271: Equipping Your Clients with Tami Guy
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Summary:
How do you equip your clients? What tools and resources do you provide them so they’ll be the best pet parents? Tami Guy, owner of Creatures Pet Care in Kalamazoo, uses her background in zookeeping, and educating, to teach her clients all things pet care. Tami shares how she continues to learn from her staff when it comes to running her business. From equipping them with knowledge to providing membership opportunities, she dives into what it means to help pet parents live their best life with their pets.
Topics on this episode:
Communicating bad news
Learning from team members
Helping pet parents
Group memberships
Main take away: Equip your clients so they see you as an authority and you continue to hone your skills and knowledge.
About our guest:
Tami Guy, MS, CPPS, is the owner of Creatures Pet Care of Kalamazoo, a professional pet sitting, dog walking and training service in southwest Michigan. The Creatures team is passionate about enriching the lives of pets and their people, providing animal companions with loving care and activities that enhance their physical and mental well-being.
While earning a Bachelor’s degree in biology from Grand Valley State University, Tami spent three summers as a zookeeper at John Ball Zoo. She then completed her Master’s degree in Animal Behavior at Bucknell University, followed by an internship at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Animal Center in Maryland, studying squirrel monkey behavior. Her current work with dogs goes beyond providing physical exercise, to include manners training, enrichment games and socialization, helping dogs live more harmoniously within their human families.
Tami has recently launched the Creatures CANINE CONNECTION online dog training program with a private FB membership group with Zoom Master Classes! To learn more about joining the CANINE CONNECTION pack, contact Tami at tami@creaturespetcare.com.
Links:
Her Email: tami@creaturespetcare.com
Her website: https://www.creaturespetcare.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/creaturespetcare/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CreaturesPetCare
Private group: https://pocketsuite.io/book/creatures-canine-connection/item/creatures-canine-connection
Join her group: https://www.creaturespetcare.com/online-dog-training/
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, people, pet, clients, animals, training, important, group, pets, animal behavior, learning, business, super, part, person, membership, job, communicate, behavior, resources
SPEAKERS
Collin, Tami, Doug
Collin 00:10
Hello, I'm Meghan I'm Collin and this is Pet Sitter confessional an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter brought to you by time to pet. Faced with a recent job loss, Tammy guy had a decision to make, to go into business for herself doing something that she loved or go back into a job that she knew that she could do, just chose the former. And to this day, four and a half years later runs creatures pet care of Kalamazoo, Michigan. And today, she joins us to share that journey of what that four and a half years has looked like how her background in biology and working at zoos has impacted how she reads and understands animal behavior, and what she has in store moving forward. Let's get started.
Tami 00:53
Well, thank you so much, Collin, I really appreciate the opportunity to come on love your podcast, listen to it. It's so helpful what you're doing to help out the industry and, and help connect us and give us great info. So thank you. As you said, my name is Tammy guy, I own preacher's pet care of Kalamazoo, we're in southwest Michigan. I've been in business for about four and a half years. And we do drop in pet sitting dog walking and training. And I have three fantastic pet care specialists on the team. So that's just been the best invaluable and so grateful.
Collin Funkhouser 01:32
Well, so your four and a half years into this what happened four and a half years ago that started you on this journey?
Tami 01:39
Yeah, um, I've done so many different things. In my life, I haven't broad range of experience. I used to work at a marketing firm, I used to be a farmer, rather than I taught college for many, many years taught college biology. And then I worked in a cell biology lab and I really liked like that job, but we got acquired in then they shut down our location. So I was like, okay, a year after I started that job, I'm like, Okay, what do I do now. And I thought it really was time to you know, really do what I want. I didn't want to work for somebody else I wanted to work for myself, I'm a I'm a hard worker, and I really liked projects. So I thought this is a good fit with my background. It's time to give that a try. And so I was solo for about two and a half years, and I should have been solo for much less time than that it was, it was pretty crazy doing so I know you guys just hired recently heard your podcast on that. It makes such a difference. It's so great to have good team members to take some of the pressure off, you know, when you're solo and and backup, you know, I was wondering like if I get sick? What that like, I can't get sick?
Collin 02:51
No, it really does take a lot of stress and fear off of ourselves. Right? Like I always see two responses when people hire is, man, this is really scary. And then very shortly after there's the Why should have done this, like from day one. But would you write having that backup just from a peace of mind perspective is so it's so impactful to be to the business owner and to the clients that you're serving. Because basically you can say, regardless of what happens, somebody will be here, our company can now provide care, regardless of what happens to one person or the other person. And that's just a total game changer from peace of mind from from clients perspective. And for time off, right for us as the business owners. Yeah, absolutely.
Tami 03:33
So you can work more on business development, and, you know, client relationships, and it just provides you more time to kind of steer your business rather than being in the trenches all the time.
Collin Funkhouser 03:45
Yeah, it's really hard to do both of those. At the same time. I didn't quite understand that until very recently of I'm trying to be creative. I'm trying to be the guiding here we're trying to plan. While also like you said, you're in the trenches, you're dealing with all the minutia, all the stress of that, and now I can separate that out. And I've said it before, but the first time I was able to publish a blog to our website that I didn't write it, I was like, oh, whoa, what just happened
Tami 04:18
that I didn't have to knock out completely and
Collin Funkhouser 04:23
it really does change it really does change it changes your relationship with your business too. Right? It just how you how you approach it how you think and how you plan you know talk about your your your background, I'm interested you know, you spend a lot of time in, in biology and in the sciences and teaching so we have that in common. That's Megan's my background as well. So yeah, I love that. So what what about your background? Do you feel like help set you up for for the business that you're currently running?
