343: Learning to Step Back with Justina Allen-Yancey
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Summary:
What’s the hardest part of being a pet sitter? The challenges certainly change as we grow and evolve as a business. Our role as the business owner and entrepreneur is to overcome them. Justina Allen-Yancey, owner of Justina’s Pet Sitting, joins the show to share how she approaches challenges. Justina works on her training and services to market guilt free pet parent lifestyles to her clients and focuses on being reliable. She also talks about the gear she loves for winter and how she specialized in rabbits and guinea pigs.
Main topics:
Decompressing
Coaching staff
Helping client’s be guilt free
Winter weather gear
Main takeaway: Your business may run 24/7, but YOU don’t have to do it all.
About our guest:
Justina’s Pet Sitting Service, LLC was founded by Justina Allen-Yancey in 2018. Justina’s love of animals is immediately apparent to anyone who meets her, which is why she decided to ditch her day job and start a pet sitting business. After years in Corrections and Non-profits, Justina knew it was time to get out of the office setting as she hated leaving her own dog, Neville, home alone all day. It felt natural to switch gears and follow a career she is completely passionate about. Justina now runs the company with her husband, Drew Yancey.
Justina has lived in Prior Lake since 2014 and Drew joined her in 2020. Their fur family consists of dogs, cats, bunnies, guinea pigs, and lots of fish!
Justina and her carefully selected team of employees are here to ensure all of your pet’s unique needs are being met. We understand how important it is for your pet to be cared for and loved while you are away. We also strive to keep your pet’s routine as normal as possible so they are comfortable and happy while in our care. Our own pets are our family members and we will treat your babies like they are our own!
Links
info@justinaspetsitting.com
https://justinaspetsitting.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/justinaspetsitting/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justinaspetsitting/
Give us a call! (636) 364-8260
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Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com
A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
clients, pet, people, dog, employees, rabbits, schedule, vet, guinea pigs, minutes, walk, visit, good, day, boarding, pet sitters, week, staff, scheduling, nice
SPEAKERS
Collin, Justina A.
Collin 00:10
Hello, I'm Meghan. I'm Collin. And this is Pet Sitter confessional and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter brought to you by time to pet and the National Association of Professional pet sitters. What would you say is the hardest part of being a pet sitter? It certainly changes as we move from stage to stage throughout our business as we change and add services and we bring an add on clients and staff. Part of being a business owner and part of being an entrepreneur is tackling those challenges as they come up. Today Justina Allen owner just DNS petsitting joins the show to share her take on how she tackles those challenges, how she helps her clients be guilt free, and even give some great winter clothing and gear recommendations. Let's get started.
Justina A. 00:54
We just came off of mea break, which is our like fall school break. So okay, you're very busy week and weekend kind of normal now. Yeah.
Collin 01:04
So is that been pretty predictable and reliable for you? As far as you know, you're gonna be busy.
Justina A. 01:09
Yeah, October is our biggest month every year because of MEA. So yeah, even better than Spring Break better than Christmas like this, the school break. People love it. Nice. Nice to kind of know what to expect and kind of let my team know in advance, like all hands on deck, and
Collin 01:32
I'm sure that's quite the thing to to coordinate with all of them and getting schedules nailed down. I know we're doing that this year for for Christmas. So just being like, Okay, I know, I've asked you this about 17 times already. But you're like, you're really available on Christmas, really available on Christmas. All right,
Justina A. 01:51
great, because I'm like, I, I know exactly what I can take on based on who can actually work. I am flexible with them. Because they're so flexible with me. That it's like, I would rather turn clients away and keep my employees happy the rest of the year, and force them to work something that they really don't want to work. So it's weird balance. You know, I had an employee that started during spring break. And she only wanted like, maybe 10 hours a week. And I was like, okay, cuz you just really push through for me for one week. And then I promise you 10 hours a week is all you'll have. She was like she wanted like two to three hour shifts. And it was like three eight hour shifts in a row. And I'm like, promise. Like, if you could just do this for me, I will give you what you want.
Collin 02:43
So funny. We had a new we had we had a did a transition with some staff. And her first day, I think we went seven and a half hours straight of nothing. But just back to back visits for the end. She was like, Is it almost like this?
Justina A. 02:58
anymore? People think like, oh, great, like, that's an eight hour day, like that's normal. But a normal eight hour day is nothing like eight hours of doing back to back dog walks and visits. No, it's it makes your brain scramble.
Collin 03:12
That was the one thing that she came to us and she said, I wasn't prepared for the mental taxation. This was to place on me. I wasn't prepared mentally for this job. And it hit me of going. Like, I fought for years of my life to avoid task switching of going from thing to thing to thing to thing. But now, that's all this job is like that's all we do. And it really didn't hit me until she approached me and said it's really mentally draining on me to switch from from client to client to client.
