we've even begun to touch on what they can do."

Tapping into their potential has helped her realize her own. Wade-Driver is one of three area women who have found innovative ways to commune with man's best friend: Wade-Driver founded Blue Ridge Assistance Dogs (BRAD); Rebecca Bisgyer pioneered D.C.'s doggie day care scene; and Cassandra Kraham gave grooming a new look.

PUTTING DOGS TO WORK
Wade-Driver, who has a degree in landscape architecture from Virginia Tech, was laid off from her contractor position at IBM more than 15 years ago. "I decided to do what I really wanted to do," she says.

Inspired by her family's dogs, she researched jobs that would allow her to work with animals. "At first, I only knew about guide dogs, like most people," says Wade-Driver, 46.

She started by teaching canine obedience classes and then enrolled in the Bergin University of Canine Studies in Santa Rosa, Calif. After graduation, Wade-Driver returned home to Manassas and in 1994 founded BRAD, one of three organizations in Virginia that train and pair dogs with people who need them.

The nonprofit has placed 22 dogs with owners who suffer from conditions including autism, cerebral palsy, diabetes, mobility impairments, multiple sclerosis and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Wade-Driver breeds the dogs she trains. At 6 weeks old, the dogs go to live with volunteer puppy raisers who bring them to BRAD weekly for training. At a year and a half, the dogs return to live at BRAD and begin a six-month advanced training program. They learn more commands and refine their skills, such as opening doors and retrieving dropped items, which can be as small as a dime.

Using a handheld clicker, small treats and leashes, Wade-Driver gives the commands in a conversational tone. She does not raise her voice; if a dog responds incorrectly, she simply says, "No," and repeats the command. When the dog gets it right, Wade-Driver gives verbal praise, dispenses a treat or presses the clicker, making a noise the dogs associate with a job well done.

By tuning into chemical changes in the body, BRAD dogs can alert their owners to oncoming seizures or respond to them after they start. "They can go for help, they can get the phone, they can lie on top of you, they can lick you," Wade-Driver says. (By lying on the person, the animal keeps the patient warm and could also prevent someone from accidentally hurting themselves, while licking helps to keep the patient a little more in the moment so he or she comes out of the seizure faster, she says.) "It depends on what type [of condition] you have and what you want the dog to do. Everything's individual."

It takes two years and $25,000 to train one dog, and she sells them for $7,000. "A lot of people are on disability, so the $7,000 is more than enough for them to try to raise," she says.

"It's a hard business to make any money in," says Wade-Driver, who earns less than $20,000 a year. "When you apply for grants, not many want to do operating expenses or costs or salaries."

"The thing that keeps me going is the dogs. I feel a huge responsibility to them to make sure that they're happy and well cared for," she says. "You get to help the community."

PLAYTIME PIONEER
Rebecca Bisgyer, owner of Dog-ma (821 Virginia Ave. SE), knows all about feeling committed to dogs. Her guilt about leaving her pup for long stretches while she worked 12-hour days and traveled 150,000 miles a year as a marketing executive led her to start D.C.'s first dog day care in 1998.

"When I started the business, like many small-business owners, I wouldn't go home for several days sometimes and didn't shower for three days in a row. I was there round the clock frequently," says Bisgyer, 48. Today she has a staff of seven and has expanded from day care to 24-hour boarding services.

Dog-ma is the only dog day care in D.C. legally allowed to have outdoor play space — 8,000 square feet of it, to be exact. About 50 dogs spend up to 12 hours romping leash-free on playground equipment and in baby pools at Dog-ma each weekday, says Bisgyer, who handles the marketing, accounting and administrative work, and pays herself $50,000 a year.

Being with the dogs is her favorite part of the job. "It is a nonstop howl as far as seeing what they're like" at play, Bisgyer says, even though "we're always picking up poop. That's the thing we do more than anything else. You want to go home and burn your clothes after a full shift at Dog-ma, that's for sure."

And then there are the risks inherent to working with animals. "There are unknowns. Dogs can't talk to tell you what's going on," she says.

Understanding canine psychology helps. "Dogs are very inherently social creatures," she says, adding that they travel in packs. "They look for leadership, and if they sense a void, they will fill it."

To avoid fights for that top spot, she separates pooches by how many dominant ones are in day care on a given day rather than focusing solely on size.

Bisgyer doesn't miss her former lifestyle. "I was in the corporate world for a long time," Bisgyer says. "I was good at what I did, and I was proud of my corporate career, but this was a real gift. Not a lot of people can say that they do what they love."

GROOMING THAT'S A CUT ABOVE
At Kraham's Paws of Enchantment (3415 Perry St., Mt. Rainier), grooming is more than soap and scissors. Cassandra Kraham offers Dead Sea mineral mud treatments for pets with skin allergies; facials — yes, facials! — for tear-staining-prone breeds such as Shih Tzus and Yorkies; paw massage and foot soaks. Shampoo options include pomegranate and rosemary, and oatmeal, and groomers use massage techniques as they clean.

Kraham's work space smells more like lavender than wet dog — a move intended to benefit the dogs as much as the humans. Aromatherapy keeps the animals calm, she says.

The New Jersey native began grooming dogs 20 years ago at age 12, eschewing grooming schools and learning from breeders instead. She ran her own business while completing her master's in comparative literature at the University of Connecticut. After a stint as a teacher at schools in Athens and Cairo, she moved to D.C. in 1997 and worked at pet salons in Tenleytown and Dupont Circle before opening Paws in 2005.

Most people don't realize how much work goes into grooming, Kraham says. "It's not the kind of job you can rush," she says. "It's a process. A bath and a blow-dry could take two hours," depending on the size of the dog and its coat.

Groomers also get a decent workout on the job. "Some of these dogs weigh 100 pounds, and if they're trying to struggle, you have to support them," Kraham says. There's also plenty of bending: "There's the occasional accident on the floor. Not everyone walks their dogs in the morning. It happens."

Kraham spends at least 50 hours a week at Paws. Animal caretakers earn between $15,000 and $31,000 a year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But finances aside, "working with dogs is great," says Kraham, who owns five salukis. "I find I learn a lot from them — just lessons about life. They're great teachers."

Written by Express contributor Stephanie Kanowitz
Photos by Kris Tripplaar for Express