It is not the usual path to home ownership, but for Emma Garner it has paid off.

The 45-year-old says she was able to buy her more than $200,000 four-bedroom semi-detached house with money from her dog waste business, The Dog Poo Professionals.

Garner, from Wakefield in West Yorkshire, started the pet waste and care business in 2014. She took it on full-time in 2016 after leaving her job as a claims assessor, where she had worked for 11 years.

She said that over the past decade she has gone on to earn more than four times what she made at the law firm, now bringing in the high five figures. She said she is fully booked, with hundreds of customers across West and South Yorkshire. Her prices start at £14 ($18) a week for one dog, with £4 ($5) extra per dog.

Garner said: “Picking up poo has changed my life.

“It has given me a great work life balance and no stress which was something I was dreaming of when I was at my law job. It has also enabled me to buy a house and be financially free, which I never dreamed of. Luckily, I have scooped it all of my life owning dogs and horses so I was lucky I didn’t have to get used to it.”

“I’d say the worst thing about the job is long grass as it means you have to go fishing for it which isn’t good especially if they have a runny bum.”

She said she started the business after finding her job overwhelmingly “stressful”.

Before leaving, Garner said she had already begun researching a dog waste collection business and had picked up a few customers in her spare time.

She said: “I saw an article about a man in America who had a dog poo-picking business and I couldn’t get the idea out of my head.

“I put on add on Facebook and within ten minutes I had my first customer. The first job I did was a big one, the garden hadn’t been sorted in a long time. I did think to myself, ‘God what have I gotten myself into,’ but it really wasn’t that bad once I got started.”

After being told her job at the law firm was safe, Garner said she later got a phone call on her day off saying she was being made redundant.

She used the redundancy as her chance to run the business full-time.

Garner said: “Picking up poo has never bothered me.

“I now have hundreds of customers from across Yorkshire from all backgrounds and it’s given me so much more freedom.”

She said she works a third of the hours she used to, but earns four times more money.

Garner also said many of her customers are not lazy or bad pet owners, and some have complex needs.

She said: “It annoys me when people assume that my customers are just lazy.

“I visit people that are in wheelchairs, have terminally ill children, people who have a broken leg, visually impaired, pregnant, elderly people. Even surgeons and beauty therapists that want to keep their hands as clean as possible for work, it all boils down to your situation and your preferences.”

“I have someone clean my car because I absolutely hate doing it.”

Garner also offers pet nail trimming services and is looking to recruit a new staff member so she can semi-retire.

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