h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hey Mina, I was watching Dragon's Den last night and thought of you as there was a couple on there who wanted money to start a string of dog 'Creche's' up in Edinburgh.

Did you see it and what did you think if you did? It seemed along similar lines to what you do but on a much larger scale. They seemed to think they would pick up dogs from owners' houses keep them at the 'creche' all day (with walkies, conditioning, food and other stuff all-inclusive) for 15 quid a day which seemed very cheap to me.
They reckoned they could handle (between two of them) up to 40 dogs at one centre!

Here's a link if you're interested.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden/entrepreneurs/sandymaxwellforbes.shtml

I did see it, and have had a good rant with some of my dog care friends on Twitter this morning.

From their website, and what I saw on Dragon's Den, yes you're right. £15 is not enough, especially including pickup and drop off if she's doing a 15 mile round trip. I tweeted Peter Jones to say £15 is CHEAP not the fortune he seemed to think it was.

The only way to make that pay is to pile the dogs up, and all their talk of 40 dogs in a field was shocking. There was no talk of activities other than walks in the fields (and they claim in an article I found online to make them stay on lead the whole time ), and the talk of 'socialisation' probably meant 'we let the dogs play with each other', but I can't be sure. Having browsed their photos on Facebook, read comments etc there aren't many toys, in fact barely anything of that nature, most pics are of the dogs playing with each other and a bare field.

Ok, now, feel free to ignore the rest, but you did ask.

All this does is teach dogs that dogs are fun, humans just give food and that's it. Owners will pick their dogs up, take them for a walk and watch the dog run off to play with other dogs all the time, ignoring anything the owner wants them to do, and possibly causing nuisance to the owner of the other dogs. Basically, it's a pack of feral dogs and not how I run my business.

I think there are more than two people as there is talk on Facebook of assistants and there are pics of someone who wasn't on the show.

They are doing what I would like to do in the future (but better). I'd have a kennelling area so the dogs can be put away quietly for a sleep without being disturbed or trodden on by other dogs. Activity areas as I have in my garden (sandpit, 2 'climbing frames' and a paddling pool) but hopefully also a few others such as an agility area, a hydrotherapy pool maybe. I'd have a television area for any staff which the dogs would have access to for a really homey atmosphere.

I'd charge a flat daily rate which would include one activity and at least one walk (in a public area) if not two, and others would need to be paid for separately if required.

I would like to offer training classes in the evenings (and offer residential training), the facility for dogs to stay overnight if required, so there would need to be sleeping quarters for staff. I'd have a pet shop and snack bar near the training area.

I'd offer pick up and collection service which would be *extra*. I'd be very accommodating and allow people to be late, book at short notice and make last minute requests which would all be met with a cheery 'No problem'. And an additional fee.

Great care and great service has to be paid for.

I'd expect to be charging at least what I charge now (£25 a day) if not more, in fact if I were ready now I'd be basing my calculations on £30 and add a fiver an hour over, say 8 hours. Remembering to add all the extras. Now of course, you may think no-one wants to pay that, but all I can see is how many dogs I've turned away this summer, plus the people with dogs under 6 months who've paid £30 plus collection fees. They like to hear me say things like 'I'll sleep downstairs if he cries'/'it doesn't matter if he has a housetraining accident'/'let me know what time you want to pick him up and he'll be ready'/'yes you can be 24 hours late picking up your dog'/'yes I can come and get him immediately as you have a migraine'.

Excellent and all good to hear.

I did ask and I am genuinely interested. I've followed what you've been doing with some interest over the last couple of years or so (is that how long it's being going now? Just call me your stalker ) and I was straight away rather interested to know your thoughts. I'm disappointed, but now surprised to know that their idea of 'socialisation' is not what you do.

I put our two cats in a cattery for a couple of weeks the other year when we went on holiday and even for cats* it was about 30 pounds plus *a day* - although that was for two. But a cattery is a far simpler affair than a dog creche. Dog's are a *lot* more work than cats.

One thing I've not seen mentioned was the insistence on them having their injections and such. Presumably you'd have to insist on that too...?





** where they do (justifiably I'd add, you'd lose all the cats if you moved them and left them to roam free) just stick them in essentially a prison and leave them there with occasional feeding.

Mostly I look after cat*s*, not cat. I think single cats go to a cattery, but as a cat sitter for multiple cats I'm cheaper - my highest price is £8 per session, so if you have two visits that's still only £16 a day.

I like cats too, I do all the feeding etc, then the other 20 mins is spent playing if they'll let me, allowing them to sit on my bag or my lap, or sometimes I don't see them at all. But I hang around, as sometimes, after a while, they at least let me look at them.

No, I don't insist on vaccinations. My licence conditions say I have to have a vaccination card on the premises, but they don't say it has to be up to date. I do a lot of puppy care, and most of them haven't completed their course when I start caring for them. I take a lot of precautions, but adult dogs who are not vaccinated but are healthy and well cared for are not a problem.

