Interview About Starting a Dog Daycare Business
This is an hour-long interview I did with a local dog daycare owner. I've changed her name and the names of people she referred to in the interview just for privacy issues. This particular dog daycare owner runs the dog daycare I've brought my own dog to for years, and it is an excellent example of a well-run business that is a true benefit to the community. As you'll learn in the interview, she uses her facility for dog training lessons as well as the dog daycare.
Interviewer: Let's get started with the basics. How long have you been doing this?
Marcy: I just had my four-year anniversary in July.
Interviewer: Congratulations!
Marcy: Thank you.
Interviewer: Has it been a long four years?
Marcy: Yeah - sometimes it seems like yesterday, and other times it seems like it's been 100 years. It's been a real education.
Interviewer: What was it like when you started?
Marcy: I did volunteer work at the shelter here for about seven years, and I worked with some really great people - Judith Gregory, who is my mentor. She's just probably one of the most intelligent dog people I've ever met in my entire life. She's a great trainer, and I worked with her over at the shelter. She's really funny. When I got one of my dogs at the shelter about eight years, I decided to do it. I had volunteered at the shelter in Dallas before I moved out here.
And I decided when I adopted this dog that I would like to get back into it. And so I went over to the shelter here when it was on the old place on Sareus Road, and thought I'd just be doing simple things, walking dogs and stuff like that. So when I went in to talk to the volunteer coordinator, she took me around and introduced me to a lot of different people. And then she introduced me to Evelyn, and within five minutes I knew that's who I wanted to work with.
And we did temperament testing, among other things - that was probably the biggest thing we did, and that's what really got me interested in doing a dog daycare. It was a real education because I learned all about dogs and how to read them, which is very important in this business. You have to be able to read dogs.
Interviewer: I've been reading about how some dogs you don't want to have in your pack, or daycare.
Marcy: Right - exactly. If they can't get along with the other dogs, they don't stay here. And I can usually tell. I evaluate each new dog that comes in just to make sure that they are going to get along, and I can usually tell within five to ten minutes whether it's gonna work or not. Occasionally, I have let dogs in that I've had to tell their parents they couldn't come back. I just went through a situation last week with one of them.
It was a dog that wasn't bad. I love the dog. The dog is a great dog, except it's got aggressive issues, and he can play and play and play, and something clicks in him, and he just - he loses control. He bit another dog, so... And he'd been coming here for quite a while.
Continue reading the interview with a dog daycare owner
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