168: Always Keep Learning with Jennifer Sybol
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Summary:
Jennifer Sybol, owner of Comfort at Home Pet Services, took the opportunity to buy a pet care business in 2013 and began working hard to raise the bar on pet care. She shares what it was like buying and growing her business the past 8 years and what her guiding principle has been. We discuss the importance of viewing every day as a learning opportunity and the necessity of doing community work to build your network and relationships.
Topics on this episode:
Buying a business
Community work
Going above and beyond
Sitter networks
Work with therapy dogs
Main take away? Don’t forget about the community work to build relationships with clients and other pet sitters in your area.
About our guest:
Jennifer attended Robert University, graduating with a Bachelor of Science Information System and Bachelor of Science in Business Administration Marketing degrees and spent many years working in the corporate world.
In 2010, she took a week's vacation from her corporate job to be with her brother, who was diagnosed with brain cancer the year prior, and was again undergoing brain surgery. While at the hospital awaiting news of his surgery, she received a call that she was laid off from her job due to corporate restructuring. Not long after this lay off, her brother was admitted into hospice care. During the last months of his life, he was brought joy and great peace by the amazing therapy dogs who visited him. It was then that Jennifer decided she would do whatever it took to purse her true passion for animals.
Her first mission was accumulating all the knowledge she could! She did this in part by working at different boarding kennels and doggie daycares in the area. She began educating herself and building her skill set by reading books, webinars, and working with many different dog trainers in the area. The more Jennifer learned and increased her understanding of the animals, the more faults she saw in these kennels and daycares. Jennifer wanted to give back to pets for all they provided to her and her family but knew the kennels and daycares were not the place for that due to the lack of training they provide their employees and the subsequent stress that the pets endured.
She was approached in 2013 to purchase Comfort at Home Pet Services LLC and jumped at the opportunity. As a result of her hard work, dedication and knowledge of animals, she tripled business within the first year and has continued to grow! Comfort at Home Pet Services LLC is the first and only certified pet service company in the Pittsburgh area!
Jennifer worked with her own two dogs to become registered therapy dogs so that they can give peace to others that are struggling in a time of need, just as those therapy dogs gave to her brother when he needed it. Cheerio is a Golden Retriever who is an AKC Canine Good Citizen, Therapy Dog through Alliance of Therapy Dogs, a registered Reading Education Assistance Dog through Intermountain Therapy Animals, and has also earned his AKC Companion title. Jasmine is a Shetland Sheepdog who is an AKC Advanced Canine Good Citizen, Therapy Dog through Alliance of Therapy Dogs as well as a Reading Education Assistance Dog through Intermountain Therapy Animals. Sadly, Jasmine lost her battle with bladder cancer 1/7/2019.
Jennifer is a strong believer in ongoing, continuous education and works diligently to stay on top of new research on animal behavior, health and wellness.
Jennifer is a member of Pet Sitters International, National Association Professional Pet Sitters, and Pet Professional Guild. She is Pet First Aid and CPR certified through Pet Tech. Jennifer is also an Angie's List Super Service Award recipient for 2015 & 2016.
Links:
Email Jen: jen@comforthomepetservices.com
Pet Professional Guild - https://www.petprofessionalguild.com
Dogg-on Safe - bite prevention - https://doggonesafe.com/Be-A-Tree
Give us a call! (636) 364-8260
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
dog, pet, clients, pet sitters, people, business, animals, day, vet, walk, area, gift, therapy dogs, education, educate, talk, dealing, care, happened, thinking
SPEAKERS
Collin, Jennifer Sybol
00:17
Hi, I'm Meghan.
00:18
I'm Collin. And this is pet sitter confessional,
00:21
and open and honest discussion about life as a pet
00:24
sitter brought to you by time to pet and pet perennials. going above and beyond means many things to many different people. And today, Jennifer Seibel, owner of comfort at home pet services, joins the show to discuss how her company and her team strive to do that every single day through all that they do. And through putting in the hard work of community work. Let's get started.
00:50
I'm glad to be on here. And my name is Jennifer Sybol. After a long business, a career and two bachelor's degrees, one in marketing and one in it, I was approached in 2013 to purchase comfort at home pet services, who I'm now the owner of
01:10
I love how your entry into the the pet services pet care industry, and that you were able to buy an existing company, what was that like getting to purchase the company?
01:22
Yeah, it was, it was really exciting. But it definitely came with a lot of different hardships. A lot of people don't understand sometimes when you're purchasing a pet services business for pet sitting business, that you can either purchase like the entire business, which comes with everything with it, including the name, or some people will just sell you their client list. So sometimes you need to kind of know the differences between those two, and find out exactly what you are purchasing.
01:54
Yeah, it's a big difference between those. So I was also curious, if somebody is interested in buying another business, or maybe they've been approached by somebody to buy an existing business, what kind of advice would you give to them,
02:08
I definitely suggest hiring an attorney. I had an attorney myself, he's like my way, you know, talk and he sends me Christmas cards. And, you know, we keep in touch, but definitely hire an attorney, you need to make sure that you have contracts developed, the best thing I can say, and the best piece of advice I can give, is to safeguard yourself before even starting a purchase of something. So I would get contracts in line before you even get the contract to purchase the kind of say, okay, you're going to give me the business, you're going to give me the clients. But you're not going to do anything with those clients, let them know, tell them to go somewhere else before money changes hands and before the actual sale goes through? Do you want to make sure you safeguard yourself? Well, before the sale, I definitely suggest researching the laws, the licensing. And definitely, when dealing with this type of business, have a business plan in place and ready, have no one you're going to be able to take time off, if you're ever going to take time off what you're going to do about holidays, how a work schedule is going to run for you. How are you going to handle emergencies, to definitely have a plan in place and have a good attorney who's going to have your back to the paperwork properly and
03:34
get filed. And I like that idea of protecting yourself before you even sign off on any of the paperwork kind of you know, you mentioned having those those contracts in place those contracts sound like they're they're almost the the agreement of on how both parties are going to proceed through the purchasing and sell sailing of the of the business. Kind of like a we agree to these terms before we even get to the actual business and what's entailed in that kind of like a we're both going to behave sounds like
04:03
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
04:05
So what was it like coming into the pet care industry? From from where you were before you bought the business? What was that transition like for you,
04:14
um, it was pretty easy for me. Because of my business experience, I was able to come in know what I was doing and pick things up. There was a lot of learning that had to go with it. And at first I did, you know, pull myself into a lot of webinars, talk to a lot of people, educate myself a lot and every day in this industry is learning. It's all education.
