Bipeds of Brookland: Daniel Ramos Durand

Bipeds of Brookland: Daniel Ramos Durand


As a young boy in Lima, Daniel Ramos Durand had a habit of disappearing at parties.

“My family would ask, ‘Where’s Danny?’” he recalls. “And I’d be off playing with dogs in the backyard.”

In 1999, Danny came to the United States to work as a chef in the D.C. area. In 2004, he moved into a house on Irving Street where he currently lives with his wife, Elizabeth, their two cats, Luna and Sheba, and their black lab, Kala.

“The restaurant business burned me out,” he recalls. “I was working fifteen- and sixteen-hour days. My wife would only see me at night. So that’s when, in 2007, I began to follow my other passion, which is animals.”

Danny started out as a part-time dog walker for a company in Dupont Circle. “I wanted to learn how the business worked,” he says. “Eventually, I was walking fifteen dogs per day, and working in the restaurant at night.”

When he noticed the opportunity to start his own service in the Brookland area, Danny left the restaurant industry for good and opened up Danny’s Pet Care in 2010.

Operated out of his home, Danny’s Pet Care has grown thanks to the influx of people moving to Brookland, including young families and international professionals posted with the U.S. State Department.

With over 70 neighborhood dogs as his “clients,” Danny hires six dog walkers who work throughout the day, taking Brookland’s canines out for walks – either by themselves or with a pack of other dogs. He also occasional boards dogs at his house, and provides 30-minute home care visits for cats.

Danny doesn’t miss the rush of the restaurant business. This, for him, is a more peaceful way to make a living – one that, in some ways, he’s prepared for since he was a child back in Peru.

Bipeds of Brookland: A weekly series introducing the people who make Brookland their home, one step at a time.
Article and photo by Zak Salih