Looking for an internship? This company says it'll pay $25 an hour to a 'dog breath sniffer'

• A pet care company is looking for a "dog breath sniffer" intern.
• The marketing job pays $25 an hour and has pulled in more than 100 applicants in only a few days.
• People are contacting the company "nonstop," asking whether the role is real.

This could be your hot, dog summer.

While some pick up the scent of seemingly bound-for-greatness junior roles offered by stalwarts like Google, Goldman, and McKinsey, one pet care company in New York City wants to fill an internship that offers an alternative: "dog breath sniffer."

And the job market being what it is, the role, whose compensation includes $25 an hour and "unlimited puppy kisses," is getting more traction than you might think.

Among the more than 100 applicants Spot & Tango has had for the posting, which went up Wednesday, more than half have bachelor's degrees, 20% have a master's degree, and nearly 10% hold MBAs, stats on LinkedIn show.

The company makes meals, snacks, and supplements for dogs.

While it's not an early April Fool's — we checked — it is actually a slightly different role than described.

It began as a dog and pony show cooked up by Spot & Tango's PR folks but has now morphed into a serious marketing internship, Chondita Dayton, the company's head of marketing, told Business Insider.

The role will actually involve customer research and community outreach.

"It is not going to be a sommelier of dog scents," she said.

Like the work itself, the competition also appears serious. Some applicants hold Ivy League degrees. Dayton said one "friendly acquaintance" contacted her through LinkedIn to ensure her niece's application for the six-week program would be seen.

Dayton said Spot & Tango employees, which include about 50 people at its New York corporate office, have been getting "nonstop" texts and emails asking whether the job is real. Recommendations are flying as well.

'Nostrils to tongue'

Many people, eager to prove their dog-loving bona fidos, have included pictures of themselves with a pooch in their applications.

Dayton said it's self-evident, yet also spelled out in the job description, that the successful candidate will love dogs, even if the person isn't really "nostrils to tongue on this one."

Instead, she said, whomever the company selects will spend 35 hours a week roughly split between office work doing things like contacting customers and the rest attending events and canvassing Gotham to chat up dog owners about the company's new product for "canine dental wellness."

The work should be fun, Dayton said, because the industry is, too.

"Pet brands are not above talking about number two's," she said.

A dog breath algorithm

While it's not a surprise, many applications are replete with puns — descriptions of a willingness to go "nose-deep" into the work and jokes about résumés fetched, Dayton said. One applicant described a passion for creating "the world's first breath freshness scoring algorithm." Take that, AI.

Another detailed the person's love for sampling cheeses, while the "achievements" section of one person's résumé included the self-conferred accolade "Best Doggy Owner 2024."

One possible reason the internship has drawn interest — beyond those hoping to manifest their urban Devil Wears Pawda fantasy — is that so many of us are obsessed with our pets. They're a big business.

Revenue in the pet-care industry more than quadrupled from 2004 to 2021, totaling $10.7 billion in 2021, according to the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Jeffrey Simmons, CEO of Elanco Animal Health, which makes medicines and vaccines for pets and livestock, told BI that factors such as an aging population, loneliness, the pandemic, and a decrease in the number of people having children have pushed some households to get pets and driven others to go from, say, one dog to two.

Simmons also said that, in some cases, the prevalence of people's anxiety is also a factor.

"Pets become the non-pharmaceutical intervention," he said.

Spot & Tango has likewise seen a rise in Gen Z and millennial "pet parents," especially in urban areas. So, Dayton said, it makes sense to have someone in New York doing some grassroots marketing — talking with people at dog parks and interacting with smaller dog communities.

She said the internship could lead to a bigger role. That would require the right candidate, perhaps someone who shows dogged determination.

"It's a five-senses kind of job," Dayton said. "No one said dog breath is pretty."

Additional reporting by Steven Tweedie.