She Can Fetch $150,000

As Annie Lever padded along a sun-scorched trail at Runyon Canyon, a yellow Labrador, a Gordon setter and a golden retriever sprinted ahead. A 5-pound Maltese dashed in the dust by Lever’s sneakers, and two chocolate Labradors and a pit bull mix plodded behind.

“Are they all yours?” one hiker gulped.

Not exactly.

Lever, 46, is a professional dog walker who earns $150,000 a year -- enough to buy a Brentwood condominium, decorated in tones of taupe, green and cream, and a Steinway piano.

“I still wake up, look at my place and say, ‘This is the house the dogs bought me,’ ” said Lever, a graduate of the University of Michigan with a degree in fine arts. “Who knew?”

Most dog walkers don’t do as well. Lever’s clients, who live in Santa Monica, Brentwood and Bel-Air, include Hollywood moguls and movie stars.

She used to walk Jim Belushi’s shepherds but decided they were too aggressive. She tended Mike Myers’ two yellow Labradors and mutt for three years, until he assigned the task to his cook. She also exercised Steven Spielberg’s golden retriever and his daughter’s chocolate Lab, but it turned out to be too much of a hassle -- between the security on his estate and the fact that the dogs periodically boarded with a trainer.

Lever is every pooch’s best pal. She romps with Ruby, throws the ball for Jake and coddles Coco Chanel. If a dog misbehaves, he gets a timeout. When he shows self-restraint, he gets patted and praised. She alerts owners to behavioral and medical problems. (The dog that ate the candle, leaving the wick on the floor of his owner’s home, went straight to the vet.)

The job of dog walker requires attributes of a kindergarten teacher, drill instructor and chauffeur. It’s like being the mother of 10 2-year-olds, said one Westside walker.

“You spend your day saying, ‘No humping. Don’t pee on your brother,’ ” said Lever, who has walked dogs for 10 years.

Sure, she cleans up after dogs, but she has higher social standing than the nanny. She’s invited to some of the most desirable parties. She gets fabulous presents: cashmere sweaters, diamond earrings, gift certificates for Burke-Williams massages. She has an insider’s view -- she knew Reese Witherspoon was pregnant long before the paparazzi. And she is her own boss.

Lever takes anywhere from six to 12 dogs at a time, three groups a day. During the summer, the first group hikes in Runyon Canyon, the next two hit the dog park in Brentwood. For most of the year, every group goes on hikes. Rain or shine, the dogs go out.

And Lever likes variety. One day she called Courtney Thorne-Smith about her basenji, a brown and white dog named Ed, and asked: “We’re at the beach. Can Ed stay out a little longer?”

“I hate to admit it, but Ed is much more excited to see Annie than me,” the actress said. “She does different stuff all the time.”

Lever picks up and delivers each dog. By the end of the day, she has driven about 100 miles. She charges $25 per dog -- a high rate for the industry. Most Manhattan dog walkers get $15, but they don’t drive their charges.

Lever must remember which owners want security alarms activated, mail taken inside, television or lights turned on, as well as where to leave Fido. She also knows which dogs eat raw chicken hearts and gizzards, a new trend, and which ones get ice water. She jokes that the two Australian shepherd mixes eat better than she does, because their owner feeds them boneless chicken breasts cooked at Whole Foods. And she rolls her eyes at the owners who serve bottled water.

After all, she says, “dogs lick their own” bottoms.

Dog-walking is not for the squeamish. When duty calls, so to speak, it cannot be ignored. Lever is prepared. She favors baby powder-scented plastic bags, coiled in a tiny dispenser.

Horror stories abound: snakebites, dog bites and locking keys in a home (Lever is slender enough to wiggle through a doggy door to retrieve them). Once, another walker’s dog attacked Lever’s charge, peeling the fur off its back. Another time, one of Lever’s dogs collided with another chasing a ball, knocking out three teeth in the smaller dog, which belonged to a different walker. Or there was the time Lever stopped at a light and her wagon’s back door flipped open, allowing 10 dogs to hop out into the street.

Lever drives a gray Mitsubishi Montero. No one ever asks for a lift. A yellow leaf-shaped car deodorizer dangles from the rearview mirror; it is as effective as a beaver dam facing a tsunami. The heavy canine scent permeates the air even when the dogs are gone. Dog hair clings to the interior. Lever’s car doesn’t just reek; it sheds.

For some Hollywood aspirants, dog-walking is the newest version of waiting tables and tending bar. It’s a job that allows time for auditions, pays well enough to fuel dreams of a name on the big screen, and -- at the upper echelon -- provides unusual access to important people. Linn Boyke, a 35-year-old wannabe screenwriter, waited tables for 10 years and switched to dog-walking. David Lee, 32, an actor, would rather walk dogs than wait tables or work as a spinning instructor at a gym, which he has done.