Tami 04:54
So many things were helpful. The educational background and really the focus on me animal behavior that's always been my interest. So it's something that, you know, I was always interested in with my own pets, and just in general, and always educating myself as much as possible about animal animal behavior and pet behavior. You know, having an educational background, when I was in college, I was a zookeeper for three summers, and that was tons of fun. And that taught me a lot. You know, it's like a little more exotic window into, you know, what pet care is about, you know, your, your prepping food and making sure that the animals are getting, you know, the meals that they need, and, you know, avoiding tummy troubles. You're, you're cleaning up poop, I mean, the zookeepers job is a lot of the same thing, just bigger and more exotic animals. And it's funny, one of the things I definitely took away from zoo keeping was, you have your keys, clip to your belt, always keys never gets shut down. After until you are home at the end of the day keys are attached to you. And that's helped avoid a lot of potential problems for my business, please are always there. It sounds like a silly, you know, kind of minutia thing. But it's a big problem if you know people are trusting their homes and their home security as well as their patents to you. So keys are keys are a big deal.
Collin Funkhouser 06:21
No, it really is. So you is one of your former titles, exotic pooper scooper.
Tami 06:28
Scoop so much exotic stuff anymore. But yeah, I mean, that's a lot of what animal care is about. And, and really the enrichment piece is huge. I mean, in the zoo environment, you know, a long time as a ghost who's used to be just, you know, Curiosity is and animals were not in any kind of enriched environment, they were just on display, but zoos have changed a lot. And now they have captive breeding programs. And they're being really careful about which animals they match up. They're doing a lot of enrichment things because animals need things to do in the wild. Or even when we look at our dogs, a lot of dog breeds were bred to be working breeds. And then when they become pads, and they don't have that job, they have a lot of time on their hands. And board dogs. One, it's not nice to be bored. And, and they tend to get in trouble. If you don't give them something to do that. That, you know, is more of a positive thing that works more, you know, with, you know, having the animal in your family, you know, they get into trouble. So, I'm always trying to do things with clients, Pat's, you know, that's the approach of all my staff. You know, what, what can we do to you know, an exercise is a basic, you know, dog walking, training, those are great activities for animals, but I'm having food puzzles, or treat dispensing toys. I mean, animals spend a lot of time foraging and looking for food in the wild. So you know, when you just set their bowl down, and you're like, there you go, there's no foraging, it'll take you three seconds to eat, then what do you do take a nap. So I do a lot of feeding and treat dispensing toys and pros and cons. And, you know, just just getting animals a job, something fun to do. I think
Collin Funkhouser 08:14
that's really important. And what I like about that is what you're doing is many, we all come from outside the industry and come into pet care from as far as dog walking and pet sitting. There's no undergrad course that you can take. There's no post bacc in advanced dog walking that we can that we can achieve. So we have to look at our past experiences and kind of go oh, this has prepared me for this one thing. And I have this and I have this and you mentioned meal prep. One of my favorite experiences that we I had was I was an aquarist for Bass Pro their flagship store in Springfield, so the tanks and do all this stuff. And meal meal prep was always my favorite part because it was very exact, it was following that day's regime and it was then, you know, dispensing it out. And looking back now it's like, wow, like the, the attention to detail, the thoroughness, the the putting everything together, I really enjoyed that. And I get to do that all the time now. And it's, it's kind of neat to pull from the skills from the past and apply it kind of in a slightly different, different way. And we all get to do that, whether that's and we all from our extreme experiences, like you said, like the keys attached. It's a weird thing, but it's also extremely applicable to going in and out of people's homes.
Tami 09:27
Absolutely, absolutely. In what you mentioned with that attention to deal with meal tract meal prep with some pets, you know, their meals aren't that complicated, but we run into, you know, patch they have medication needs, and those aren't very specific needs. So attention to detail, as you mentioned, I mean, that was an important part of Zuki thing and that's just something that's it's a big thing for me it's really important in pet sitting and dog walking and training. You got to have attention to detail and you got to be like tuned in and you got to be paying attention to what you're doing in order to provide the best service we love. Our clients, I love doing this. And we always want to provide the best care for the pets and the best experience for the clients and attention to detail, and doing all those things, but feeding correctly dispensing medication, you know, and just looking at detail things like is the is the animal eliminating properly is that litter box? You know, there hasn't been, you know, any poop in it for two days. So, you know, we have an issue here or, you know, if a dog has, you know, some tummy troubles, you know, letting the owner know that and trying to troubleshoot or, you know, recommend that, you know, get to that I'm not a bad. So, maybe want to have that take a look at this.
Collin 10:43
Yeah, well, in those times, those are always stressful to try and communicate to clients, right of like, nobody wants to tell their client that their cat's not eliminating in the box, and no one wants to tell their client that the dog is now throwing up in the yard. But that's part of our part of our responsibility. So how do you help your yourself and in your staff get over that fear of not wanting to communicate bad news?
Tami 11:10
Yeah, I think it's just so important to let clients know what's going on in that is a balancing act, if there's something that's really minor, you know, it might not be if it's super minor, it might not be worth worrying a client, you know, you don't want to worry them on their vacation and have them because they're not there and have them get all concerned. So, you know, having a sense of, you know, when something when you feel something is important, as opposed to just, he's a little sleepy today, you know, I'm not going to set off any alarm bells for that. Um, and we use petsitting software, so clients really get, you know, detailed information. And yeah, when there is something that, you know, is off, we, we just want to let the client know, you know, we're not worried, you know, about how, you know, giving them bad news, there's some things that they just need to know. So we can do that in the visit report. And if my staff ever has a question, if you know, I'm always here, for them, you know, run it by me first, if you're not sure if this is a problem, or if I've also seen the animal and I've seen, you know, that's just normal, or that lump has been there for, you know, as long as I've known the past. So that's not something new can team communication is super important.