Justina A. 03:45
I have an employee she's full time now. But she started just weekends. And when she went to full time and she now is doing like most of the Monday through Friday dogwalk she's like, it's so much easier. I don't have to think about it. I know every client it's the same every day versus just every weekend different clients were on vacation so she was doing a brand new set of five six clients every weekend and and on top of like the the mental taxing were in Minnesota. And then you will have the days where like the weather's really bad and the snow is bad. So now you're so stressed out driving from house to house because the roads are bad and it's there's a blizzard, and you just want to get there and as soon as you get there you're thinking about now I gotta leave and go to the next one. And it just you're tense by the end of the day.
Collin 04:28
You'd never you're never off you can never have a moment where you can flip off because like you said even in driving or if it starts you know if it's right, even rainy weather, right like those first few minutes where all of a sudden everything is slick and nobody knows what they're doing. Everyone forgot how to drive all of a sudden, you're just like, I just need to make it 15 minutes down the road. And you're stressed about being late and then all of the worst thing for me I know I really stressed out about is whenever I get like five minutes off and then all of a sudden that cask cascades with bad weather and driving and mishaps and then I'm like I'm 45 minutes behind schedule at the end. Busy day, and you just feel totally blown out by the end of it. It's hard to then like, calm down at night and then wake up the next morning fresh and not impacted by the frustrations from yesterday. And it's it's you never get that decompression in your day. Yes.
Justina A. 05:15
And it's like as the owner and like the person who has a schedule, I understand, Oh, it's okay that you're 45 minutes behind, because I know it's going to be okay the way things line up. But my employees who are very task oriented, a lot of my employees are very tight, and they want to do everything perfectly. They just go crazy when they're behind, because they're so behind. And I and I know you're not like it really is going to be okay. You know what to them. They're supposed to be that 315. And now it's 330. And that's all they can think about?
Collin 05:46
Well, and that's interesting, because we hire for task oriented, people who pay attention, very detail oriented kind of people to pay attention to this stuff. So how do you how do you coach them through that are helped develop a more healthier understanding of what that schedule is?
Justina A. 06:03
I think one of the biggest things I do is when I hire somebody, we use time to pet for software. And I will I like to show them what the schedule looks like in time to pet so they can kind of see everything. So they can get an idea of what everybody's doing, if that makes sense. And I also in the notes will put for a particular client will say okay, this schedule typically looks like this, they should have their breakfast visit between six and eight, they should have their supper visit between 230 and five, and then they should have their their bedtime visit sometime after seven. So they know when they're there like the next visit is going to be happening sometime around this time. And then they're not kind of just left wondering like, am I the only visit today? Who else is coming? What time are they coming? I think that helps them a little bit to not just worry as much. But I do think that helps a lot just so that they can see the big picture and understand the whole scheduling aspect. We do 15 minutes in between every visit. Even if your next visit is around the corner. I still scuttled 15 minutes, you can get there early, you can get started, that's perfectly fine. And now maybe you have a 10 minute buffer later on to use if you get behind because a dog throughout everywhere.
Collin 07:19
Yeah, kind of allow them a little bit more agency in the field to kind of judge and manage that time. Because you know, you're basically you're saying, hey, we'd have 15 minutes budgeted in here. So if you show up early, you can get some time back, or maybe you need to take all that full 15 minutes to just recover and destress from something that happened in coffee. Yeah, either. Either way, right? It's their time to use in that. So is that time that you're paying from? Do you pay hourly with them for travel time, too,
Justina A. 07:47
we pay per job. And so kind of one of the benefits of that is that they know that they can get done early, then I have the schedule set up in a way so that if they are ahead of schedule, it's fine. Just keep going to your next job. You don't need to wait the 15 minutes like you can if you want to if you need that time, or you need to just sit in your car or whatever it is. But if you just want to like bang them out and get them done. You could be done a half hour early, you know, and then you've made the same amount of money.
Collin 08:15
Well, I guess also to like you said doesn't get they don't get so stressed or kind of freaked out about the focus only on time. So you you're you're really doing all the scheduling there. Is that something that you've you always liked to do, because that's that's that seems like something that not a lot of people really dig into,
Justina A. 08:31
you know, I My background is in initially my background is in criminal justice. I worked as a prison guard and a parole officer case manager in a prison. And long story short, I got tired of going to prison. And in my time,
Collin 08:50
that's a sound bite if I ever had.