But dog walkers like Lever do the job because they adore dogs, being outdoors, and the independence.

“Maybe someday, I’ll go into doggy day care,” said Lever, who once ran an art gallery. “But as far as I’m concerned, I’ve found what I love.”

Standing 5 feet 4, she wears her auburn hair short and her skin tight -- she’s a big believer in plastic surgery. (She’s had work done on her hips, thighs, stomach, breasts, nose and eyes.) Her eyes are the green-blue of Caribbean waters. Her hairstyle and color change dramatically every year.

Lever is chatty and personable, her humor dry and rapid-fire. A driver spotted Olive, Lever’s own dog, a Maltese, sitting behind the wheel in Lever’s lap.

“Oh, what a darling face!” the driver exclaimed.

“Mine or hers?” Lever shot back.

Lever takes her job seriously. She even has a recurring nightmare. She dreams that it’s 10 p.m. and she’s forgotten to walk a client’s dog. She awakens in a sweat. In real life, she hasn’t forgotten a dog, but she is careful to check and recheck which ones are in her car.

And Lever has moxie. The first time she drove into Spielberg’s compound, she used the regular driveway. A guard told her to take the service entrance.

“I don’t think of myself as ‘service,’ ” she said. Nor do most of her clients.

Producer Laura Hopper noticed Lever six years ago when Hopper regularly took her yellow Lab, Toby, to the dog park.

“I loved the way she spoke to the dogs,” Hopper recalled. “It’s like picking a baby-sitter for the kids; you want someone who is loving and nurturing.”

Hopper eventually hired Lever. “With Annie, it’s absolutely what she loves doing -- it’s not something she’s doing until her ship comes in,” said Hopper. “In this town, when jobs are so fleeting, you can have a dog walker sell a script and quit.”

But a dog walker also can be out of a job in less time than it takes to say, “Fetch.”

For two years Lever walked Witherspoon’s three dogs -- an overweight English bulldog named Frank Sinatra; a French bulldog, Coco Chanel; and a Chihuahua named Chi-Chi.

When Lever first met Witherspoon at a park, the actress, casually dressed, had a child and two dogs in tow. A waitress, Lever mistakenly thought. Witherspoon asked Lever about her rates and Lever remembered thinking that the young mother couldn’t afford her. So much for appearances.

Witherspoon’s assistant recently called to tell Lever that too much gossip was getting into the tabloids. Unable to find the leak, household staff were being fired, the assistant told Lever.

“It really hurt my feelings on a personal level,” Lever said. “You feel like you’re being ousted from their family. God, do they think I’m the snitch?”

Through a spokesman, Witherspoon declined to comment.

In fact, a tabloid columnist had approached Lever. Lever said she refused to talk.

Lever liked Witherspoon. When Lever’s brother died, the actress was the first to send flowers. And Coco, a dog that looks like a Tootsie Roll with legs, was one of Lever’s favorites.

On Jay Leno’s show, Witherspoon explained that she had hired Lever in hopes that Frank would lose weight.

Did he? Leno asked.

No, Witherspoon replied. But my dog walker looks good.

The world of walkers is dog-eat-dog. Several are not above besmirching colleagues. Asked about a competitor, one walker said, “Well, I’ve never actually seen him get out of the car.”

Routes are more closely guarded than the formula for Coca-Cola. Before granting an interview, Gavin Behr, 42, insisted that a reporter sign a statement indicating she would never disclose the location of the private property in the Santa Monica Mountains where he lets his charges run free.

On a recent morning, Lever arrived at Runyon Canyon just before 9, and seven dogs sprang from her car. The golden retriever Ruby and the Gordon setter Dublin galloped ahead.

Lever, wearing baggy gray capri sweatpants and a gray tank top, had just started down the trail when a hiker called out, “You missing a dog?”

Yes. It was Suzie, a friendly pit bull mix who had decided it was too hot to hike. Lever retrieved her.

The regular hikers know Lever. She’s as much a fixture on the popular Hollywood trail as the wild mustard. A local restaurateur updated her on the progress of renovations. One owner stopped Lever to confide about spooning with her dog on the bed at night.

Midway through the hike, Lever put the chocolate Lab Eliott on a leash because he was trying to eat dried dog poop. By the time Lever reached her car, all the dogs were panting, and she gave them water.

It took her two hours to drop off those dogs and pick up her next group.

Each time she escorted a dog to his home and returned to her car, a pair of dogs took over the front seat. She shooed away Hugo and Sophie, two German shepherds.

Lever put the key in the ignition and eyed her coffee cup.

“Who,” she asked, “has been drinking my latte?”