Even Guard Dogs Tightening Their Belts In Tough Recession

With all those stalled condo developments in Brooklyn, you'd think that business would be booming at companies like K9 Powerhouse, which provides guard dogs to property owners for $1,750 to $2,000 monthly, which breaks down to lower than a security guard’s hourly wages. But according to proprietor Angelo Biondo, some developers can't afford to pay for security and have decided to let squatters and transients run wild on their sites. Biondo had consulted on providing guard dogs at an unfinished residential development at 659 Bergen Street, but now there’s just a "Beware of Dog" sign—no dog. (FYI, copper wire scavengers.) Over on Third Avenue in Brooklyn, his Rottweilers still guard a future Marriott hotel, where construction is 10 months behind, and the company is three months behind on their payments to K-9. But Biondo's keeping his head above water because, as the tells the Observer, "there’s not a lot of people who do what I do." Biondo "wears five earrings, a Bluetooth earpiece, a gold necklace, and reading glasses on a cord," and has been a dog trainer since 1976. He declares, "I don’t want to have a gun in my house, but I do like to have an 80-pound dog."