04:38
That's a good point that there's always something else to learn and there's always something else we should be learning, right? There's so much we can't all know it especially on day one. And to take that time to get to know and learn about different aspects and just educate ourselves so that we can be better operators, better managers and better care providers for the for the pets ultimately now, since 2013 you've been doing a lot of with growing and expanding the business. So talk to us about what that's been like for you.
05:07
I'm actually right now in the COVID times, it's been a little challenging. But we're getting through it. The, actually the first year, when I purchased the business within the first year of me having it, we tripled business business tripled. And we continue to grow every every year. And a lot of it, a lot of people come to me and ask, how is that happening? How do you keep growing, a lot of it is just word of mouth. When you do a great job, everybody's gonna tell their friends, they're going to tell their neighbors, they're going to see you out here, they're going to see what type of a person you are, how you're handling the animals. And that word of mouth, it just it spreads. Definitely, with my marketing and business background, having a web presence. Everybody wants to kind of research me check me out beforehand, that I have some type of web presence. And social media presence is always good. definitely getting in there and doing community work. Definitely no who else is in the pet industry, groomers that. make those connections? Find out who other pet sitters are, how are they doing? What are they doing? Once you're making those connections with the people who you're going to be working alongside, you'll get the referrals and stuff in from them. I work with different groomers different that, that automatically if somebody if a client of theirs, this thing, they're looking for a pet sitter, my cards are there, they hand out my cards,
06:30
I love that that phrase, do the community work, that our businesses have various aspects to them, we have the administrative work where we're doing paperwork, we're getting ready for taxes, we have the pet care work, where we are doing the actual service to that we're doing the customer relations work. But then there's this other aspect of the community and being involved in them making connections, growing those relationships and just being present invisible. And it's really important to not forget about that aspect of our business, even though we can get really caught up in the the day to day operations. And in the scheduling and all of that stuff. It's It is important, as you said to be out there and be visible and be engaged.
07:12
Absolutely. And the also the good part is with the community work is a lot of people have missing dogs, the dogs got out or they had somebody irresponsible or there was just an accident the dog off leashes out loose and running. So I work with a lot of different rescue groups as well. Because guess what, I'm the one out here, on walking the dogs in the neighborhood, I see a loose dog, I can call it in, I can let somebody know, have a sighting or work with the police very closely with the police very closely with our animal control our dog Ward not here that we can get these pets reunited. So that brings my name up a lot too. Because, hey, john, there's a loose dog in this area. It also helps me safeguard my clients to know that there is a loose animal in the neighborhood. So doing that community work getting out there meeting the community, working with people on a search party, anything like that is definitely beneficial.
08:06
being visible, being engaged and just being an active member, right? You're just being you're helping out nothing asking nothing for in return. You're just doing what an ordinary citizen should and would be doing in their neighborhood. You mentioned that that first year you had a 3x growth. And I am curious how you like structurally for the business managed that kind of rapid growth in just your first year. Do you feel like you in the in the team that you were working with? We're ready for that. And how did that piano,
08:36
we actually weren't quite ready for it. And we suffered through it. I don't think you can be ready for you know that much of a growth. But because it did have my business plan in place, I was able to hire more people. I had people in place well before the growth even came, we're starting them out slow and then build up their schedules, build up ourselves. And from like I said, my community work and things that I do, brought in a lot of clients. People knew me and they're like, Oh, my gosh, Jen's got a business. We know her we've seen her out. We've seen her with her dogs, like I want to deal with her. I want to support her I want to support her business. So it was very heartwarming when I had so many people coming looking just for me because I now have this business. They want to help me see me succeed. See me grow.
09:27
When you mentioned your team there. I know you call them professional pet care specialists. And I'm currently interested as to what makes you know, what's the secret sauce to your company and what sets you guys apart?
09:39
Well, we're I think we're set apart mostly because we give out a lot of education. We're out here we're creating educational blogs. We do a monthly newsletter. We talk about pet health, wellness training, pet care, diseases. We continue with our education that we know things that are going on On, we can see the trends happening within the pet industry and within the animals. So we are able to keep everybody apprised of what we're seeing what's going on and know what we're doing. Our willingness to go above and beyond me being able to build a trustworthy, good team. I mean, my team members are fabulous, they are the best girls around, they're willing to go above and beyond. They're there when you need them, preparing for unexpected things and emergencies, our communication with our staff and our clients, and we try not to spread ourselves too thin. So we don't do, you know, over bookings, we're not totally rushing around running too far behind, overwhelmed too much in one day where our minds just blown and we screw up. So I think people, you know, we definitely call ourselves pet care specialists, because we take those extra steps, we know what's going on in the industry, we continue to educate ourselves, in the communication we provide,
11:01
given that importance of educating yourselves and being connected and being at ground level. Because many pet owners don't have that kind of time. They're busy off doing other things with their own jobs, with their family, all these other really important stuff. But when it comes time to understand some things that are changing in pet care around diet, nutrition and exercise, those kinds of things, they don't necessarily have time for that. And so be having somebody that they can turn to that they can trust who they know has done the research who is actively learning, like, that's such an awesome service that that is going to help you but it also helps the clients that are going to turn to you in those times.
11:39
Yeah, absolutely. For our clients, we're the go to for almost anything. If we have a dog vomiting, we get the phone call, why can my dog be vomiting this happen? I've gotten phone calls at midnight, my dog just swallowed my phone, what do I do to contact her stuff like this, and we're just like, okay, we need to induce vomiting, you need to have poison control on the line, you need to start heading for the emergency that, but we can direct them on where to go. We have a lot of clients, because because we aren't keeping up with the education, we do know what's going on. We have many clients that come back to us, consulting with us after they've just consulted with their vet, because they want our opinion over you know, almost what their vet told them. Or they'll come to us and say, Hey, have you have you seen this issue, my cat has kidney disease, who's one of the best vets that you've been dealing with, with a cat with kidney disease, we can direct them to who we know is is working with a lot of cats that we feel trustworthy with, who we know is doing a great job on handling those issues.
