GUILDERLAND — For those of you who love your pets, but don’t love to clean up the messes they leave behind, help is only a phone call away.

When Doodies Call is a brand-new, fully insured, pooper-scooper service based in Guilderland. Debbie Zarrelli and Sharon Siegal decided to start the local service, which, they say, nation-wide is a multi-million dollar business, because it is a service that a highly pet-populated suburban town like Guilderland lacks.
"I love dogs a lot," said Siegal. "I thought it would be a really nice idea for the community."

The idea for the business came after Siegal visited her aunt and uncle’s home one weekend and one of their neighbors had a poop-scooper business. It is fairly easy work and a much-needed service for today’s busy pet owners, Siegal told The Enterprise, so she pitched the idea to Zarrelli.
"She started laughing at first, and she liked the idea," said Siegal, "and then she started looking on-line."

It was after some Internet research that Zarrelli discovered just how much poop was really being scooped across America.
"I did quite a bit of research on-line, and was surprised to find so much on this type of business"All of the states have pooper-scooper businesses except for three of them," said Zarrelli.

A national pooper-scooper convention is held every year. This year’s convention was held in Orlando during the first week of March, and last year’s convention was held in Oregon. According to Siegal, the first official pooper-scooper business started in Long Island.
"There are literally hundreds and hundreds of pooper-scooper businesses across the U.S. and Canada," Zarrelli said.

Zarrelli and Siegal say dog waste ruins property appearance and inhibits its use, causes unpleasant odors, offends neighbors, gets tracked into homes, attracts rodents and parasites, is a water and lawn pollutant, and can present a serious health risk to humans and other animals.

When Doodies Call are scheduling spring cleanups now, and after an initial cleanup a weekly or monthly maintenance schedule can be setup. The business owners say, although they love dogs, they are asking pets not be in the yard during a scheduled cleanup.

For a weekly fee, they pick up pet poop, and bag it for owners to dispose of.

The two Guilderland pooper-scooper entrepreneurs have created a website for customers to easily make or cancel appointments, check out prices, and look through the businesses payment options. The website address is www.whendoodiescall.com.
"We’re getting a lot of jokes about it, like ‘Is the business picking up yet"’ But you kind of expect that with this type of business," Siegal said.