Collin 12:29
I think for me, it's a lot of remembering, that's part of what the clients paying me for is to communicate right and bad news, right? And just kind of setting that mindset around this. Like, I'm paid to communicate and care. And so I'm going to communicate good things and bad things. Because that's, I mean, that's literally part of my job. And that helps me contextualize a lot of things that happen to have like, okay, like, this is it's uncomfortable. But this is I've got to do this because this is, if I wasn't here, this wouldn't be communicated to them. And they might have concerns down the line.
Tami 13:01
Yeah, this might be something that a pet has had problems with in the past, that was the signal of something more serious. So they need to know that. And I mean, we'll even go as far I know, clients don't always like get yucky pictures. But if the animal vomits, we're going to take a picture of the bomb, and we're going to take a picture of that area after we've cleaned it up. If a dog has a get a weird poop example, one of the dogs that I took care of had a black tube in black often means like blood and stool, that's bad. And I told her and she's like, Oh, he went made this stuff that was dumped out of the grill. Like leftovers from from grilling, and I'm like, what a relief that probably won't be great for his GI tract. But it's certainly better than blood in the stool. So, you know, that's why you let people know those things. I see that, that, you know, aberration and clients just like oh, yeah, yeah, let me tell you what happened.
Collin Funkhouser 13:54
You're right. And it's in those moments where the majority of times the clients going to go, oh, yeah, this thing happened. I count the number of times over and a dog is throwing up and there's, oh, a sock comes out, like, Oh, I wonder where that went from the other day. Like, that would have been nice to know, before I came over that you were missing a sock it you know, but yeah, this is serious. It is it can be really serious. But it's reminder that the the pet and the clients relationship, that it's just normal to them, right? They don't think twice about these weird things that happen. And so part of our job is to also kind of put some of these pieces of the puzzle together. And to understand that, you know, this is all new to me. It might not be new to them, but I don't know that until I let them know about it.
Tami 14:37
Yeah, until until you know that for a longer period of time for sure. In clients really appreciate that, you know, when we we hear that all the time, love your attention to detail, you know, even if we're telling them something, that they're like, oh, yeah, that's nothing. You know, I will still here you know, thank you for noticing that we're really impressed that that you noticed that they You communicated that to us?
Collin Funkhouser 15:01
Yeah. Yeah. Now you have a background in in Al behavior, you have interest in that a lot. And you also have team members, how do you go about teaching them basics of animal behavior and helping them kind of get get up to speed to where you are, because I know that's a concern. A lot of times when we bring on staff is, well, I know me my expertise and my, my strong points, but I'm worried about the people that I'm bringing in. So for you with your advanced experience in this, What's that process like of bringing in people and training them in your knowledge,
Tami 15:36
I have been so lucky. So I have never had to bring on a team member that was really starting, you know, starting at zero, starting with very little experience, all of my team members were very experienced before they even came to me. I think all of them are fear free certified. So they before they were even part of the team, being tuned into, you know, animal communication. And I mean, I've been so lucky I, I tell him all the time, I'm, I'm so grateful for you, I'm so glad you're on the team, I appreciate you, I value you, in just a lot of communications. So I will, I will go on some of the visits with them, certainly, when they're first seeing Pat, um, and, you know, demonstrate, you know, some of the safety things, talk about some of the behaviors, teaching, like, for example, with dogs, having a dog check in with you is so important, it helps with walks, it helps with so many things, a dog that's not paying attention to you isn't going to be listening to you because they're not paying attention. So I share a lot of the things that I learned about that are really helpful in day to day with dogs, like all my staff knows about, like, for example, pattern games that we can use to help dogs check in. Before especially we work with a number of dogs that are reactive or fearful, it's really important to get their attention on you, rather than zoning in drilling in with their eyes on the trigger. Because the longer they're looking at the trigger, the more apt and the more out of touch they're getting. And the more you know, it's not a teachable moment when they're already at like a level 10 with their arousal level. So we do a lot of that in some of these things are just super easy to do these these ways of getting attention. And then the owners really appreciate that too. So I think it's mainly just a lot of communication. And I mean, I learned a lot from my staff, too. They, I have a lot of experience with all animals, but they have an enormous amount of experience with cats. One of my team members has like cat cafe and rescue and the two other team members I learned about through the cat cafe because they were foster volunteers and fostered cat so like the cat expertise on my team is just off the charts. So I'm learning stuff from them. They're learning stuff from me, I think it's just a lot of communication.
Collin Funkhouser 18:05
I love hearing that to me about learning from your staff is that many times we come into it with okay hired somebody I have to be the grand Pooh bah here and I have to be leading and guiding and doing and showing and teaching and coming down basically coming down from on high for the tablets and showing them these things. And remembering I hired them for a reason. Like they they've got things that my company needs that I need. And let's let's actually work together here and have you share and have you write and have you teach others. And I love that because that helps them feel like, wow, this is a place where I can invest. This is a place where I can grow and expand and really become part of something that's more than just being a worker bee.
Tami 18:49
Yeah, yeah, we're sure you know, maybe if somebody feels like, you know, they're part of making the company better. And you know, in reaching it in showing off their talents. That's, that's fantastic. I also just, I'm just about to roll out some additional standard operating procedures, procedures, super, super important. But I have a folder of my procedures called the SOP sandbox. And that's where my team can go in and they can make additions, they can make ask questions, they can ask for clarification, they can do anything in there except delete text that's don't delete anything you want and then in we can make these procedures better because you know, you might be doing a lot more petsitting than I am at this point. I'm doing more trainings. So you might be encountering things that I'm not encountering as often anymore. So I really want to be building these procedures together as a team. And then there's more buy in to if they're like I'm part of Have I contributed to creating this procedure? So it creates more ownership on everyone's part?