Justina A. 08:53
So I ended up working for a nonprofit. I was a case manager working with adults with developmental disabilities, and loved it great group of people to work with and realized like one of my really strong suits was like paperwork. Like I was so organized on top of things I have only been there like six months and they would send the new case managers to me to learn organizational skills and Oh, go find out Justina system. She's got a system for this. You know all that. But anyways, I was working there, I'd taken a big pay cut, leaving my job at the state at the prison. And so I'd started waiting tables, part time bartending and eventually realized how much money I can make just waiting tables and bartending. I'm working way less hours than I was at the nonprofit. So I left a nonprofit was waiting tables bartending and was like, you know, I think I maybe want to just like walk some dogs during the day like my shift was always in the evening. When I was working both jobs I had somebody helping take care of my dog several days a week because I was working doubles. And the more I started Time people, the more people were like walk, I would have you walk my dog like she's home on all day while I'm at work. I never thought about having a dog walker, or uhm, I mean, we're just not a puppy. You know, that kind of thing. And word of mouth. I live in a really, really cool small lake town, south of Minneapolis and St. Paul, about 30 minutes south. And just a really tight knit community. It's only like 25,000 people. So it feels like a small town. But a lot of the people that live down here work in the city, and they commute. So it kind of just like, blew up and exploded. I just wanted to walk dogs, I was just going to be a dog walker and figure out what I was going to do with my life. I have this degree in criminal justice, I have this background working with a nonprofit, like this will get me by. But within like three months, I needed to hire somebody, I, I couldn't keep up, I needed a day off. You know, I went like three months without a day off. So I hired someone just to do two dog walks on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, because that was like the most steady thing that we had at the time. And I realized right away to get back to your paperwork question that I needed some sort of software, which is why I started with time to pet. My biggest reason for that was that I wanted all the communication to come through me and I didn't want clients texting my employee on her personal number on her days off. I didn't want that boundary to be crossed. And I realized once I started using kind of pet like it really like took me back to my case management days. And I was like all this like organization and color coding. And I really started to love it. So hiring and hiring and no, we've got five employees right now plus my husband and I. And I could sit and stare at the schedule all day and tweak it and get the times lined up. And ooh, this could be a better route. Actually, if I have this person start here, or this employee lives on this end of town. So we're gonna have her start on this end and go this way. I could spend all day doing that. It's so weird. I didn't know that was something that I loved. But I truly do love that organization and scheduling.
Collin 12:09
Well, that's really cool that you have that have that strength, right and interest. And now you can apply it in this way. And so are you have you are you still doing some of the visits are you purely managing and overseeing operations at this point.
Justina A. 12:24
So it kind of ebbs and flows depending on what's going on with employees and business and employee retention. My goal always is to be the backup person. So then that way, when somebody calls in sick or somebody does get way behind because of the weather, or there's an emergency with a client pet, or you know, all those little things that I'm able, I'm free, and I'm able to jump in versus giving myself a full schedule, I've just want to be able to do that. I got really good at that we actually my husband and I just had our first baby in June. And so I worked really hard to get to that point where I'm like, I'm off the schedule, because I have to have the schedule when I have the baby lasted about four weeks. But um, so that's always the ultimate goal. But there's also, you know, I did start doing this because I love to walk dogs, I didn't necessarily start doing this because I thought like, I want to own a company and be a boss. So the nice thing is being in that position, when certain clients book I can be like, You know what, I'm on the schedule today, because I really miss phyto, or whoever it is, you know. So it ebbs and flows. If we're short on employees, I'm working more if we're up to complement, I might not be on the schedule for several weeks. And then I'm just doing the meet and greets and the admin stuff,
Collin 13:41
it's a nice option to have again, as always, if I can get a little bit of variety in my day, and you know, it's nice to hear that you kind of your goal was I want to be the backup person, you know, I don't want to be completely removed from this and completely separate and not present. I want to be a backup and still involved in some of the day to day operations. Because that helps a lot I think of when you can experience some of your own policies that you write. I've been experiencing that more and more of like, as we formalized a lot of stuff, and I've written it and be like, Oh, that's amazing. And then I follow it. And I'm like that doesn't make any sense.
Justina A. 14:13
That you haven't done in a year, and you read the notes from it. And you're like, who wrote these notes?
Collin 14:19
That was me. Oh, no. I think that's nice to have some fresh eyes into that
Justina A. 14:25
it was hard. When I was getting ready to have the baby, I was having my full time employee do all the meet and greets, because you just never know I didn't want to schedule myself to do it and then not be able to be there. So right now we have maybe 20 clients that I've never met. That's so weird to me. And I'll go into their visit for the first time and it's based off the notes that Lisa wrote when she did the meet and greet and she's amazing. She writes amazing notes probably better than I do. But it's weird. It's weird to be in that position.
Collin 14:56
I know you said it's a tight knit community of you know, 25,000 people or so that may be kind of intimidating to a lot of people to try and get into a tight knit community. Were you? Is that where you're from? Or were you kind of new to the area?
Justina A. 15:09
Yeah, I moved here in 2014. And I think part of the reason why I was I know, a big reason part of why it was so successful was that the restaurant I was working at downtown prior, like, where I live, was just, it's just a restaurant where like, everybody knows everybody, you know, and, and they all knew me, well, I work there five nights a week. When you're bartending, you just get to know everybody that comes through the door, and you get to know their stories, and they get to know your story. And because I really was just looking for something to fill my time during the day, I think there was no pressure there necessarily was kind of just like, I'm just gonna walk a couple of dogs, you know, it wasn't until I started walking lots of dogs. And then people were like, well, I'm going on vacation, can you come a couple of times a day that I was like, Oh, like this could actually like, be a thing, you know, this, maybe I don't have to go back to a normal day job.
