Hi, I'm Kenzi

A house full of animals

I grew up in Brussels, in a house that was never short of animals. Dogs and cats, but also birds, turtles, fish, hamsters, mice, rats, rabbits, and even ducks and a goose living in the garden.

Of all of them, I always connected most with the dogs. To me, dogs are the purest animals on earth: the most loyal, the most loving, the most dedicated. I genuinely think they're what pure love looks like.

Buck, Bounty and Sita

My earliest dog memory is Buck, a Rottweiler mix. Then came Bounty, a Jack Russell who grew up with me. I taught her to play fetch, and we went on long walks together through the neighbourhood, the fields, the parks and the forests. She was best friends with our cat; they slept together and played together.

My mom hated the idea of dogs in our beds. So at night, I would sneak Bounty upstairs and have her sleep under the sheets with me, curled up warm between my legs. Bounty lived a long and happy life, and passed away peacefully of old age in 2021.

Later, my mom adopted Sita, a black Labrador who was already about nine years old when she joined the family. By then I had moved out, but every time I came to visit, Sita would dance and jump around me, because she knew I was the one who'd take her on long walks and give her all my attention. When I stayed over and slept on the couch, she would look up at me from her basket with those eyes, waiting for me to call her. Then she'd jump up and fall asleep with her full weight on me. As a fully grown adult, I can tell you: it felt just as good as it did with Bounty.

From screens to streets

For most of the last decade, I worked remotely: in marketing, as a consultant, as a social media and community manager, and on my own businesses. Before that, as a kid, I spent most of my time on the computer playing video games. That's also how I learned English, together with the subtitled English TV we're lucky to have in Belgium. French is my mother tongue, and I've been in Dutch-speaking schools since kindergarten.

In other words, the computer was always my comfort zone. I lived in London for a while, and in early 2023 I moved to Rome for love. My girlfriend is Italian-Argentinian, and she was studying here.

How The Smiling Dog Co. started

In September 2025, I was in a strange place with my work and with life in general. My girlfriend, who knows I'm the kind of person who stops for every single dog on the street, said: “Why don't you walk a dog once a day, just to take a break from that screen?”

So I made a profile on one of those pet-sitting apps. I searched my photos for “Kenzi and dogs”, found about fifteen, wrote my story, and within a day or two I had my first request: Argo, a black Labrador whose family runs a shop in the historic centre, near Piazza Navona. He needed a walk every day at lunchtime, Monday to Friday.

That walk became the best part of my day. A real reason to get away from the screen, go outside, and spend an hour with a dog who was happy to see me. Then I realised that walking Argo was covering the cost of the piano lessons I had just started. Soon after came Yoda, then Taco, and people kept reaching out without me even trying.

I'm an entrepreneur at heart, and I love building things. I saw the opportunity, created the brand, built the website, and The Smiling Dog Co. was born. Along the way I finally learned Italian, not in a classroom, but on the street, talking with clients and with everyone who stops to say hi to the dogs. Today I'm outside from morning until evening, and I wouldn't change it for anything.

And the best part: I still walk Argo every day, a year later. In the first weeks, when I came into the shop, he would stay upstairs and I'd have to tempt him down with a treat. Now, as soon as he hears my voice, he comes running down the stairs and jumps on me. It's the nicest thing to see.

Why "The Smiling Dog Co."

For over ten years I've lived by a simple motto: smile more, worry less. Smiling is a big part of who I am, and a lot of beautiful things have happened in my life just because I smiled at people.

So I wanted a name that makes people feel happy the moment they see it. I want you to picture your dog smiling. I want you to see me smiling when I show up at your door. And I want the whole experience, from the first message to the last walk, to feel positive.

How I work

To me, "premium" isn't a word on a website. It's how every walk works:

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  One-on-one, always. We never mix dogs from different households to squeeze more walks into an hour. If you have two or three dogs, they come together; otherwise, your dog has us all to themselves.
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  The walk is about the dog, not about us. Time to sniff, to mark, to socialise, to play and to have fun. It's never about holding a leash while sitting on a bench scrolling on a phone.
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  Real attention and a real connection. We pay attention to your dog, and we build a relationship with them over time.
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  You're never left wondering. We send photos and videos throughout the walk, so you always know what your dog is up to.

The hardest dogs for me? Honestly, the shy ones. Not because they're difficult, but because I want to shower every dog with love, and a shy dog needs the opposite: space, patience, and the freedom to come to me in their own time. So I hold myself back, and I let them decide. It's always worth the wait.