Collin 20:08
Yeah, it really does. And we do something similar with our, with our staff, where we kind of have the way that Megan and I have operated, we have opened that up to them and said, hey, you know, you've recently gone through some of these trainings under the company. And you've, you've had these experiences now. Here's, here's how we're currently operating. Here's how we're currently training you. What are your thoughts? Like, what what would you like to see better? And we even had hired somebody who has an extensive background in grooming. So we basically were like, here's a blank sheet of paper. What would you how would you teach somebody to do nail trims, ear cleanings and teeth brushing? Right? Because I Negan I have have done those, but not to the extent that he has so going, do he hate you? Here's something that you can do. And let's let's work on this together. And I really believe that when we can start viewing them again, as as resources, more than just worker bees. It makes everybody better in the long run.
Tami 21:09
And I think it creates a lot more jobs. Satisfaction as well.
Collin Funkhouser 21:15
Yeah, exactly. And because they can see oh, this is how I'm plugged in. This is how I'm able to work here. This is this is where I can use my my experience and my expertise to and that it is like you said it's valued. And they they want to stay on. Yeah, yeah, for sure. You've moved to a lot more training. Now, what are some basics, or what are some things about animal behavior that you wish more people knew about?
Tami 21:42
Well, I think overall, just educating yourself as much as possible, and really trying to understand what your pets are communicating. I mean, we never know what's going on in their head. But we've got body language. And I think a lot of times people forget, since language is our big way of communicating isn't the way of communicating. For our pets, his body language is where you're going to see this stuff. So you need to look at what the animals doing and get a sense of, you know, isn't afraid. And sometimes the animal that's nervous isn't necessarily going to be that like completely cowering dog, where it's 100% obvious, sometimes animals will throw off conflicting signals where you're seeing one thing and one part of the body and one thing and another and you kind of have to put it together. But I think if we really do start, you know, paying attention to what our animals are seeing, we can have a much richer relationship with them, and just more fulfilling relationship. And you know, they're being understood. I work a lot with dogs that are reactive, I have my own dogs that are reactive. So I get 24/7 experience with that. Sometimes people will see that and think, you know, my dog is aggressive, I have to, I have to show that I'm boss, I have to dominate them. If that reactivity is fear based, which often is on you being heavy handed about dealing with it, it's gonna make it worse, if you see that it's based on fear, and you can see a lot of those signals, then you can find better solutions just in a lot of times, you know, it's natural, we see things from a human perspective. So it's really hard to see things to try and see things from another organisms perspective. You know, sometimes I'll hear people say, like, Oh, my dog, my dog was mad at me. So he pooped on the floor? Probably not. I mean, he pooped on the floor. But it might be because he had to poop. It might be because it's six degrees out. And he's not done. Like I can move indoors where it's warm, or I can go outside where it's six degrees. That's it easy peasy choice. Yeah. So I think sometimes if we attribute some of these things, like, you know, my dog is vengeful, or my dog is spiteful, you know, we're just not having that level of communication that we could and our relationship could be so much richer. And there's just lots of books out there. So so the way to do it is, is, you know, to educate yourself. There's courses, there's books, there's podcasts, there's so many resources out there these days,
Collin 24:11
you touched on a good point that reactive versus aggressive, and it reminded me about the importance of language in the terms that we use, because a lot of times clients are confused, and they're not using the right thing, right. And so they're trying to communicate something to us. So we're preparing for it one scenario, but then when we get there we go, oh, that says this is a reactive dog. And I it's very interesting, because just yesterday we did a meet and greet with a lady who said her dog was aggressive in the kennel. And it's because she had a bad incidence where somebody came over to the kennel one time and reached in and pulled the dog out of the kennel and the dog bit this person. And so they said, Oh, she's an aggressive dog. And it was like, No, this is a reactive dog who was scared and we're trying to communicate something to you. And so I was like, what will do is we will not reach in and grab the dog not because she's aggressive but because we don't want her to be afraid. And reactive to this, in helping people understand and use the right terms is going to help set them up to be a better pet parent.
Tami 25:14
Yeah, and again, that gets back to looking at the body language and seeing you know, before you're even, you shouldn't be reaching a dog at a crate anyways. But, um, you know, you can see the body language of that dog. And you can respond differently, you know, you can open the door, if that dogs fearful, you can open the door and back away cuz the dog some space to come out. If you have a dog that's nervous, you know, around a new person, the new person can toss some treats, and then just sit down and ignore the dog don't be bending over the dog going, Hi, Bobby, on the hat, like, so, you know, just learning those things with what's more appropriate behavior with dogs, you know, again, we see a lot of nervous fearful dogs. This, there's just a lot of it, there's a lot of dogs on anti anxiety meds, and you really got to be aware of as best you can about where those behaviors are coming from. And if they're fear based, again, taking a heavy handed approach
Collin 26:23
is not the way to do it. No, no. And it really does give clients a lot of hope. I've seen it so many times, right, because they're sitting there, they think they have an aggressive dog, they think they've got this awful dog and nobody's gonna, it's not gonna love anybody and blah, blah. And we can come in, we're acting totally different than anybody who's interacted with that dog before. And it's a game changer, right? And they start the client starts going, oh, oh, do you mean if I do, they start putting it together. Or if I do this, if I back up, if I give them space, they'll do that, you know that they will approach. And that's part of this education process that we get to be a part of, of going, Hey, you might not have experienced this, but this is how we're going to operate in this scenario. And talking through that process. As you said communication is so keep sometimes telling them what we're doing, why we're doing it, as we're doing it, you just see their look on their face go, oh, wow, this is amazing.