Collin 16:04
We can work 24/7 Now it's
Justina A. 16:07
exactly when you say that, like when, when one of the absolute, I think hardest parts of being a pet sitter is that we do work 24/7. And even when we're not, even if I'm not working at any given time, the messages are coming in through time to pet I'm monitoring that. There's always somebody gone on vacation, there's always dogs being walked, whether I'm doing it or not. My husband and I we also board dogs and I'm really I've really strong presence in the rabbit community in the rescue community. So my board rabbits and guinea pigs. And we're always working. We always have dogs here for daycare, we always have dogs boarding we always have rabbits boarding over me a weekend, I think we had like 14 rabbits and guinea pigs boarding. So it's a zoo here. And there's always someone that needs to be fed or medicated or wha so
Collin 17:00
that's, there's, there's a lot to dive into that. We are on It's a 24/7 365 day a year business. And I think it's important I tell our staff and something I have to tell myself to have like, yes, the service is offered 20 477 days a week, 365 days, but you don't have to be the one to do that. That's not your responsibility. Here's how we're going to work to build some space into that. And was that was that easy for you to kind of recognize that you didn't didn't have to do at all?
Justina A. 17:33
Um, not at first, it's gotten easier as time has gone on. And I think one of the reasons it's gotten a lot easier is that my husband, during the pandemic, He's a chef. And so he was laid off, everything shut down. We had just moved in together back in 2020. And he went on unemployment with the goal and thought that he'd go back to his restaurant, which still hasn't opened. So he never went back to work. And he started um, you know, we were we were just dating at the time, he started helping me out. We got engaged. And we started talking about well, what can we do with this? Like, where can we go with this? Now there's two of us, right? Like, maybe you don't have to go back to work. And having his input has helped a ton. Because as a chef running kitchens, what do you do you delegate? Great, you know, he writes the menu, he's does a lot of the hard work, but he's also there to delegate and be like, you can do this, this and this. And so he's always been really good about like, how can you maneuver things differently in so that you're not constantly the person on and that's kind of nice, too, because I've been able to take like some good vacations like my honeymoon, even like the week of my wedding. And we went to Hawaii for our babymoon and to be able to have my full time or takeover answer all the emails, answer the phone calls. I wrote the schedule, but she tweaked it because people cancel when people add and, you know, figuring out where you're gonna put things and that sort of thing. So it's a work in progress, because you do I do still carry the weight of everything. I'm the one who knows all the clients in and out I know exactly what they need, even if that's not in writing, you know what I mean? Like yeah, I know their personalities, I know what kind of updates they like I just so it's hard, but it's, you know, I think as more time goes on, and it continues to evolve, it'll just get easier and easier to be like, these responsibilities can go to somebody else and it might go a little bit
Collin 19:33
especially as you see other people who have strengths in some things or when you start giving people little tasks and they do well with that so you can give them a little bit more and a little bit more and you can build up some of that that trust and reliance in that way. It's nice to see okay, like you got this right and going okay, I can step away I may still be thinking about it may still be a little nervous and on edge like let's let's be very real about this. But But I can I can do that part. Now. I've got more free time and I'm sure it's that's really important now, with with a newborn and experiencing everything that that brings,
Justina A. 20:05
yes, absolutely definitely adds a whole nother level of things. It's kind of like, Okay, here's another warm body to keep alive and keep happy and keep occupied. And, you know, she keeps changing and evolving. And pretty soon she's going to be crawling. And, you know, it's just kind of, she's fits right into the pack. Her place here, and, and I think the best, I think the best thing that anybody can do, if you need a break, is to go on a vacation where you have absolutely no cell phone service, we went to Glacier National Park, and for four days, you could not reach me or find me if you wanted to. We were like at the second most northern campground in the park. And when we came down that hill, and I got service, my phone exploded, but for those four days that nobody could reach me, I just, I just had to say to myself, there's nothing you can do about it anyways, if something's going wrong, right now, you can't do anything about it. You're in Montana, like, just relax.
Collin 21:08
It took a lot, it took a lot of prep time, like you said, to get to that point of setting the schedule and working with your full timer and getting all this stuff taken care of. And then there is that moment where you step back and you go, okay, like there's nothing I can do right now to get around this. And sometimes that happens in the middle of chaos. I don't know I've experienced that where it just seems like everything's falling apart. But it's like I I don't have control over any of that in some instance. That's very It's very freeing. You find a lot of peace in that moment. Like when you're on the mountaintop and you're like nothing literally nothing I can do. It's i can't i No matter how much I wish try scream or whatever. I'm not getting cell service. I well, that that word has gone from my mind I can go over here and enjoy the sunset or whatever you
Justina A. 21:51
know. Exactly, exactly wish you could do that more often.
Collin 21:55
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22:00
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Collin 22:21
If you're looking for new petsitting software, if time to try listeners of our show can save 50% off your first three months by visiting timeshare.com/professional. As you start out doing dog walks, when did you start the the boarding aspect?
Justina A. 22:37
I'm pretty early on, maybe like, just like a month or so in. You know, I started like just kind of advertising on Facebook, I created a Facebook page. And it wasn't necessarily the I was advertising for boarding. But people would reach out and say, Hey, would you consider boarding my dog. So it started pretty small, you know, at the time, I just had shitzu. And, um, you know, needed dogs, obviously, that we're gonna get along with him. And that just slowly grew and grew. And it wasn't until my husband, you know, moved in. And we decided he wasn't going back to work in a restaurant, that we started to take more because he's here all day long. And that leaves me free then to go to those meet and greets and go and fill in with dog box and pet city and as needed.