The DD ladies also want all dogs over 6 months neutured. To do that simply to get them into daycare is NOT in any dog's best interest. I can't walk or board dogs in season, and had to cancel a board this year because the dog came into season 4 days before she was due, but that's a problem for the owner because they choose not to spay their dog. But that is *their* choice, not mine.

Dog socialisation is an American idea, brought over by an American dog trainer/behaviourist and is very important in America because most places won't allow dogs offlead, if they even allow dogs at all. So dog parks were invented, where dogs can run and play off lead, so of course, American dogs absolutely have to be able to play with other dogs. There's not such an issue of dogs running off on a walk because dogs can't come off lead on most walks, so only do at the dog park.

We are not there yet, but possibly will be the way things are going - and all due to trainers telling people dogs must be socialised.

If I go out with my dogs I want them to be *with me* and that includes the dogs I don't own but walk. I want them to play with me, cos strangely I quite like dogs. The biggest problem I have is friendly dogs who want to run off and play with other dogs, rather than play with me, but at least they do learn to want to be with me, even if it takes a few months. Worse is those dogs who don't want to play with their owners, but other dogs, and come over and bother us when *we're* trying to play.

Dogs need to learn to *ignore*, ie habituate to certain things, so they don't have to pay things a lot of attention. Socialising is what people do, over .

One thing I didn't mention above was the number of dogs I could handle. I really don't know at the moment. I've had 8 here for a lot of the time in the past couple of weeks as I had five rescue puppies arrive, and on a couple of days it was 10. It is completely exhausting and I couldn't have done it without the teenacher and my new assistant who came and collected a couple of dogs from time to time to take them out for a walk. I never take more than 6 for a walk at a time, and prefer 4. I'd probably start with 4 per staff member - and hope 3 would sleep while we did an activity with the other. So to have 40 dogs would mean 10 staff. And HUGE premises.

Blimey I'll have to get you shipped over here when we go on hols next year.

We looked at cat sitter prices and it would have cost us over a £1000 for two weeks of cat sitting as I recall.

I'll def move over there at those fees! Where is 'other here' anyway?

Hmm, things have clearly moved on since then.

When we looked last year what you had to do was pay a daily rate plus food for both the cat and the sitter and their expenses to get there and get home every day.
Essentially you were paying for a house sitter not a cat sitter.

I'll definitely go for a cat sitter at the rates I've just googled.

Cardiff BTW

Sounds like someone was taking the mick. Why should you pay someone else for food?? I always use their own food. I also don't charge a travel fee, but I only feed cats in my town, so am usually out and about in the area or they are never more than 10/15 mins from my house.

Now I have some help I am revising my prices, and may extend my coverage, so there would be a travel cost on top of that.

You found some more reasonable people in your area? Great. Let me have links and I'll give you some more of my fabulous opinions.

Well this is the only one I looked at in detail last night - although not enough to notice that they don't cover my area.

http://michellespetcareservice.co.uk/cats.aspx

I just got it from googling 'cat sitters cardiff' - without the quotes.

I should add that I did pretty much the same search last year when we were planning the holiday and there was nothing in comparison to now. This seems to a new and burgeoning industry as far as I can tell.

As if I need to tell you

Michelle looks lovely, but I don't like those home security checks taking time away from the pets.

There are more dog walker websites around here now than when I started, but it's harder to find cat sitters. Online of course, there are cards etc in shops.

Well I've gotta admit, that other stuff does interest me as much as I'd be quite happy for them to make sure my house is OK too when I'm away.

Just going back to my google search from earlier, the only other sponsored link is this one
http://www.homesitters.co.uk/our-charges

And looking at it again, it's actually the one (the only one outside of catteries) we found last year and it really is too expensive although maybe a bit short of the £1000 I said earlier. But really they are house sitters. It's about £55 a day

Let's correct that first sentence...

Well I've gotta admit, that other stuff does interest me since as much as I'd be quite happy for them to look after the moggies only I'd be quite happy for them to make sure my house is OK too when I'm away.

That's fair enough. I do pick up post, or I'd be falling over it by the end of a fortnight. Don't water plants as I'd kill them, and I take an emergency contact and tell owners I'll also use it for household emergencies such as burst pipes etc. Some of the dog owners have asked me to turn a light on at lunchtime so the dogs are not in the dark, but I always forget.

I was in two minds about getting the van signwritten, so not to advertise empty homes, but so many burglaries happen when owners are in bed asleep anyway there didn't seem much point worrying. I vary the times I visit so there's no pattern to watch for.

Don't see how those homesitters can be cheaper than a dog kennel at those prices!! Also a mileage allowance? How many people get paid to travel to work?

*makes a note*

OK, so I go to someone else for pot-plant sitting

I never said I was good with plants.

I've gone a bit overboard with all that, I bought some of these last year http://www.suttons.co.uk/Shop/Gardening+Equipment/Special+Offers/Easy+2+Grow+Irrigation+Kit+and+FREE+Seeds+581798.htm?sku=581798

Can't have the old tomatoes dying on me when I'm away!

ooh, looks good! I usually buy outdoor tomatoes and let them get on with it on their own. I haven't had time for gardening since dog walking though.

Yes jobs do tend to get in the way of that sort of thing.