Tami 27:15
Yeah, and when they start doing things that they find work, they get more confident, and they get happier, and they just feel more I can do this, especially when you have maybe a dog adopt a rescue dog that can be a little challenging, you know, has had perhaps a traumatic background, you know, and maybe people are telling you that you shouldn't adopted that dog, that's a bad dog, you know, maybe the dogs not a compatible pick for the person. And that's always a possibility. But, you know, let's try some things first and see it might be something that's the simple fix, it might be something that's a more involved fix. But just having that information.
Collin Funkhouser 27:55
Have you heard of time to pet dog from bad to the bone pet care has this to say,
Doug 28:00
time to pet has made managing my team and clients so much easier. Our clients love the easy to use app and scheduling features. And our sitters love being able to have all of their information organized and easily accessible. My favorite feature is the instant messaging by keeping conversations on time to pet we're able to monitor our team and ensure nothing ever falls through the cracks.
Collin 28:20
If you're looking for new pet selling software, give time to pet a try listeners of our show can save 50% off your first three months by visiting typepad.com/confessional. As we go through the that process of of equipping the pet parents you right we we do have to remember that a lot of it starts with making sure that we're taken care of first, right and that we're we're okay, so that we can do these things we can be teaching we can be equipping, because if we're not taking care of ourselves, we're gonna we're gonna miss a lot of these signs and signals along the way too.
Tami 28:55
Yeah, in back to what you said, and the fact that you guys are very recently hired. I mean, before I hired spring break was just insane, I would easily have like 15 You know, stops in a day. And it'd be like from before the sun came up until after the sun went down in spring, and you just can't sustain it, you can't take care of yourself. So it's nice to have a team where we can kind of, you know, when something does come up, we can help each other out and cover those appointments.
Collin Funkhouser 29:25
I know one of the things that creatures pet care strives to do is to help pets live better with their owners, through the services that you provide. How do you see that working out in how you operate?
Tami 29:38
Well part of it is is just the basic services you know, drop in pet sitting means the pets can stay home rather than go to a kennel where you know, most animals get more stressed when they have to go to boarding some love boarding some go crazy and it's like going to camp and they're having a great time and some boarding facilities are fabulous and they really do make it a super fun experience. but a lot of pets just, they get really nervous in that type of situation. So being able to stay home, that's, that's one of the starters. I mean, pets are, you know, usually a little out of sorts anyways, when their people are gone, that's a change in their routine. And pets are very, you know, routine based. So offering infom, pet sitting, offering dog walking, so the dogs can get some exercise and get some interaction. And when the person has a busy day, it's it's one less walk that they have to be doing. We also offer training locks. So for dogs that need to work on certain things, whether it's pulling or you know, a lot of times, it's some level of reactivity, you know, let's work out, let's get out there in the neighborhood. And let's work around some of these triggers. And, and it allows me to see what works with the dog and how the dogs responding. So I can pass that information along to the human, to give them some tools in their tool belt to avoid some of these situations, I mean, practice makes perfect, and that's for the good and the bad things and the more dog practices reactivity. You know, the better the good at it. So finding ways to interrupt that. And then also I do training consults. So I do one hour training consults, where I come to client's homes, and can have a little more in depth kind of troubleshooting type of thing. And again, we always with all of our visits, we're trying to make it an enriching experience, the dog walks, they're interacting with us, you know, so many times you'll see people walking dogs with their phone out, and I'm just, it makes me nervous when I see that. I'm like, oh, Mike, you know, what, if there's a trigger, what if something comes around the corner? What if the dog backs out of its harness, you got to be watching the animal, and it's more fun to be interacting with the animal and making yourself part of the lot. Rather than, you know, you just anchor at the end of the leash, that's it, that's preventing the dog from having fun. When we pat some, you know, playing with the pads on if, if I want to maybe as a snuffle mat, or some kind of feeding toy, or even playing like a treat hiding game, doing something, to make the interaction fun, where we're not just coming in and putting down food and refreshing the water, we do the basics, but then we try to do more than that. And also being a resource for our clients, you know, we're always having them, contact us, you know, like, I'm seeing this behavior, or I think I might need this. So to have kind of this resource in your pocket where, you know, you can turn to somebody and say, you know, I need some help, or I need some input. I think the clients appreciate that.
Collin Funkhouser 32:37
I think viewing our time with the pets as an opportunity for that level of enrichment is super key, I have seen many people asking, you know, how, how can I you know, up my services, or what can I do to kind of go the extra mile in my services. And something as simple as how you give the treat, right? Like that is that is such a different way of thinking and approaching this time that we have. And you know, from your background of going, I need to enrich these lives of these animals who are in these pens for their entire lives. Now approaching that to these pets are in their homes, and I have a short time with them. What can I do with them. And I love that idea of hiding the tree or you know, sometimes with cats, you know, they'll like to toss them the treat so they can chase after it as it scurries across the floor instead of just handing it to them. It's little things like that, that don't really take any extra time. But we're putting a little bit of thought and intentionality into each of our processes while we're there.
Tami 33:32
Absolutely. And even with dogs in addition to hiding and just asking for simple behaviors, give me a set before the treat and give me a set before we walk out the door. I don't want you to blast out the door like a rocket, but start with some common behavior. And these you know, people sometimes forget that training is an enrichment activity. My dog Mila loves, if I say want to train, she's just like, Whoa, yeah, that's fun. That's where I get to do cool stuff. And I get treats and I get praise and it's it's a blast. I love training.
Collin Funkhouser 34:04
It's really looking at that holistic approach to going what can we do for these dogs or cats lived while we're here. And while we ourselves might not be certified trainers or have a lot of experience with that it's it's simple things sit now you can treat or sit and now we go outside and it's we're doing some reinforcement of things that the dogs and cats already know. And just doing it with in our own way or at different times over there with them. I one of your services that you offer is actually a virtual pet parent coaching. And I'd love to hear about how this service came about and how it's going for you.
