Animal lover’s tales

HACKENSACK, N.J. – If you met Barbara Sue Allegretta on the street you might be struck by her tendency to talk fast, in a friendly, ex-bartender kind of way.

But a visit to her Oakland, N.J., home reveals another side of her: Allegretta is a Jersey cowgirl who has turned her passion for animals into a business.

Just past a pool and a patch of well-kept lawn behind her modest house, four expectant equine faces turned, ears pricked forward at the sound of her voice.

It was midmorning and Allegretta was showing off her menagerie and talking about why she started a pet-sitting service this past winter to augment her pony-ride business.

A cacophony of barking erupted as Allegretta walked toward her backyard horse paddock, accompanied by two madcap Boston terriers, a visiting pup named Madison and an elderly Great Pyrenees.

The 38-year-old Allegretta kept the rambunctious terriers in check, talking to them like naughty children as they tore through the yard.

Giving pony rides isn’t exactly a good way to get rich, Allegretta explained. Although she charges $155 for one pony for an hour, and $195 for two ponies for an hour, the upkeep of four horses is steep and the pony ride season isn’t year-round.

Allegretta cares deeply for her animals. Unlike some in the pony-ride business, she wouldn’t think of leaving only one of her ponies home and taking three to an event. The one left at home would go crazy, running back and forth, missing the rest of the herd, she said.

At the end of the day, it’s a labor of love for Allegretta, who was horse crazy from an early age, working paper routes and scooping ice cream to pay for her first horse when she was 13.

Later, she managed to buy a simple house with enough acreage to keep horses, deciding to give pony rides as a way to pay for their keep.

Recently, Allegretta started a new pet-sitting business. Fed up with hostess work and bartending, she decided to take advantage of her love of animals.

Pet sitting may sound easy, but as Allegretta says, “Don’t quit your day job; it’s not as simple as it sounds.”

The task entails freezing winter walks with her canine customers, visits to their homes at 10:30 p.m. or 5 a.m., and sometimes injuries. One of her first customers owned a basenji that was, as she termed it, “a little aloof.” The dog bit Allegretta so hard she wore her motorcycle leathers the next time she went to feed him.

With her understanding of animals, she eventually gained the dog’s trust and it’s now a regular.

She’s taken care of goats, hamsters, fish, cats and plenty of dogs.

“You can’t just like animals to do this job, you have to love them,” Allegretta explained. “It’s not just walking a dog, I mean, this is someone’s baby and God forbid anything happen to them.”

Allegretta’s customers sing her praises.

Cindy Finestine was looking for a dog sitter who would pamper Minoosha, her 6-pound Maltese known as Mooshie to close friends and confidants.

“I was looking for a dog walker that actually had time to spend with my dog and not just to walk him for 5 or 10 minutes,” said Finestine. “We’re very, very happy with (Barbara) and so is Mooshie.”

Allegretta belongs to two trade groups – Pet Sitters International, which claims 6,000 members, and the Mount Laurel-based National Association of Professional Pet Sitters, which has 1,600, said the group’s administrative director, Felicia Lembesis. The groups recommend pet sitters be bonded and insured, because they are entering clients’ homes.

The cost of insurance and gas are two major expenses for Allegretta.

She is reluctant to take customers outside a 10-mile radius of her home, because the travel time would cut down her ability to spend time with the animals. As for the goat-sitting, it was a favor to a friend who brought four goats over to stay at her home. He came to fetch them several days later without telling Allegretta, who had made several frantic calls to neighbors and the Oakland police (“Anyone reported seeing loose goats?”) before learning her charges were safe.

When she’s not tending to her pet-sitting, she’s working to care for her “five step-children, four horses, three dogs and a couple of plants.”

On a recent morning, Allegretta saddled up Scooby-Doo (Lacy, Popcorn and Spirit watched from behind a fence).

“Not all horses will tolerate screaming kids, birthday cakes, water balloons and firecrackers,” Allegretta said, keeping up a constant chatter with visiting humans, horses and cavorting dogs.

Her cowboy hat bobbed as she walked next to her pony and talked about why she has worked so hard to keep her horses close by.

“They are my oxygen,” she said.