Collin 23:25
Yeah. Now the boarding of guinea pigs and rabbits. This is something that you said that and I was like, I have so many questions about how this works. So you said you're pretty big and that you're pretty involved in that community. Is that just from a general interest? Or did you have a client that had something that kind of brought you into that?
Justina A. 23:42
So one of my first pets, my first pet as an adult was a rabbit. And I did tons of research gave this rabbit the best life you could ever imagine. And then I moved into an apartment that you can have pets, so I was sadly without pets for a few years. And then when I bought my house here and prior like in 2014, the first pet I got was a rabbit again, at one point I had six I'm down to four, I tend to rescue the ones that have had not the greatest lives and, and they're already a few years old by the time I get them. But in all of my research, what I found was rabbits are just really overlooked care wise, they're really oftentimes looked at as like farm animals up along that side. And so I started getting a lot of my information from the house rabbit society, which is an international organization that's focused on like housing diet, making sure that our house rabbits are given the lives they deserve. And so I became an educator with them back in 2020. So it's been almost two years. So I help basically it's like an online presence but I help with their Facebook page. Just managing as people come in with questions about like, what should my rabbit eat? Are my rabbits doing this? What's wrong? That kind of thing. And we have three different rabbit rescues in Minnesota. We have tons of rescues that also take rabbits, but three that like one's a pocket pet rescue, and then there's two that are just rabbit rescues. And so I've worked with a couple of them, and I foster rabbits through them and help on their transportation team and things like that. So I got to know just a lot of people in Minnesota who have rabbits. So people will come to me, like, kindergarten stay with you. So I started the boarding program, I also bond rabbits, which is kind of a weird and unique thing. You can't just put two rabbits together and hope for the best they could potentially kill each other. So in a very, very stressful, but I've bonded probably 150 rabbits in the past six, seven years. So people will drop the rabbits off with me, they'll stay with me for like two or three weeks until they're bonded safely. And they can go home and live together in one area. No more gates, no more fences, no more separate rooms make their lives a lot easier. And I did I put that program on hold with the baby coming. And I probably have a waiting list of like 15 people waiting for me to start doing it again. Because it's just nobody else does it?
Collin 26:13
Wow. So do you have is are they put in a special area? How do you make that transition process because you know, boarding dogs, they can get pretty stressed out. And there's a lot of anxiety in there. What's it like managing that for for rabbits.
Justina A. 26:28
So our rabbits, all the small animals are in the basement behind closed doors, or no other animals are allowed. So that's, that's very, very important because rabbits are prey animals, dogs and cats are predators. So we want to keep them away. And because rabbits are really sensitive to change, they have really sensitive gi tracts. If they stop eating, it can be really detrimental even deadly for them. So we want to make them as comfortable as possible. So they have places to hide, I have these built in wooden pens, so they're really safe and enclosed and secure. So they feel safe. And when rabbits come to bond, I always take a couple of days for them to just settle in and get comfortable and make sure you're eating make sure they're pooping, make sure that they're doing okay health wise before I start introducing them together. And that's why it takes two or three weeks, because we might have to slow down and back up a little bit. Some might go home really quickly, but I like to make sure everything's really solid before they leave. Do you
Collin 27:26
have a particular vet that you work with? Or partner in case things go go awry? Or do you rely on the vet for the owners, you know, that they go to?
Justina A. 27:35
Good question. Um, so there's, there's some really great rabbit that's in Minnesota, and there's some there's a lot of vets that say they see rabbits that don't know anything about rabbits. I know which ones are really good. And oftentimes when I see in time to patent they put in their vet information, if I see that maybe it's a vet that I know or maybe I don't know or not familiar with, I just discussed plans with them in the plan basically, is that if something happened with the rabbit, we're going to take them to the vet that they normally go to the hazard paperwork and whatnot. But if it's after hours on the weekend, things like that, like I know there's a couple of emergency vets in the cities that will see rabbits and no rabbits and I feel comfortable going there. So I have a relationship with a lot of different vets just because I have four rabbits and two unique names, and three cats and two dogs. I feel pretty comfortable and competent, knowing like where to go and in what to do.
Collin 28:37
Those kinds of relationships are just so invaluable, right when we kind of reach the end, not kind of but when we reach the end of our knowledge or we start having those concerns, it can compound into further stress if we don't know where to turn if we have no idea of who's the expert. And that's on us to spend that time ahead of time. Whether we have a you know, a zoo in our home and we've got all these animals and pets and we're naturally going out and talking to people or I know a lot of pet sitters don't have pets, so they need to be starting those conversations on their own and building those relationships a different way. But at the end, they those relationships need to be built so that we can continue to learn and those instances work in we're like I don't, I don't know. We need to know who to go and talk to and get good information.