Tami 34:42
I'll give you one guess how it came about. It starts with a C and ends with a D and there's a V in the middle.
Collin Funkhouser 34:49
I can't quite put my finger I've won what happened what what?
Tami 34:56
global pandemic Order that thing. Yeah, that thing that's still going on. A lot of people, pet businesses had to pivot, that's when we started offering training, I figured, you know, I have a background, and I'm essentially doing training exercises with the animals we work with, anyways, a lot of the time, so, and a lot of people were getting pandemic puppies, and it just in a lot of people who are home with their animals more notice some of these behaviors that were that they're like, oh, wow, this is a problem. You know, if I'm done nine to five, you know, I don't see that as much. But if I'm home with my dog all the time. So just basic training, that was a new offering, right around the time COVID popped up shortly after, and then the virtual was just a way to offer that kind of service to one two people that didn't live, you know, in the area, and secondly, to people who are at home more comfortable, you know, letting people into their home yet at these different points during the pandemic? So just trying to make that service available to as many people as possible.
Collin Funkhouser 36:03
How is that going for you? Because I know maybe people were concerned about how they would be able to interact and observe and work with people, because we're so used to being in the room with them?
Tami 36:12
Well, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of us have gotten a lot more comfortable with Zoom, since the pandemic, if we all could have bought stock and zoom. Before the pandemic had. That's, that's one industry, that's, that's doing better now. But I've gotten a lot more comfortable, as I think a lot of us have, with all this remote, in there still, definitely ways on that you can connect I can, I can move back and make sure my cameras adjusted. And I can show, you know, certain activities with my own dogs demonstrating, you know, I can send people links to I mean, the wonderful world of YouTube, there's good, bad and ugly out there. But there are some really good resources. So just sharing video resources out there. So it's kind of a little bit of everything, I start all my consults by sending on a really short form, so that I can prepare, like, what are your top three things, because we can't talk about 50 things, we can talk about your next three things at our next meeting, but we really got to focus so that we can address the things that are most important. So there's always preparation for the training, I just don't walk in cold, I want to know, and I do some planning, and then take notes as we're doing it. Again, I show them what I can and even I mean, the camera, even if I'm demonstrating a leash fold, you know, maybe instead of holding your leash like this, let's try a different hold, keeping your dog a little closer to your side. So I can still, you know, use this visual space to show people things and to have them show me I can send them videos, whether they're videos I find online or videos I make myself and I can have clients send me videos that they record, because a lot of how well something works has to do with technique. And you can't really see that it's one thing to hear somebody tell you, you know, how you can do something, but it's another to actually roll that out and do all the mechanics of it. Like when you're giving the trade when you're saying the cue. There's there's a lot a lot of different kind of minute things that can make a big difference in the success of training. So, you know, with video elements, it's it's just not the same as being in person, but it's still gonna be very effective.
Collin Funkhouser 38:34
Do you find that the people who are taking advantage of that? Would they have gone to an in person training session? Or is this getting access to new people who maybe wouldn't do a traditional training or coaching session?
Tami 38:48
I think both fellows, I don't offer group classes, but I really highly recommend them for dogs that are cool with that. And we've got great trainers, a great community of trainers in the area and places to offer group classes. So you know, part of what I recommend is not always just, you know, just come to me, don't talk to anyone else. Do find, find what works for you find what works for your dog in groups. And I don't know, for group classes, but group classes can be super helpful. So you know, I encourage people to try all different things. So some people are new pet owners, that maybe are reaching out for the first time, but a lot of people have had some kind of training, whether it's been a self education type of thing. Online or whether they've attended group classes, or whether they've had a trainer come into their home and work with them. And maybe they work with a trainer whose style and approach just didn't feel right for them. And so they're looking for that fit. I mean, there's a lot of different schools of thought about dog training. And so you might meet with somebody and it just doesn't feel right. You is the same as taking a veterinarian, you might go to a veterinarian clinic and just like, I don't feel the chemistry here, I don't feel the love, and you go somewhere else, and they're fabulous. So it's it's nice to, you know, sometimes bring a different perspective to people that might be a better fit for their relationship with their dog and how their dog learns. Yeah,
Collin Funkhouser 40:21
well, I really see the the virtual aspect there for coaching or training. And that aspect is it opening up a little bit more, making a little more accessible for people and flexibility in their schedule. And especially I'm sure for people with a with a reactive dog, you know, they may be nervous about taking their dog somewhere, or somebody coming to them. So kind of as a low barrier entry point for people to go, I don't know where to start. I can, I can schedule this around my day. And now I can kind of get access to all these additional resources and information and then kind of grow from there.
Tami 40:54
Yeah, yeah, I just like offering people a lot of different options, so they can find what fits best for them. I do love going in person. When I'm able to, because I can just see a lot more about the families interacting with the dog, I can see the dogs environment to see if there might be some little tweaks and like how things are set up. They can help. So it is really helpful being person. But you can do a lot with a virtual environment as well. And this is probably a question for later, but it works here. Now. as well. I'm going to be launching very soon. membership group by canine creatures canine connection, membership group, where it's a private group, nice safe space, where we'll have a private Facebook group and we'll do some zoom masterclasses where people can just kind of have access to me, like they would have access to social media, we can learn from each other in a safe environment. So I'm super excited about that. So rather than it just being like a dedicated konsult time one on one, there's there's really something about community and people learning from each other. Or maybe some person in the group has a question that maybe they're afraid to ask, but they ask it. And then there's a bunch of other people that are like, Thank you for asking that I was a little too, I was a little too shy. And when you look at the groups out there on the in social media, say Facebook groups for dog training, there's some really well moderated fantastic groups. There are also some groups that don't have much moderation. And you get a lot of negativity, people can be afraid to put something out there because there might be 10 people that jump on and say that's abuse, or that's, that's not how you do it, or that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. And I will my group is going to be a safe space, no dumb questions. We're not going to be judgy we're going to be open, we're going to be kind to each other. And I think that's something really important to have because people can feel nervous about, you know, how they're treating their dog, and if they're doing the right thing. So I want to create a safe space for people.
