If your dog doesn’t like to share, here’s how to rent a private yard for your pooch

Virginia Woolf wrote that a woman needs a room of one’s own to write fiction.

And some dogs apparently would like to have a yard of their own to run, pee or sniff in solitude.

But not every dog owner has a big, fenced area, which is why a company called Sniffspot exists.

Sniffspot is like Airbnb for dogs, except instead of booking a vacation rental house or condo, you’re booking a private yard, a beach, a farm or even a swimming pool for your dog to romp around in without having to share the space with other canines as you would in a dog park.

The company was started in 2018 by an entrepreneur named David Adams. At the time, Adams was living in a high-rise in Seattle and taking his Labrador mix named Soba to dog parks. Adams said the parks were often small, crowded and not very clean, and sometimes Soba got into doggie conflicts.

Walking on a leash wasn’t totally satisfying, either, for a dog that sometimes wanted to run and then sometimes jerked to a halt to sniff.

At the same time, Adams noticed empty private land that wasn’t being used but would be great for a dog to tear around in.

“I didn’t really think this would be a business,” he said. “I just thought it was a weird thing that I wanted.”

But fellow dog owners loved his yard-share concept when he floated the idea on a Facebook community group. He created a website to connect yard owners with dog owners and somewhat to his surprise, rental bookings started happening.

Adams is now based in Massachusetts, and running Sniffspot is his fulltime job. He said there are about 25,000 active rental locations, mainly in the U.S. and Canada. That includes yards, but also spaces with ponds or swimming pools, dog hiking trails, dog agility courses, beaches, farm fields and indoor spaces.

Most Sniffspot rentals are fenced and offer a half-acre or more of space. But some are a lot bigger, like a 20-acre avocado farm near San Diego that rents for $40 an hour.

Sniffspot rentals can be a lot cheaper, as low as $3 an hour. Adams said the average is about $15 an hour. Sniffspot, which provides insurance and runs the website that facilitates the bookings, takes about 25% of the payment.

Adams said there are about 100,000 users of Sniffspot and he estimates that they spent about $10 million this year on rentals, double the amount spent last year. The Twin Cities is one of his more popular markets, with about 300 locations in the metro area.

Surprisingly, about 70% of the dog owners using Sniffspot actually have their own yards, according to Adams. They just want to treat their dogs to something bigger or more enriching.

“Nobody has to use Sniffspot,” Adams said. “People are paying money for their dogs to have a good time.”

Adams said some Sniffspot hosts are making up to $7,000 a month, though a more typical amount is $500 to $1,000 a month.

Unlike being an Airbnb host, a Sniffspot host doesn’t have to worry about cleaning the bathroom or washing the sheets and towels or doing a key exchange.

“It’s super easy,” Adams said.

When Luke Baker became a Sniffspot host about four years ago, he started getting $100 or $200 a month renting out his large fenced-in backyard in Little Canada.

“It was fun money,” he said.

He began to think that in 10 years, he might make enough to pay off the $12,000 chain link fence that he had installed for his own dogs. It actually only took him about three years to recover the cost of the fence through Sniffspot rentals.

Baker, who charges $14 an hour, said he now typically makes $400 to $700 a month in Sniffspot rentals, and has gotten up to $1,000 in a month.

He doesn’t do any marketing and the Sniffspot app lets him control what times he wants to make the yard available. He said he gets up to 10 visits on the weekend. The yard has hosted dog birthday parties and Corgi meetups.

Like Airbnb, the app allows visitors and hosts to rate each other. He said his dog owner guests have been respectful.

“They’re cleaning up after themselves,” he said.

He typically doesn’t interact with visitors in person.

“That’s what people pay for: person-free, dog-free time” with their own dogs, Baker said.

“It’s been really positive. You feel like you’re kind of helping people,” said Matt Schultz, a Sniffspot host in Minnetonka. “The small amount of money is kind of a nice bonus.”

Jaedyn James, a Minneapolis resident, said she uses Sniffspot two to three times a week for her 80-pound albino pit bull mix, Fatty.

She lives in a duplex and doesn’t have access to a big, fenced area. Fatty doesn’t like other dogs, so dog parks aren’t a good option.

She uses Sniffspot two or three times a week, spending $60 to $90 a month.

Her favorite locations are a nearby Sniffspot space that only charges $3 an hour and another larger space that costs $15 an hour. The sessions let Fatty safely go off leash and “run like a maniac.”

“It’s a wonderful tool,” she said. “It has been so helpful and life-changing for both of us.”

St. Paul resident Sonya Ibrahim said she has used Sniffspot more than 100 times to exercise her dogs. Even though she has a fenced yard, Ibrahim said she likes to give her two dogs a chance to really stretch their legs and explore in Sniffspot locations that offer a couple of acres of fenced area.

Stacy Couch owns three acres of fenced fields and wooded areas northwest of Minneapolis. It’s separated from her own home and yard and has nearly 2,700 five-star Sniffspot reviews.

Couch said she’s hosted more than 5,000 dog visits. Amenities at her site include dog toys, poop bags, seating and a screened pavilion for humans.

She said some dog owners use her private dog retreat to provide a special experience on the dog’s birthday or at the end of the dog’s life. But others are regulars who come once or more a week.

She charges $14 an hour and said she’s currently earning $2,000 to $2,800 a month through Sniffspot rentals.

Sometimes she has to clean up after users who failed to follow directions to pick up after their dogs. But the income is a consolation. She just tells herself, “There’s another $40 pile I picked up.”