Justina A. 29:20
When I went on that trip to Montana one of the things I did for my team was I basically put together this list that was if something is wrong with a pet. First you call the owner and then you call their vet. And if you can't get into their vet because we know there's a terrible vet crisis shortage whatever. Here are the after hours vet center area, if after hours vets are full, these are the other emergency vets and it was like a day if this then this then this then this. Now if it's a router, a guinea pig, it's a whole different list because it is different vets that see them your typical rabbit or your typical emergency vet is didn't really get to know what to do with the rabbit. So I really had to dig deep and think, What is every possible thing that can happen while I am unreachable, so that they have a plan. And they will use an app or we can all chat together. And so they all knew that they could just go into that app to and say, Hey, guys, what do I do? You know, and between the five of them, they could slip off each other and be like, Oh, I know this client really? Well, this is what I would do. You know, and they could just make a plan together to
Collin 30:32
one that document, you know, we hear a lot of times of like, write down all your SOPs, but sit down and think through your SOPs. And sometimes it's like, I don't What do you mean, what does that look like? I don't even know, where do I start? In this case, you were forced into writing that down because again, you were leaving, and you needed to walk through that decision tree for your staff to go, Hey, this is what I would do in this scenario. But you know, prior to that, that wasn't on your radar, because it wasn't needed. So a lot of that stuff. It's a reminder, you're telling that like this, this is where our policies, our SOPs, they change and they adapt organically as the need arises to meet that you're also doing guinea pigs as well as a similar process with with the
Justina A. 31:14
names, they are very similar to rabbits, their diets are really similar, their, their care is really similar. I ended up with a guinea pig on accident, like a story of like all my pets, and old boss had gotten this guinea pig for his daughter, he was like nine months old, and they just weren't taking care of him anymore. And so being involved in rescue, I said, Well, I'll take him and all I'll find them a home. Well, I brought him home, and I changed his name like in the home. So his name is Albus and he is almost seven years old. We things like five to eight years. So he's He's an old man he's been through, he's on his second partner, guinea pigs are just happier with a friend. So when I adopted another older another guinea pigs to be his buddy, he passed away of old age. So then I went and found someone who was in a similar situation, their guinea pigs partner had died, their guinea pig was older, they didn't want to take on another one and be in this vicious cycle of overfitting and other guinea pig. So I took that old man and so I got two old men, guinea pigs together. Now, I don't want to have guinea pigs forever. But it's one of those things, I'll probably have guinea pigs forever. They're a lot of fun. They're super cute, they make the best noises. But they're a lot like bunnies. And the bonding process for guinea pigs is a lot easier though they typically a couple days, they can work out their stuff and figure their stuff out a lot better.
Collin 32:45
Well, so if somebody's listening to this and didn't realize that there was a market for these kinds of services, or that it would be even possible to do what what are some things that you would recommend for somebody who is interested in boarding rabbits or guinea pigs in their home,
Justina A. 33:00
I think I would start if you didn't already have rabbits or guinea pigs start by reaching out to a rescue organization that takes them. Because there's a lot of different volunteer opportunities. There's fostering, like I said, I'm on the transport team, so to do transportations, there's events and things like that, just to kind of get comfortable with the different species. And then, you know, making sure you have a safe space in your home. Once you learn the care, maybe you've taken on a couple fosters things like that. The nice thing about a foster is you have a whole team at the rescue that's walking you through if something goes wrong, and you really can learn so much that way. Without the pressure of it being just you that responsibility. You have someone you can go to and be like, this one is not eating, what do I do, you know? So really getting familiar with them. And then being being involved in rescues around here is really why my boarding program is so successful. Everybody just knows who I am. You know, there's different there's groups, there's like Minnesota, Bunny groups, and the My name will pop up like oh, I need a pet sitter. And people will say, Oh, college students pet city, and she boards them will also do in home for rabbits as well. But a lot of people just choose the board them. Sure. So yeah, I think rescue rescue is the way to go. They just have so much knowledge, so much information. And there's just so many opportunities.