Collin Funkhouser 43:04
Yeah, I think that is really important to have. I know in my my past, when I would tutor somebody, a one on one tutor session is really great to address their specific needs. But you really find that when you get a small, even a small group of people together, you can make so many more leaps and bounds and making connections and they start working together. And they become resources and connected. And part of that is really just helping them feel like they're not alone in their problems and their struggles. Because parents, they love their pets. They may feel ashamed to talk about their reactive dog, they may feel ashamed about that one time it bit the neighbor kid because it did something or they don't know how to recover from these things. And to have that safe space to be able to come in and go, Hey, this happened to me and have three or four people raise their hands and go Yeah, happened. happen to me too. Yeah, been there done that. It really changes that dynamic for people.
Tami 43:54
Yeah, they feel seen and it doesn't feel like such a overwhelming thing where they're isolated. So I'm super excited to launch that soon.
Collin 44:03
Yeah, no, that will that'll be really exciting. And especially to see you kind of moving into again, move into that space, see where opportunities are as a business owner of going Okay, where am I getting a lot of questions? How can I best address these because, you know, you could have addressed this in many different ways you could have expanded your one on one in person coaching, you could have expand expanded the virtual coaching sessions. But, you know, doing a master class membership group is a way to kind of tackle all of these without exponentially increasing all the work that you're you're having to do to meet that need. And to meet that demand. I think that's important for us to recognize that there's always multiple ways to solve a problem and to get a solution to what we're dealing with. But we really do need to think through all the pros and the cons to that. So but so that we don't end up making our lives more more hectic in the end. Yeah,
Tami 44:55
and getting burned out. I love the idea of of having a group where instead telling all these people and helping all these people individually and individually giving them, especially if, if it's a like subgroup of people that are, are working with the same behavioral challenge, you know, we can help everyone at once rather than 12345. And, and we can, again, like you had mentioned we can benefit just from the community and the conversation,
Collin Funkhouser 45:24
is this something you'll open up to existing clients only, and then expand beyond that are kind of what's your launch plan for this,
Tami 45:31
it's, it's going to be any one who's interested in joining, certainly existing clients, you know, I'm going to send them a personal invite anyone with a dog that I think can can benefit from this, we're also going to post it on social media as well. And eventually we'll have that featured on our website. But yeah, since it's virtual, if you have a dog, and you're interested in training, and just developing a better relationship with your dog, and a more enriched in depth relationship, I think it's probably something that could also be useful to pet sitters and dog walkers as well. Um, most of those people have their own dogs, and just learning a little bit more about dog training on and having a space where you can can ask these kind of behavioral questions, or you know, even equipment, questions or enrichment questions, I think it can be useful to a lot of people. So if you're a person interested in Yellow Dog, it's for you.
Collin Funkhouser 46:31
Very good. Well, if somebody is listening to this going, hmm, maybe maybe I could want something like that for my existing clients, you know, what are some things that that you've, you've learned in this process of developing it that you would want to maybe encourage people to either do or maybe to avoid moving as they go through that process?
Tami 46:50
Well, yeah, I don't know we're at the start of it. So I have a lot of things, a lot of things to learn about what to do and what to avoid. But I was lucky enough to be part of some of these membership groups before. So that was super helpful to me. That was like one of the number one helpful things if there's a membership group that you can benefit from, you know, or our membership group to see how it's done. On and, and then as you're seeing how it's done, see how you might change it differently based on you know, how you communicate or what your interests are. But if you've seen it, I can make it so much easier. So if there's a membership group that interests you join it for a while and see, like, you know, what's working for me what's not what do I think would work for my clients or for people in general, what's not, I think that's the most important thing for me so far is seeing it done and participating in it. I think if I hadn't done that, it would have been a lot harder to kind of just start from scratch and figure out, you know,
Collin Funkhouser 47:55
Yeah, cuz you want to make sure it's a good experience for everybody involved. And so you're right, having been involved in one of those, you can go, Huh, okay, well, for my people, tackling the topic that we're going to be dealing with, this is how I can set it up. And these are the rules that we can have. And these are the guidelines that we can have. And I think it helps you see how you can make it your own.
Tami 48:17
And it just gives you a general framework to like, where do I start, if you're starting from scratch, you're like, oh, you know, I have some ideas, but I don't know, it's so much better to already have that framework, it's super helpful, it's worth it to join in, there's got to be a group out there that you know, whether it's a business group or you know, whether it's an animal behavior group, or whether it's a pet sitting and dog walking group, there's going to be somebody that you can learn from and, and benefit from,
Collin Funkhouser 48:44
and it's a business expense to as part of joining that and paying for the continuing education so don't forget that I know it's always a hang up of Ooh, should I pay this should I not and recognizing okay, maybe I can balance this out that this is a deductible expense for education and investment in mine in my company as well. So you've been in business four and a half years you're starting this membership group for in zoo masterclass. What else is is in the future for creature pet care.