12:50
I'm sure some of that, too, is just the amount of interaction they have with you their pet sitter versus their vet, like it's just it's leagues like it's, it's 10 times probably more number of interactions they have with you on a daily basis versus their vet. So it's just this distrust, it's this relationship where they come to know and have that trust in you to be able to approach you kind of at almost a more personal level than they do with their vet. Because sometimes that can kind of seem a little out of reach a little in, in personal. And so reaching out to almost a friend at that point to get that kind of advice is just it's just such a wonderful thing to have had
13:29
right and talking about going above and beyond. We've been called in many times to go with a client to have that appointment for their animal. Because they they're afraid that it could be bad news, they are not sure what questions to actually ask. So sometimes I'll have clients contact me sit on phone with me, they'll write down the questions, I tell them to ask them that. Or they'll ask us to come to the vet appointment, because we are the ones who are in the house, seeing the animal way more than the vet is. So we can help provide the vet with needed information that they need to help diagnose the pet faster,
14:06
you are acting as a resource not just for the client there but also helping interpret things and give additional information. I love that aspect of you know, as a trained professional pet care specialist, you have eyes and ears and hands on the pet a lot more frequently and in a slightly different way than the owner may have. So the valuable information that you're able to bring to the table is going to help that vet make different decisions or maybe you better understand what's going on and it's important as as pet sitters as pet care specialists to not forget that that we that we can bring that to the table and provide that in those times of need. Have you heard about time to pet Dan from NYC pooch as this to say
14:47
it has been a total game changer for us. It's helped us streamline many aspects of our operation rescheduling and communication to billing and customer management. We actually tested other petsitting software's in the past with the other solutions were clunky and riddled with problems. Everything in time to Ted has been so well thought out. It's intuitive feature rich,
15:07
it's always improving. If you are looking for new petsitting software for your business, give time to pet a try. As a listener of pet sitter confessional, you'll get 50% off your first three months when you sign up at type two pet.com. Slash confessional. You've mentioned a couple times of going above and beyond here. And I know you recently had a feature in pet sitters world and I'd love for you to relate that story and why it's important for us as pet sitters. Take those advantages and take those opportunities to go above and beyond in those certain circumstances,
15:41
you always have to prepare for the unexpected. I get through my days, most of the time, and especially running my business, I'm always constantly thinking of worst case scenario. So we definitely make sure that we have emergency phone numbers for clients. In case we have emergency, we can't get ahold of them. They're overseas, they're on a cruise they we don't have contact with them, we need an emergency number for somebody that we can contact that they feel comfortable with us talking to making medical decisions. We have set safety protocols that we deal with, to keep the animal safe to make sure the home is safe to make sure my pet sitters are safe to make sure we're all safe. We work with local rescues, local pet businesses. And just going above and beyond with my story that was just featured in pet sitters World magazine was my client contacted me that she had to go into the hospital. They she was at the doctor's they noticed an issue. And she needed to go in for testing for three days. I ended up getting the phone call from the doctors that she got way worse, she ended up going in for a CT scan, and became paralyzed. They found several brain tumors, and one was currently bleeding. She had to undergo emergency surgery, I was the only one that had access to our home. I knew who her power of attorney was. I was able to contact them get everybody in line get her taken care of and her settled in the hospital. And worst case scenario happened she she did not come home. So it was in a situation like that, that we knew who was going to take who was supposed to be taking custody of the animals, but their life is changed. It was not going to be a good fit anymore. So she had a 14 year old dog that we ended up bringing into our home and into our life. And he's walked into this door acting like he's lived here for 14 years. He's the he runs the house. Now we have a new puppy, he's beating the crap out of her on your senior citizen, you're supposed to be sleeping all day. What are you doing? So he's having the time of his life. He's loving everything he came in, he got along well with my dogs. But that also meant going above and beyond. Because nobody expected this situation. So I worked with the power of attorney to sell the house, clean out the house. I worked with her on you know, helped with some finances, making sure bills, things returned off security systems. I had to make sure that the real estate agents had their own code for the security system. It was a lot that kind of went into everything that happened with that. So when we talk about to going above and beyond I was out walking one of our least leash aggressive dogs. And he just doesn't like people he'll kind of freak out a little bit if they get too close. We try not to be around you know people we don't let dogs greet anything like that. And I was finishing up my walk with Him. And we're coming up the street in the neighbor's dog was out. And it jumped the fence. The neighbor was not home nobody knew this dog was out and it's like running back and forth across the street. I'm like oh my gosh, like a dog fights gonna break out like this isn't good. This dogs harass them. The dog that I'm with is not greatly friendly with other dogs. I'm going to have an instance. I hurried out called 9112 police officers showed up. They're trying to wrangle the dog. That's right, literally darting across the street back and forth from the officers like evading them evading the police. They came over to me Got some treats for me got an extra leash, still couldn't catch the dog to the one police officer. She says Well, I know I can't approach you because your dogs not greatly friendly. She is I'm gonna open the back of my police car. She is if you can get you and your dog in there. I'll drive you up to your house. So here I am. For the safety of my clients going above and beyond. I'm now in the back of a police car with a client's dog getting driven back to the house and it was great when I had to call The client I was like, hey, look the neighbor's dogs out run. And I don't want to have an incident. But of course me and your dog ended up in the back of a police car. So it's been a funny story. The clients like of all dogs, it's got to be that my pain in the butt dog that you're in the back of a police car with and I'm like, yeah. So there's a lot of things that kind of go on, above and beyond. Again, we're talking about, people give us access to their home, we're taking care of their home. I've had clients come to me throughout the years, I make it mandatory, I have to have a house key. I've had clients come to me why don't even have a housekeeper myself. I've never had a house key. I just use the garage. Well, one of those instances, a client, you know, did not have a house key did not want to get one made, we're going to be fine going through the garage. Even if the power goes out. There's a backup generator on the battery on the garage door, the garage door will work. Well we showed off. There was a bad storm, a tree fell, ran across the power lines to the house. The tree landed on his car. And because of the surge of the power, it blew out the motor in the garage door pool we still couldn't get into the house. So that's when I'm calling to get the garage door fixed. And thank goodness it was just the cat. But we would have had a lot of mess to clean up for a dog happened to you know, go to the bathroom. I've had neighbors called the cops on me. Because same dog that I was in a police car with He's like, I can't go near him anymore because I swear I'm gonna get arrested the police in that area definitely know me now. The neighbor I got her dogs out for their last potty break before we went to bed. I was sleeping over the house doing an overnight and I noticed that the neighbor's garage door they lived in town houses neighbor's garage door was open. And I'm thinking okay, I have to be a good Samaritan. I want somebody to tell me that my garage is open that somebody can walk into my house in the middle of the night rob me kill me, whatnot. So of course I go to try to be the polite person I am to kind of let them know that their safety is at risk. In the meantime, it's a lot of o'clock at night. I'm banging on their door knock and I'm ringing the doorbell. I must have sounded like a crazy person. Even though I didn't say anything. But you're knocking on somebody's door to love o'clock at night. And they answered the door with 911 on the phone while I told them and I said, Hey, your garage doors open. He's like, Oh my God, thank you. And he's like, sorry, 911 operator, our garage doors open. It was a neighbor telling us they came out the next day. They're like, well, we just saw a strange person. I was like, Okay, I'm not a I'm not a strange person. I was trying to be nice. But I'm glad you called the cops on me. Because I look that scary. And so yeah, definitely, definitely love. I don't think I can get into that house too much more because the cops really do absolutely know me over in that way. But the job. The job can be messy. I mean, we have you know, loose dogs running at large. You need to know who's in the neighborhood where these dogs can be coming from. I ended up pulling dead things out of dog's mouth. There's dogs that will grab they'll jump into a bush I had a dog jump into a bush and pull out a dead squirrel. How you knew this dead squirrel. And now I'm fighting you for it. It's not a stop toy. Drop it. I've had them pick up dead frogs. I see. You're always pulling something out. You're smelling like poop. You probably got poop on you. I've had walked into grocery stores. And I'm like poop and I'm thinking oh my gosh, I stepped in something. No, I forgot to throw away a poop bag and it's still hanging from me. So it can be pretty messy. It can be pretty crazy. So always going above and beyond knowing where you're at knowing what's going on what's happening in your surroundings, not be playing in your phone, but actually be in the moment and be prepared. And always just looking I'm always thinking like worst case scenario tell I end up in police bar.