Collin 34:25
Well, and you just think of that network of people that you have of resources, like you said if like the educational opportunities and you get known for that kind of thing. I'm if anybody's I'm sure everyone's had the similar experience. If you find a stray dog, and the pound is full, the Rehome they, you text one person that one person is going to text 15 Other people they're going to text and this whole network just arises out of nowhere because somebody just knows somebody. And that's a very powerful thing to be plugged into. to again be have those resources, have those connections, so that you can continue to learn and grow? Oh,
Justina A. 35:01
absolutely. Yeah, I think like the connections that we make and the groups that we're in and things like that just make a big difference. And I also have found that this, you know, this is such a solitary job, even with a team, five employees, we don't see each other, we don't hang out, we don't, you don't have like a, like camaraderie like you do with coworkers at a normal job. We have team meetings every few months. But besides that, we just really know each other through the updates that we see each other send. So I realized pretty early on, because of that I needed a community in some way. I am was the kind of person who at my day job, I really thrived when my boss told me I did a good job. There's nobody to tell me, I'm doing a good job anymore. You know, happy clients, of course, that that's huge. But like, I'm the boss now, like, like he was telling me that I'm good at what I do. But I found that really helpful to find this community, I joined like the Chamber of Commerce here in town. So it's all just these small businesses partnering and working together, amazing group of people, I've been going to meetings, chamber meetings, now pretty much for four years since I started, and just networking, you know, just go on businesses that need help, and that spit ball off each other and go to each other for resources,
Collin 36:26
I found, it's powerful to be plugged into a network of other pet sitters who owned the pet sitting businesses. But I've also found a real power in just something different is being connected to other just kind of a generic small business group, to be connected to the car salesman and the lawyer to the seamstress to be connected to the whatever, you know, the pottery shop, all that kind of stuff like it is, it is so good to be because you feel finally like you around viewed as an in and around peers. And you get those people who can see into your business and go, what one of the first things happened to me was when I was telling people about what we do and how it goes. I was telling it to some people who have no, they're not connected to the pet world at all. They just looked at me with your eyes like a God like you couldn't even make money. You made money. I couldn't process it at all. And it was just like it was it was like, Yeah, that's what we did. I think that's a really good, like, it feels good to be validated and seen in that
Justina A. 37:26
aspect. Yeah. Yeah. And then totally different way. And you just you don't realize like, maybe even the way you can partner with some of those people, you know, you just don't make those connections until you start spending the time meeting with them and getting to know them that you realize like, oh, we can do these different things together. Or even if they don't have a pet. Everybody knows somebody that has a pet.
Collin 37:50
Yeah. Yeah, I can said those partnerships are huge of going, okay, like I've partnered with the vets and partner with the groomers to partner with the trainers. I partnered with this. There's other people out there, right. And they may just actually door we found a local pizza shop here who started his pizza company, for his dog, like because he just in memory of his dog, I was like, I need to talk to those people like those those people cheer, they sell pizza, but like, we need to do something together. And you know, and it's just you find those kinds of connections.
Justina A. 38:21
But then, like you said, as well, there's so much value in being connected to other pet sitters. And then there's the professional pet sitters of Minnesota. That yeah, currently, I'm a member of and board member of right now. And the nice thing about that is it's all pet sitters in and around Minnesota. So we are all experiencing the same peak times like spring break, or that big fall break that I was just talking about. We're referring to each other whenever we can, obviously because oh, this person is on in my area, you should call so and so they're in St. Louis Park, or whatever the case is. But pet sitters, just the struggles that we see the stuff that we face, the issues that we have, whether it's with clients, or the pets or employees or whatever, nobody gets it like another pet sitter. Yeah, because it's just so unique.
Collin 39:12
It is and a lot of those are problems that we never thought we'd have to encounter of like, you know, I started this for one reason and now all of a sudden I'm in a situation where you know, whatever it is right I walk in the clients naked or I'm dealing with a client who has you know, Alzheimer's and they don't know who I am and I'm dealing with this very passionate all this stuff like you can't go commiserate with somebody else who owns a coffee shop about those kind of things. It's we need that kind of connection.
Justina A. 39:39
Not everybody spends their day picking up poop and covered and slobber and they just don't.
Collin 39:47
You have you have currently have five employees and you said one of them is full time. How when did you decide to take that position full time?
Justina A. 39:55
So it happened naturally. And actually You were probably going to make that position, salaried next year. So for now, it's just between 30 and 40 hours a week. But it really just happened naturally, that she was my employee that was just working on the weekends. And she had a day job, 20 years in, and she was sick of it, she was all over it. So she came to me and said, I wonder if you have more hours to offer me. And at the time, I was doing a lot of the work. And I gladly wanted to give her some. She went from just doing weekends to doing, you know, 20 hours, and then it was 25 hours. And then we ran into weeks where she was getting over time, because we're so busy, and she was available. So it really happened naturally. And I think that's one thing when I see pet sitters like wanting to grow and like what do I do to grow? How do I grow? For me, everything has been really organic, which is nice. Even like when I lose an employee, it's almost like, oh, well, that was good timing, we're going into a slow month, we'll figure that out. Or when I gain an employee, when I hire somebody new, it's always I always hire somebody like maybe five to 10 hours a week. That's it. Because when I'm hiring a new employee, that's my period to grow, then then I know like, okay, give this employee five to 10 hours, which puts me in a position to get out there. And let's get more people who need dog walks more petsitting clients, that sort of thing. So rather than putting the pressure on myself that we need to grow in this way, letting it kind of happen organically, and being in a position where I can just fill in the blanks has been really helpful. And I think that a big part of that is because we do our boarding and our daycare and stuff out of our home puts me in a different position than somebody who's just relying on those petsitting visits to survive.
Collin 41:50
The National Association of Professional pet sitters is the only national nonprofit professional pet sitting association dedicated to raising and abiding by industry standards. And in 2023, they are headed to New Orleans for their in person conference, offering more than just networking opportunities, members are listed in the referral network, which can be accessed by pet parents, and they offer certification programs and continuing education opportunities. The 2023 conference will be held March 3 through fifth in New Orleans and Megan and I will actually be speaking on the life as a pet sitter. If you're interested in joining an attending go to pet sitters.org For more information regarding NAFTA membership, and all of the conference details. So when you you offer that 30 to 40 hours is that guaranteed? What all stuff is that position doing involved with?