Tami 49:13
Um, we're hoping what the next thing really was before I came up with the idea for the master class and said, let's do that first. That sounds like a good idea. We're gonna lock the product line eventually to just some of our favorite products. That was next on the list but it got bombed because again, that's a high overhead type of endeavor getting all the all the stock and managing you know, all these things and shipping. I mean, that's a big thing. And I live in a little apartment now. So I should be moving pretty soon. And I'd like to have a actually a dedicated room if I'm having stock and if I'm having products and if I'm packaging things and mailing things. Little tiny apartment is not the place to do that from, I'd have to start using floor space for it.
Collin Funkhouser 50:10
So why, why was why the product line? Why Why go into retail as as a pet, dog walking and pet care company? And why was that the next step for you in your mind?
Tami 50:23
Well, I think, as a business owner, you want to have as many business income streams as you can, as you're interested in as you can manage, because you don't want to take on too much stuff where everything starts to suffer. But I mean, I think especially COVID taught us in the pet care industry, that if you're providing pet sitting and dog walking only, something like that can just be catastrophic. It was really difficult for all of us in the industry. And we had to learn how to pivot, we had to learn how to be flexible. So I think like adding training, adding the master class membership group, and then having a product line, it gives you things that aren't vulnerable in the same way. So all my virtual stuff isn't vulnerable to restrictions on people getting together. So that's a little more that makes my business a little more robust. In a changing world, having a product line, again, is not something you have to be in person for. So just setting up helping clients sharing like products that I love, that they might not be able to find, or they might not have ever heard of. On. So it benefits clients and it makes makes my business more resilient. And I think that's I think we've all learned that that's a useful thing after you know, what the industry is, has struggled through with a pandemic.
Collin Funkhouser 51:51
But I think what's important to remind ourselves as we branch out, it's, I'm not trying to replace 100% of my dog walking income with products. Now, it that may be a goal if we want to pivot that much. But what else can I do to diversify a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, so that I can shift and move my focus as I need to and as demand dictates, because you know, you may have a nice mixture right now and in five years, you could be you know, 90% retail, and just a little bit of training, you know, who knows, until we actually start implementing these things?
Tami 52:23
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it's, it's just fun to be able to bring, you know, products that you find helpful. That's one of the reasons that I want to do do that. We use a little rubber thing that fits on your belt, or your dog walkabout that holds full poop bags, like you can, you can poke it through, and maybe a lot of listeners do use that, but I had never come across it. And of course, one of my employees what we were talking about, about learning from each other, she found this and I'm like, That's it it costs like $2 Like, yeah, oh my God, I don't have to carry a poop bag around for the walk, I can just took it to me. And then forget it, sign me and drive away and wonder why my car smells bad. That's happened many times. But now, the poop bag that's still attached my mouth. But if present my hands and I want to have my hands as free as possible, if I've got, you know, treats in one hand, if I got a leash and the other, have another hand to be holding the poop bag. So when I find even these little things that I like, get excited about it'd be fun to have had those kind of things in the store where I can, you know, share things that I've found super helpful with my clients.
Collin 53:39
Yeah, well, that centers you back into being a resource and providing tool and it's tools. It's literally like we use knowledge as tools through training. And we have literal objects, you know, like poop bag holders that we can now equip our staff and our, our clients with to help make their lives as a pet parent easier and help make sure that they're setting themselves up for success for their pets. It all starts tying in together. Absolutely. Hey, great.
Collin Funkhouser 54:05
Tammy, I have thoroughly enjoyed our conversation today. I can't tell you how much I've appreciated learning from you and your encouragement to us to work on enrichment and look at those little things and then to be equipping our clients with more things as well. But I know you're very busy. You have a lot going on and there's a lot there's a lot that we we didn't get touched on so how can how can people get in touch with you follow along with creatures pet care and start picking your brain brain on things?
Tami 54:36
Absolutely easy to do on our website is creatures pet care, calm creatures with an S so it's just our business name, nothing. You know, nothing confusing. You can go we have a contact page there so you can always that's an easy way you don't have to remember as much. You can also email me my name is spelled weird. It's T A MI. That's it. Ta m hi. And that's a teacher's pet care.com So you can certainly reach out to me. We're also on social media at preachers pet care. That's, that's our handle, both on Facebook and on Instagram. So there's lots of ways to find us. And I certainly welcome people, you know, reach out with questions. Or if anyone's interested in the membership group and wants to find out more about that we're kind of creating our list, to send our invites to so so shoot us an email or a message, if you want to be on that list.
Collin Funkhouser 55:28
I really appreciate it, especially on your busy day, and everything to share it. So it means an awful lot, and I'm so appreciative of it.
Tami 55:35
I'm very appreciative of you as well, thanks so much for having me on. Because I know you've got a busy life, too, you got a lot going on. And it was, it was truly a pleasure talking to you. And finally meeting you. I've listened to the podcast for a long time, and just kind of run into each other in these different groups online as well. So it's nice to finally meet, you know,
Collin 55:54
how do you equip your clients? What kind of resources do you give to them so they can become and be better pet parents. It's all about centering ourselves at the center of that hub of pet care of that pet care world of the client. So when they have a question about a groomer, or a vet, or a trainer or a product, or whatever that is, they can come to you. And now you might not be able to provide that service. But you can give them literature, you can point them in the right direction, you can have that discussion with them so that they become better and more equipped. And what does this do? Why is this so important to us in our business? A Not only does it help us become better, because we have to constantly be learning and reading and reaching out and finding these resources. But secondly, it puts us as an authority figure in that person's life. And when it comes time for them to refer or when someone in their circle has a question. They know who to point to. They know that we can step in and provide guidance, and that is powerful to our clients. That kind of relationship. You can't pay for that kind of relationship. So I encourage you to start equipping your clients, well make sure that they are the best pet parents possible. They look to you for those kinds of resources. We want to thank our sponsor time to pet today and we really want to thank you so much for listening. We'll be back again soon.