24:15
for good reasons, good reasons. Right? It is it is a reminder that when we're talking about this going above and beyond it's Yes it is. It's these big gestures right when you let off talking about bringing in a dog an elder and an older dog because their owner passed away and wasn't going to be put in a good situation. It's also little things as you mentioned also of of going above and beyond is I need to have presence of mind to not be on my phone so that I can be at my best so I can be surveilling so I can be on the lookout for these kinds of things. Because that story you said of the loose dog coming at you if you had been on your phone if you had been not paying attention been doing other stuff that could have turned out a whole lot different and so this guy Above and Beyond is, is yes, big actions. But it's also in the very little things that we do, that's going to set us apart from others, that's going to allow us to give the best service possible for our clients. Because we are mindful of those things. And I can I know, it can sound like, oh, we're always talking about doom and gloom, in worst case scenarios. But if you're not thinking about it, you're not mentally prepared for it, you're not thinking through those situations, and they're gonna catch you off guard. And you can't always prepare for, you know, every single scenario, but at least putting some thought into that and having some plan. You know, that's, that's really what it's about. Absolutely. And
25:36
like we said, In the beginning, it's all every day is a learning day, I learned something new every single day, I learn new situations, how am I going to handle it? When I am in the key of the moment, I'm able to look back and talk to others? Have you guys dealt with this? Just so you know, this is a situation I dealt with, make sure you're doing this? This is how I handled it, how would you guys do it?
25:58
Well, in on that, you know, you mentioned about sharing this information, educating others? How do you help educate your sitters and your walkers, from your own experiences,
26:10
we actually talk a lot, me and my pet sitters are constantly in communication, to find out what's going on what's happening. During their interview process, it goes through a long phone interview with me, they have to come out of the job with me for an entire day. So I can see what they're dealing what I'm dealing with how they interact with the animals. After that, go through a couple of weeks worth of training with me to see this is how you handle situations. This is what we're going to do this is the stuff you're going to carry this is things that can happen. This is what's going on with this dog. So they go through a lot. We talk about the laws, we talk about new information, medical things that we have going on, especially when they bring something to my attention and say, Hey, I kind of noticed this in the dog group today. What's your what's your take on it? Or the dog isn't seeming right, the cat isn't doing this. Every day for all of us, is a learning curve and a learning situation and a time for us to talk and learn and keep up to date with everything.
27:12
And when you're going through that hiring process. What would you say is something that cues you into this is the person this is going to make a great Walker, this is going to make a great sitter for
27:23
her to say that's kind of hard to say because a lot of people when they're interviewing for some type of job, they they just think that, you know, it's all fun and games, and they're gonna say whatever they want and whatever they can to try to impress. But I'm not easily impressed. I'm not. I don't like to trust people, they definitely have problems. So a lot of what I do, and what I find out is when I actually have them out on the road with me for entire day. A lot of people think this is just playing with cats and playing with dogs. I wish my day was playing with dogs, I walk these dogs and I'm too busy. Making sure the last thing I'm ever doing with any of them is really play. So it's it's constantly, you know, it's something that we you know, look forward to, even when we're talking about it, it's when they come out on the road with me and see that, hey, it's summer out, you're sweating your butt off, hey are still out in the cold, hey, you're driving a lot, we're driving here, we're driving there, you got to pick poop up, you got all you got jumped on all this, it's kind of when they go into the mills with me is when I can usually see how they're going to be. And if it's a good fit for them,
28:38
you have this quote on your website. And I love this, this this kind of philosophy of your business, it states we are a modern, force free company that uses the most up to date scientific approaches when dealing with your pets to keep them safe, happy, healthy, and comfortable. While in our care. You just talk through a lot of different experiences that you've had and that you've encountered and how you've kind of prepared for them and how you've learned from them to talk to us about how this philosophy guides, your business decisions and how it's helped you run a successful business lately.
