Real Ace Ventura: Detective Tails Dog Walkers

By CANDICE M. GIOVE For The New York Post

The mystified Manhattan dog owner noticed something was terribly wrong when her white border terrier began preferring the apartment’s bathroom to a fire hydrant. And she knew there was only one man who could crack the case:
Brock Schwartz, dog-walker inspector.

So the 29-year-old pooch private eye set up a palm-size hidden camera in the bathroom with remote Web access. Before long, the lens captured the dog’s dastardly walker leading the terrier to do his business in the bathtub — so that he didn’t have to take the dog out.

“He would clean the tub,” Schwartz said. “We saw it all on the cam.”

Just another day keeping paw and order.
Schwartz sniffs out lazy or larcenous dog walkers for well-heeled clients — mostly from the Upper West Side, Upper East Side, Chelsea and the Flatiron District. He says he has a list of more than 20 steady clients.
Often, new dog owners hire him for a one-time $50 inspection. Other times, owners solicit his services after observing that their best friend’s behavior is off.

“They notice something is going on,” Schwartz said. “The dog is lethargic on certain days, not eating, something specific like that.”
He also periodically spies on walkers during strolls. And he installs doggy cams — which work just like nanny cams — for $150.

The pet detective is a former dog walker himself, and he started his security business in 2008 after working for an “unethical” company. Schwartz said the now-defunct service had him walk two dogs at once, even though, unbeknownst to him, one of the pets’ owners had paid for a solo session with another walker.

The Post recently tagged along with the real-life Ace Ventura while he monitored dog walkers in Madison Square Park.
“I’ve been very careful,” said the secret agent, who obscured his face with a baseball cap and large sunglasses for the mission. “They don’t know.”

Schwartz blends into the cityscape, waiting for walkers to leave ritzy apartment buildings and following at a distance with notebook in hand. He has never blown his cover during a stakeout.

“It’s so beyond the scope of what a dog walker would think would be happening to them that it doesn’t even cross their mind that they’re being inspected,” he said.

The most common canine caper, he said, involves walkers spending less time walking the dog than they should.

Walkers charge $20 to $60 for hourlong walks. Recently, an Upper West Side woman hired Schwartz to tail her husky and his walker along Riverside Drive.

“She was paying for the hour,” he said. “She only got 40 minutes.”

The second most frequent offense is passing off the dog-walking duty to someone else.

“People are being subbed in on different days,” Schwartz said. “The chances of finding out are so astronomically impossible.”

In one case, he caught a walker feeding a pit bull Halloween candy.

“I thought, ‘Why?’ ” he said. “It was an idiotic thing to do.”

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john doe
john doe
13 years ago

Anyone bother to see if this guy has a private investigators license to do this. Yes a nys Department of State Private investigators license is required to do investigations in NYS. Licensing bonding background checks are all part of the process. I would be very suprised if he has any of that. On top of that NYS requires sales tax to be collected on those services. Funny how an unlicensed person can get all that publicity

compassion
compassion
13 years ago
Reply to  john doe

Funny how someone can “assume” he isn’t licensed and seems to be very defensive about a man investigating dog walkers….Perhaps Mr. Doe is also a dog walker with less than ethical behaviors and is threatened by the prospect of an investigator checking him out???

john doe
john doe
13 years ago

to compassion . not assuming anything you can check yourself he is not licensed. No i am just a real private investigator that has to do things the right way and not a wanna be like him

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