Taking the Long Way

A New Kind of Dog Walk Comes to Bernal Heights

Sep 01, 2026

“I’m in it for the wags. The delighted one at the door when you turn up. And then the better one an hour later, when a dog has had a proper walk, is home, and is ready to sleep it off, slower, heavier, thoroughly pleased with itself. That second wag is the entire product. — Daniel Oviedo, founder, The Long Way.

Daniel’s favorite route starts at the top of the hill and ends at the bottom of it: up along Ellsworth, a long sniff stop at the summit, then down the Esmeralda steps toward Precita and back home. It’s not the fastest way to walk a dog, but that was never the goal. The Long Way, his small-group dog walking club in Bernal Heights, Noe Valley, and Potrero Hill, was built around exactly that kind of walk.

“I live here in Bernal with Luka, a husky who has never once agreed that a walk was long enough,” he says. “That’s where the name came from, and honestly where the whole idea started.” He fell for the neighborhood slowly, on foot, the way most people around here seem to. Fog rolling over the hill in the morning. Stairways that turn a ten-minute walk into forty. Knowing which dog belonged to which stoop long before he knew any of the neighbors’ names.

Never More Than Three

Three is the number that defines the business: the maximum number of dogs on any walk, always with the same walker. “I am the person at your door on every single walk. Not a team, not a rotation. Me.” Every walk starts and ends at the dog’s own front door, on foot: an hour outside, in a neighborhood the dogs already know.

A report card from a recent Wednesday shows what that actually looks like. Lucy, a Bernal member, out for an hour with Luka and a wirehaired newcomer named Freya. The numbers: 2.2 miles, 335 feet of hill, leashes loose the whole way up. Freya’s sniff commitment came back: “A, with honors. A scholar of yarrow. Very pleased with her findings.” Lucy took an A+ in hosting, for welcoming the new dog while, as her card put it, hardly adding to the production. Water topped off, door double-checked on the way out.

Before a dog joins the club, Daniel meets them at home first: temperament, commands, routines, quirks, medical needs, home access, and emergency contacts, all written down before a leash gets clipped. Dogs are matched into groups on purpose, not assigned at random. “Good care isn’t a promise,” Daniel says. “It’s a procedure.”

The matching may be working a little too well. One member’s owner reports being towed, mid-errand, off their usual route and up the front steps of a clubmate’s house: tail up, no hesitation, wrong day. The two walk together on weekdays. Nobody has told the dog that the friendship is supposed to stay on the clock.

An Overnight Option, Too

Since launching, Daniel has added a second service: overnight house sitting at the client’s home, called Long Way Nights, in the same neighborhoods.

“When I go away, I’d rather have someone stay at my place with Luka, where he’s comfortable, and his routinedoesn'tt change,” he says. “So that’s what I offer. I come to the dog’s home, and the dog’s world stays put.” Same idea as the walks, just stretched overnight: don’t disrupt the dog’s world, just put someone reliable in it.

If you haven’t met Daniel yet, you probably will. He’s on the hill most mornings.

The Long Way — Neighborhood Dog Club. Small-group weekday dog walking, never more than three dogs on a walk, with the same trusted walker every time—overnight house sitting at your home. Every walk comes home with a report card.

Now walking in Bernal Heights (the hill, the stairways, Holly Park) and Potrero Hill (the slopes, McKinley Square). Noe Valley groups are forming now (Douglass, Upper Noe, the flat blocks).

Free meet-and-walk to start. Se habla español. Text BERNAL at (415) 658-5703, or find The Long Way at thelongway.dog and on Instagram @thelongwaysf.

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