29:11
So we're called covered at home. I want these pets to be comfortable in their home, comfortable with us. They should look forward to being with us and seeing us. So when we talk about modern forestry company, that doesn't mean we are causing harm to your pet in any way possible. That means we don't use the verse equipment. We don't use things like choke chains. We don't use prawn collars. We don't need e collars. There's no reason I want your pet to feel scared or hurt in any way while in my care. We're not reaching under beds pulling scared out saying you have to come and play with your mom saying you just don't play with me. We don't do that we sit in the room. We'll sing Have them, let them investigate. We keep up with a lot of the modern training, there's no reason to communicate through body language. Just because I'm sitting there telling a dog to sit, they might not know the words they didn't. Dogs don't come with a dictionary. They don't know the word, it's people teach them the word. So just because they're not understanding a command, or what we're wanting them to do, does not mean we have to cause any type of fear or pain with them. We are constantly learning from all our affiliates, we're learning from other pets that ours, we carry several different certifications and memberships. So we're constantly you know, update on the different webinars from some of the top professionals within the pet care industry. Safety is always number one way to keep these pets safe no matter what. So we also have backup plans for emergencies. Getting your pet taken care of is most important than possibly my pet sitters being out of the road, changing the tire. So if they've got to wait an hour for Triple H show for somebody to come and change their tire that pet needs taken care of. So somebody needs to get over there and get that handled as well. So it's all about safeties watching where we're at doing that we're not walking on the wrong side of the road, we're gonna get hit by a car or anything like that. We also worry about our pets their safety. I don't need my pet sitters getting harmed, we work on training them to prevent dog bites, to prevent them from getting harmed, prevent them to watch for safety around the property to know when there's something not right going on when they need to call, you know, me or the cops with a client. We had a client who was supposed to be leaving town. Apparently, their foods and stuff changed. So their trip chain, but they forgot to cancel our services. So my pet sitter showed up at the house, the front doors open, the screen doors closed, and she sees luggage at the front door. She's knocking is banging on the door. Nobody's coming to the door. She calls me and she's like, this is really weird. Their suitcases are at the front door. I rang the doorbell I've knocked, because nobody's coming to the door. I say quick, grab your mace. Let's check in the windows, make sure they're not broke before we start calling the police. We knocked on the door again. We saw no broken windows. We're both in here. I'm down. 911 ready to get the cops to come up and walk into the house with us. And we thought, oh my god, they were getting ready to leave for their trip. Their suitcases are still there. We're getting ready to leave. They were abducted. She was here and banging in the house. I'm thinking oh my god, they're being taught in the basement. Like I don't want you to go in there. Finally, you know, we were able to squeak open the door a little bit and started screaming Here comes the clients walking up from the basement. They never heard us they changed the flight. All of have biggest heart attack because we're like, oh my god, we thought you're in the basement and garbage bags chopped up, we heard noise and the suitcases are at the door. But the doors wide open like we thought somebody like jumped in and killed you. So yeah, we have a lot of fun time over here at comfort home pet services. But we definitely worry about the security of everybody that we're dealing with. And we don't want to see harm come to any of them.
33:36
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, stories like that a reminder of like you when you're going into somebody's home like you don't really know what to expect. You can't assume what you're going to find but to always be mindful and watchful for those kinds of signs those things around you to see you know what's off because it's it's it's safety for the pet. It's also your own safety. And just being mindful of those kind of things. And and that's something that can be taught of Did you check the doors? Do you look for the lights? Did you remember what it was like whenever you left last time? And that's just a process that you have to learn and practice over and over?
34:12
Yeah, absolutely. And even talking about, you know, our forestry stuff that we do, it has to do with public safety as well. We have a client, he just finished up some training with us. Three training sessions he had before we came on board doing pet sitting and dog walking for him. He had another trainer who came in and unfortunately isn't educated to train or not certified. We're not even sure if he's insured or not. But he came in first thing he did on this this young dog it was it's a Rottweiler, and he put a choke chain on the dog. So now he's walking he started walking the dog trying to work with the dog and he just kept jerking choke the dog. Now we come in and when we go to put anything over that dog's neck, he kind of comes at us does not like it does not want it why Woody, last thing I was put on his neck hurt him. So then what happened because this was the guy that he's been around lately. Now when we're out walking him, we can get him on the harness, comfortable, he loves his walk until he sees a man. The second this dog sees a man, he goes ballistic, it takes everybody strength, he can't listen, he just wants to kill a man. So we just finished doing some training with him. And after three training sessions of teaching him that not every man's gonna put this equipment around you, not every man's gonna choke you. They're not out to get you were able to have him around four different men plus another dog walk in. He did fabulous. Now he doesn't even care. He just cares about peeing on his telephone poles, and being on his way to public safety thing too, because if by chance, somebody is not paying attention, or we're not doing our job, and he gets loose, it could be like he could hurt somebody, I think.
36:03
Yeah, absolutely. And it's it's also, again, a reminder of that when you're coming in, you're interacting with pets, too, that sometimes you not might not know, their their backstory, their history, right if if that owner hadn't talked through that process and what he had experienced before. And it was just a meet and greet or a walk and you sent a mail over there to do that, like that would have been really, really bad. And and so to ask really good questions at meet and greets are at the onboarding process to make sure you understand not just what the pet is currently doing. But if they have any sort of anything in their history, that would be of concern or that you need to note so that you can work with them properly. And effectively. Absolutely. So talk to us about the the certifications and the memberships that you hold and why that's so important to you.
36:54
Definitely, like we were just saying with a force free, a lot of that is coming from the pet professional guild PPG. They are positive only they do not agree with adversive tools, we do not need to cause harm. They have a lot of top trainers out here, showing us talking to us, giving us the data showing us everything, invite a lot of webinars for us. They're also affiliated with dog on. I've actually certified bite prevention educator through dog on safe. And what dog on safe is, is that we're talking about bite prevention. And they also have their be a tree presenter which I'm also one of those. This is teaching children. A lot of dog bites happen, the family dog, and a lot of the bites that happened within the world that our reports are with children. It's a it's a problem, we need to start teaching our children that the dogs don't need to be hurt. This is how you interact with an animal. This is what we do. So pet professional guild is definitely one that's on the top of my list and that we definitely keep on on touch with, we definitely make sure that we're good standing member with them. naps were part of the National Association of Professional pet bettors. They also provide a lot of great webinars, they give pet sitters support, I'm listed on their directory for when people are looking for a professional. We're also a member of pet sitters International. They provide webinars, pet sitter support a directory as well for when somebody is looking for a professional pet sitter. So having these certifications, all these memberships is what keeps me on top of my field, it allows us to continue our education, I mean, to educate my customers, for me to continue to educate my pet owners,
38:43
again, this stressing this huge importance of not just initial education, but ongoing education to be science based, to be to be forced free. And then to help your sitters and walkers to be that too because that's what you firmly believe at your core is going to provide the best service possible. And so you know, we've talked through a lot of your experiences, your philosophy of running your business. And so I was curious what kind of recommendations or what kind of advice would you give to somebody just starting out what kinds of things should they be thinking about or or looking to
39:18
definitely make sure that when you're looking to start a business and you're just starting out, make sure you're researching the laws in the areas and in the townships you're going to be working in there's different townships around here that having limit on how many animals a person is allowed to have within their residence. There's laws out here as to how many dogs are allowed to walk at any specific time. A lot of people don't know this, but you're supposed to walk towards traffic, not with traffic. I want to be able to ask technically a law here in Pennsylvania to you know, walk I want to see if a car is about to come and smash into me. And it's also for the safety of the animal that I'm with that I can eat. Get us out on the road because I'm looking straight ahead. I can see if somebody is not paying attention. They're about to hit up. Instead of somebody coming in swiping me from behind. So definitely making sure you research the laws in the area on you know, pet pet care townships, what's going on? Do you have to have a business license to be able to, to run a pet sitting business? definitely make sure an attorney, an accountant, I'm good with numbers, but she knows a whole heck of a lot more than me. And she, she's getting paid to kind of do that I sometimes don't have the time to do that. So have an accountant, have an attorney who has your back and will you know, work through legal issues. If you happen to have any that come up, you have questions that you think could be, you know, a legal problem. always prepare for worst case scenarios. If you don't think it can happen, it can it's most likely going to happen. So always thinking, you know, worst case scenarios so that you can play through yourself and know how would you handle something if you ended up in this situation? Get get education, know what you're dealing with know, the breeds of the dogs know some of the personalities, what traits, understand how the animal's behavior is how they function, what you need to look for, when you're looking at sick animals that could have diseases, what are some of the signs to tell if they're sick, education is definitely a top priority. And also working with local people in the industry. Like I said, I work with several of the vets around here, I work with several groomers, and work with a lot of other pet sitters. Work with these people use them to get your knowledge up, get your education up, and work as a team. I'm only one person, I can't take care of every dog in the world. I look to other people that I trust and I and can help me.
41:57
Yeah, you mentioned working with other pet sitters in your area, and the vets and groomers and stuff. And you actually, if I'm correct, you're started your own pet sitter network. So So talk to us about that and how that got started.
42:09
I started doing that work about a couple of years ago, I just found that there was a need, even though I was connecting with a lot of different pet sitters, there's a need where we all needed to kind of get together and use each other as resources. As I said, with learning and education, I might go through a situation that somebody else hasn't. So I can put that out there, let them know like this is a situation be prepared in case this ever happens to you. This is how I handled it, I could be dealing with a situation that I've never handled before that I can reach out to another pet sitter. And maybe they've handled it, maybe they could give me advice helped me through it. When you're dealing in the pet sitter world, there's not a lot of people who understand what we do. This isn't an easy job, it's not a nine to five, we're out all the time, we're sweaty, we're dirty, were musty, we're in the grind of everything. So to have other like minded individuals that you can, you know, talk to decompress with, and you understand. And then the main part of it is you're building your business, I build my business, I tripled in the first year, I want to have trustworthy people that I can refer to somebody who I would trust because I'm not putting my name behind somebody who I wouldn't trust, I'm also not going to put my clients in that position. My clients have trusted me, I fell in love with their animals, I'm in love with them, I'm they're part of my family, I wouldn't just run them to anybody. So it's great to know that we have this network that we've comprised of all these different pet sitters, from all different parts of the Pittsburgh area, that we can come together, work together, educate each other, and we can trust each other. Everybody's in the same boat. So we can work and trust each other.
44:00
Yeah, those three big getting communities so you can share those experiences and have somebody be able to understand some of those bad days, learning from them sharing those experiences. Again, it's not just connecting, it's also being able to learn and go out. Have you experienced this? Did you try this marketing? Did you have you tried this kind of thing? or What did you do when this came up, and then getting to share that back? Then I love how when you talked about referrals, it wasn't that you've got referrals, it was that you were able to trust those so that you could give referrals out because your name, your reputation, and the clients that you love and adore are going to you know, that you want to take care of them. And getting connected with that broader community gives you that peace of mind and allows you to go Okay, these people I can trust, I know who they are. I've had personal connections with them and I talk to them all the time. I feel safe allowing my clients you know, referring my clients to them and yes, you do get some referrals back to you. But you know, at the end of the day, it's it's about being able to make sure your clients are well taken. uncared for when you're not able to
45:01
write. And the other good part is to about this is if I get a call from somebody who is outside of my territory, I can give them they're not feeling like oh my gosh, I got to keep searching, I don't know who to trust, I don't know what to do, I have somebody who most likely is in their territory that I can give them a few different people, hey, call these guys see if they can help you. They're the ones in your territory. They're they're professionals, they're insured, they're bonded. So it's nice in that way to that, even if I get a phone call that somebody wants me to, you know, drive 50 miles out of my way to go and take care of their products. If I can't do that, because I can't take care of them all. It's good to know that I have a reliable source that I can say, Okay, I do know somebody in your area, feel relief, call this person, I trust them, I know them and go to them. They're in your area, they're going to be closer for you.
45:55
Now for those pincers who have joined that network, what kind of support or like maybe a continued education opportunities do you provide as as a network
46:03
every month we we submit out and put on our private Facebook page, educational questions, kind of like what's going on in the world? And we questions that some of us have just brought up or that they're struggling with that they want to ask, we want to get other people's opinions on. So you definitely have educational monthly questions that we kind of start discussions with. It's a forum out here that anybody if they're having a question, they're having a problem, they can go to their peers, other others like them who are going to understand and provide them with the help and support that they need. We help each other with the compassion fatigue, sometimes we're just worn out, I mean, holidays are coming up, I can see a lot of us starting to pick up a lot more, we're able to work with each other to Hey, you know what you need a day off, I'm semi in your territory, is there anything I can help you do to give you a little bit of time, so it's great for that we lean on each other in emergency situations are just shoulders to cry on. When we have a pet that has passed away and owner who has passed away. We provide the referrals you can go, you know, through our directory refers to you know, other clients, things like that. It's a safe place for us to discuss business, different questions, issues problems. We provide a website that we listed the other pet sitters who are within our network, we list them on the website with their directory and what locations they cover. So that's out in the world wide web that people are coming across that and they're able to find a list of, you know, professional insured bonded professionals that around here. We also try to do a yearly first aid and CPR class that we set up. So we pick a few dates, whoever can show up for the classes, pay, they come and show up. They're getting to meet each other and we're doing the pet first aid and CPR through pet tech. We're starting to do in we were supposed to do it in 2020 here but 2020 kind of went down the crapper. So in 2021, we're putting together a self defense class, because some of us are, you know, women. And we're out here, how do we protect ourselves if something does unfortunate happened to us while we're out walking a dog or we're out alone in the dark going into a strange house, we're going to be working with a vet, who's going to give us classes to talk to us a little bit more about health issues, questions that we have on how to handle certain things, certain medications, things like that. And we have a bird class that's going to be coming up, one of our pet sitters is going to be hosting it, she's traveled all around and got her education on birds, she's going to be holding a bird class for us where we're going to get to meet a lot of her a lot of her big, unique, wonderful birds. And we're going to get a nice educational class on that, to try to find a lot of education, free space for them, everybody that can just come together and have a support system instead of feeling out on an island all alone.
49:03
Yeah, which is so important, especially in years and times like 2020 has been, and just having those resources available. And you know, it's really cool to hear that you're even, you know, having pet sitters in the network, teaching things and giving back in that way too, so that they can continue to share their experiences with everybody. Let's talk about a topic that this industry really has a hard time discussing the death of a client. When those times happen, it can be very confusing, and we often don't understand exactly what we should do, especially being the pet care provider. However, pet bernese makes it easy as a 123 just at a heartfelt condolence gift directly to someone with a broken heart. Megan and I actually just did this to a family member whose pet recently died we logged into pet perennials, and within a few moments, we had sent them a gift that they had now have hung up in their windows so that they can see and remember their dear Charlie. Now all gift packages include a handwritten card, colorful gift wrap and shipping fees across the US and Canada, they will be releasing an array of milestone gifts and greeting cards throughout 2021 that can be sent to celebrate birthdays, extend good well wishes and to welcome new and even rescued pets. They also have a few gift options in case you need to send a sympathy gift in memory of a special human client. If you're interested register for a free account to receive discounted package pricing, rather than pay their consumer prices. Since the service is leveraged on an as needed basis, there are no monthly or annual obligations or minimum purchases. Learn more by going to pet perennials comm slash pages slash GPS and enter the referral code PSZ. At registration, you'll be given a unique coupon code to save $2 off any packages that you send your first 90 days. You know when I when I hear all of this I mean sounds like so much so like, one of my questions is why you Why Why were you the one to start that where did Where did that idea come from?
51:11
Cuz I'm just a glutton for punishment, I guess. No, I am, I love my network and love the girls that I work with and pet sit with. And this, I feel that this kind of came out of a need that I felt we had. I've already connected with a lot of these pet sitters. I've referred to them. I've talked to them, I've helped them out. And I've just I found them. I give them a phone call. We have great conversations. I just felt that a lot of the time, I would have some of them contact me and say, Hey, john, I'm looking for somebody in this area. Do you know of anybody? So it's kind of like I was the phone book directory at times that people were coming to me and kind of asking me so I said, You know what, let's get, let's get us all together. A lot of people contact me and say, Hey, Jen, I've been doing this for 20 some years. And I'm telling you, when I talk to you, I can't believe the stories you tell me in the crap you go through. Because I've never in my life dealt with half of the stuff that you have. And they'll call me to lean on me and my experience. And hey, john, have you dealt with this? So you just spoke the need from everybody I've already connected with to kind of say, hey, let's let's just all get together. Let's just all be together, let's all work together and support each other. That's what this is about. This is about supporting it takes a community to deal with these animals. And that's what we are. We're our own small community.
52:36
And all this I feel like is being driven by your passion for pets. So where did your passion for animals and pet care come from?
52:43
Well, as everybody always says, I've always had, I've had pets, you know, my entire life. But mostly for taking care of the pets that came from that came from my brother. I kind of hold everything that I do with my business as in memory of my brother. So my brother was diagnosed with brain cancer, and he had a brain tumor. He went through several different surgeries. I was working in the corporate world at the time, he went through several different brain surgeries. He was told he had six months to live. He actually made it two years. And it was when I went down for one of his last brain surgeries. I got the phone call from my job that said, Hey, you were one of the last ones to come in. We're getting rid of your project and you're not laid off and don't have a job. I'm in the hospital, in the waiting room for him to get out. Like this isn't a broken arm. He's in brain surgery. And you just fired me great. I took vacation time to come down. I'm still working. Because I'm not a doctor. I was working in the waiting room on their laptop when I got the phone call this kind of after that. I was like, Okay, I'm just a number out here. Nobody cares that I'm down here working on my vacation. But I'm at a hospital. My brother is in brain surgery. And it was kind of after that I started rethinking things. And it wasn't too long after that my brother was put into hospice care. And when he was in hospice care, it was it was tough. I was a lot of difficult phone calls because my brother was only 27. And it was a lot of difficult phone calls as to why is this happening to me. I wanted to have a life. I wanted to have a career. I wanted to get married. I wanted to have children. There's a lot of hard conversation until that one day, I started getting the phone calls that Jen this therapy dog came in. I saw this dog named this and this is what he did. Everything changed. He was talking about these animals and then coming in and What relief and support that he wasn't at his, at his last days, he wasn't sitting there feeling sorry for himself or upset. He was thinking about those animals. And he wanted those dogs. And he talked to me about those dogs. So it was with that, that, I changed everything. And I changed my motive of everything. And I said, You know what, I need to pay it forward for what these animals gave me, my brother and my family relief, that my brother was able to pass peacefully enough, because those animals gave to him. So now I've set out and when I was able to purchase this business, I jumped right on it. And I want to give back these animals deserve great care. And if I can give that because they gave care to my brother, when on his dying days, I have to give back and I have to do
55:50
it. You talk about knowing your why, for a business, you talk about what's the driving passion every single day. And to have that be it you know, that's just so incredibly moving and touching to hear that not just your brother, but you and the entire family were given piece because of an interaction with a therapy dog that your brother had. And now to be out and paying that forward. You know, that's just it's it's so huge. And it is a great reminder that we all have our reasons why we start big, small, personal public, but but knowing that why to get us through those, those crazy days of getting put into the backseat of a cop car or covered in poop or whatever, right? To help get us through that is just so fundamental to our businesses. Yeah,
56:42
absolutely. And
56:42
you talk about giving back you're actually involved with, with therapy dogs as well, and have been doing that on your own. So tell us about that.
56:50
Absolutely. Do the therapy work, for me is is a great relief. Unfortunately, I'm not doing as much as I would like to do with it. Because my schedule and you know, time kind of slips away from me. But I love being able to give back and do that to see the work that my dogs do. And what they provide to people is is absolutely just amazing. Cheerio. He's my golden retriever. He loves going to he does read programs. He loves going to the schools and going to the libraries. And that's when kids will come in, and they'll read to him. And these are kids who might have reading difficulties reading problems don't like reading, or they just don't like the doing the public speaking. They sit down with my dog. I think I've literally heard every single dog book in a library because these these kids bring the dog buck to. But yeah, it's fabulous. He sits there, he gets interested. He loves sitting there listening to a story and Curio gets involved with it. And it's just it's a fantastic thing for him to get out. I'm interacting with the community, again, doing the community work, and being out here in the community. them seeing me, we had a wonderful girl who loves coming in once a month, she'd read the Cheerio. And she actually there were Cheerio books out, which I was not aware of. So they I guess there's kids books that you put actual Cheerios in. And yeah, there's all different ones. There's counting ones, there's all different ones. This little girl brought hers in from home and wanted to give Cheerio, her Cheerio book. I was a static I started searching everywhere. I had people finding me these books and getting them. So Cheerio takes his whole stack of Cheerio books and a little container of his Cheerios. And we go in and we have a great time The kids love it. We put the Cheerios on the book, he gets his command to go ahead and eat the Cheerios. He absolutely loves it. It's a great time to that I get to teach these children how we interact with the animals, that the animals remain safe so that the children remain safe. Doing the therapy dog work with my dogs now I've been able to keep up with it. Because we've been dealing with, you know, some difficult times. And there's been times where I've had clients who have been hospitalized, and I'm taking care of their pets. And even though we're sending pictures, we're sending a text. I can I can take my dog up and Cheerio or Jasmine would go in and she'll visit with my client. I'll visit with them and they're at least getting to see you know an animal, even if it's not their own, they're getting to see an animal and they're loving it. These therapy dogs do so much for so many people. My Sheltie who is you know just passed two years ago. She was there was a school starving in our area. And she was there as one of the therapy dogs true went for one day Jasmine went for a couple of days, we went up to the school and we supported those kids having to walk back through that hallway for the horrendous act of what happened at that school. And watch those dogs. And those kids being able to. Jasmine ended up following a girl into the bathroom who was just stopping because she was about to go into the classroom, that everything happened and and she saw it. And my dog just took me and we went in, she sat there and just held my dog. That's what she needed that helped her to be able to calm herself enough, get up, she was talking to my dog about the situation and what what happened. So I mean, these dogs, you know, go through a lot of training to get this type of certification. And they bring a lot to these people. Whether they're in the hospital, they need help reading, or if they've suffered something traumatic. A dog doesn't judge,
1:00:58
tell us about those certifications. If someone's listening to this and thinking, you know, they have their own dog that they want to get involved or at least help support those efforts to continue those in their area, you know, what kind of resources should they be looking for? Or how can we get involved in those kind of projects?
1:01:17
Absolutely, I think a lot of people need to understand there are differences between the different types of dogs. A lot of people are overusing emotional support dogs. People get confused with emotional support dogs in therapy dogs, or therapy dogs and service dogs, there's three different categories. So I'm just gonna speak on that real quick. Because an emotional support dog is for yourself, you need that dog to calm you because you're having, you know, medical issues, and you need the dog with you to calm you. That does not mean that dog is trained to be out, the dog can end up being stressed being in a crowded space because you need it. People need to kind of think about that. a service dog is there to provide a service to its handler, those dogs are not supposed to be touched, they're not supposed to be approached, you need to really watch for those dogs and those dogs go through a lot of very expensive training, therapy dogs with therapy dogs there for other people, they go through a lot of testing to be able to be put in different situations, but there for people to enjoy. But there's different training classes that in training clubs that offer therapy, dog registrations, therapy, dog, you know, classes and certifications to become a registered therapy dog team. So you can always check with those, you can check with the aka See, currently in my area, there are three certifying agencies, there is delta, there is therapy dogs international and Alliance for therapy dogs, we actually are under Alliance for therapy dogs. So what it is, is it's if the person and animal tests that you go through to make sure that you have your commands, they can deal with weird things. I mean, if you're going into a hospital, your dog needs to be aware that a wheelchair can be coming by what a walker is. There, sometimes loud noises, beeps, all kinds of things that go on in a nursing home or a hospital, do you go through a lot of that training, your dog has to be obedient, they can't go into a nursing home with an elderly person and jump on them. It can cause you know, injuries it can it can actually cause some death depending on who they who they jump on and how bad you know, the response is, every year there's a written exam that you need to follow up that you understand the rules, you understand what's going on. These dogs do go through a lot so people can please go out and you know, check. You know the training clubs in your area. See who is a tester you can check for testers through Delta therapy dogs international Alliance for therapy dogs, they'll let you know your closest tester and somebody can help you get through it. But your dog needs to be exposed to a lot be friendly, not be able to jump be used to a lot of environmental things that they can be exposed to. There's also an organization out there, I'm gonna give a shout out to them. It's the crisis response canines. And one of my friends is involved with the cases response canines. And that's for tragedies that almost happen everywhere anywhere in the state. So if there's a school shooting, the canine response canines, the crisis response canines. They're the ones that respond to that they get their dogs get in the car, get on a plane, they go. These dogs are here to help people through a tragic situation. They're still doing their regular work going to, you know, hospitals, places that they want to go to and visit but they're also called out on big major crisises as well. therapy dogs are now being used in the area in the court systems. They're allowing some of these therapy dogs and they need them. I'd love for more people to be going down to the court systems, they need these therapy dogs, and usually they're using them for the child custody cases, these children are going through a lot with, you know, a custody case, mom and dad or something tragic happened to them, before they go in front of a judge. They're loving to, you know, sit there and love on an animal love on a dog. The dogs are now therapy dogs are allowed at the airlines, for people who are nervous travelers, we have the dogs up there that they can, you know, relax a little bit get to pet a dog before you get on a plane. So these dogs are actually trained for these situations, the handlers are trained for it. So it gets a little frustrating sometimes when, you know, people are passing their dogs off for that. Because sometimes that's not helpful, and it's not good for your dog, if they're not trained for these types of situations.
1:05:56
Jennifer, I want to thank you so much for coming on and encouraging us to continue learning the importance of safety, and all that we do and all the awesome stuff that therapy dogs are doing and how we can get involved as well. If people want to get in touch and learn more and pick your brain on your processes and all that kind of stuff. How best can they do that?
1:06:16
Yeah, absolutely. I want to say thank you so much for having me on here. This has been fun. This has been exciting, I hope that I was able to help somebody educate them and kind of, if not give them a little laugh about something. So the best way to reach me is going through my website at www dot comfort home pet services.com. I can be emailed at Jen, at comfort home pet services.com. Or you can definitely find us all across social media. We are on Facebook, we are on next door. We're on Google where LinkedIn. We have Instagram, we have Twitter accounts. So please make sure you're liking those checking those out, checking out our educational blogs and drop me a line.
1:07:03
Again, this has been a real pleasure. Thank you so much.
1:07:06
Thank you for having me.
1:07:07
I had two big takeaways from my conversation with Jennifer. The first was the importance of community work, not forgetting that we don't live in a vacuum and that there are people around us to get connected to and to start networking with. And the second was education to always view every day. As a data learn. Every day is a learning day that we can learn from others we can learn from our past experiences. And we can learn from getting involved in networks or professional organizations. Whatever it is, always be looking to learn something new. We want to thank our sponsors time to pet and pet perennials for making this week's show possible. We also want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for listening and for sharing. You are helping to spread the show across the petsitting community and we really genuinely could not be doing and would not be doing this without you. So thank you so much. You can find us online at pet sitter confessional calm and on social media at pet sitter confessional as well. We hope you have a wonderful rest of the week and we will be back again on Monday.