Justina A. 42:41
Yeah, so it's not necessarily, she doesn't have a guaranteed set of hours right now. But when we do make that salary next year, she will, that will change a little bit. So it more it comes down to what people are available to work. And knowing that, you know, like, if you take a bunch of days off, you're not gonna get like, I'm not going to be able to fill in those hours on different days, because I do have quite a few employees who work pretty set hours. And I have one who works Monday through Thursday 930 to 1230. Like, that's what she always works, you know, which is nice, but then I have employees that are like, I only want a couple days a week. And it doesn't really matter which day it is. And it can just be a couple of visits. And those are great because they fill in the blanks, you know, during busy times and stuff like that. But my full time employee, she's kind of like my first dibs employee, you know, like, everything's gonna go to her first I'm going to make sure her schedule is full. And then we'll kind of trickle in and fill in from there.
Collin 43:44
I love that analogy of just viewing it as like, here's a cup that needs to be filled. And then I know who my next overflow is. And then who's my next overflow, and then who's my next overflow and building from there, as you said, like hiring somebody on to catch just a few hours of overflow. Now you've got a whole other cup that you can fill up depending on what their what they have available. And then that kind of gives us an incentive as the owners to go out and fill the cup. Right. That's my job. Now that's what I need to do.
Justina A. 44:09
Yep. And you don't have to run ragged doing it because now I'm also not trying to fit in a full day of pet sitting on top of it, you know, recovered. And I think I've also gotten very lucky in the people that I've hired are, it's like a second job for a lot of people, you know, they're just maybe they work somewhere else. Like I've got one employee who works like evenings from three to 11. So she's available to walk dogs over the lunch hour, which is awesome. I mean, you don't find that very often. No, yeah. Or stay at home mom who just wanted to make some extra cash and had some availability. So in that way, it's kind of nice because almost everybody that that I hire isn't coming to me like I need this set amount of hours. Yeah, so then that, that whole the scheduling process again, it's just happening organically too. We're constantly having to come First question about like, is this meeting your needs? I've got one employee who her hours change in the summertime because their kids are home. And so then we shift her around, and it always works out, you know, it just as long as I'm constantly talking to them about what's working, what's not working? Do you need more? Do you want less? Are you overwhelmed? That sort of thing, then it kind of just keeps chugging along the way it should.
Collin 45:25
Well, and what's important there is that you are not running the company independent of the input of your staff. And I think many people they bring on staff, and then they get concerned, or they get stressed out about the scheduling, or what things going to look like, or how am I going to grow? Or how does this happen? And to hear you just need to talk about it? Well, it happens organically, because I'm, you're having that conversation with your staff going like, hey, if because you know, if I'm touching base with everybody, and they're like, I'm tapped out, I can't take on any more, you know, that you can't take on new clients make that's going to kept some growth for a period of time until you can either hire somebody or give people a break. And then you can continue to go from there. But if we're not checking in with our staff to say, how are you doing? What's it like right now? Are you needing more are you wanting more that gives you incentives and guidance and direction for what you can do now with the company,
Justina A. 46:13
and just being a person that, that they feel comfortable coming to when something's not working? Like, Oh, I thought that I could be okay, working these hours, but that's not working, and to just feel like they can come to me and tell me that I think is a really big deal. Otherwise, we're just all going to be miserable. And that's not going to work?
Collin 46:31
Well, no, and then you're gonna look up and they're going to be turning in their, you know, their, their two week notice. And you're gonna be like, where did this come from? And they got, you know, they have all these grievances or have all these concerns. And I think fostering that communication, which is hard when we don't have you know, we tell our staff, well, we have an open door policy, but technically, you know, we don't have a door. So like, call us. It's not a natural process for people for a lot of people to just pick up the phone and call and say, Hey, I'm really struggling right now. So how do you make sure that they have that ability,
Justina A. 47:02
I'm pretty early on, I'm just open about letting them know, text me, call me, email me, whatever your your comfort level is? Do one of those things, because I just want to work with you and make it happen. And in the very beginning, when I'm writing the schedule to I'll check in with them along the way. I'll say, does this work? Does this work? Can I tweak this, you know, what makes the most sense. And then I've tried to write our schedule like three to four weeks in advance. But I do that with the caveat of if I scheduled you something three weeks from now, and you're like, oh, wait a minute, that's not gonna work. Let me know, like I can, I can change it. Now, don't, don't call me the day before and say Just kidding, I can't work tomorrow. But if I'm scheduling something pretty far out, and you realize you forgot to request it off, that sort of thing. Or maybe I wrote the schedule, and you're done it too for the day. And then you make plans, because you're done it to for the day, go in and request that time off. And I won't schedule you the rest of the day. But if you don't go in and request that time off, I'm I might add something to the end of your day not knowing that, you know, so we're just constantly kind of talking about it, especially during the onboarding process. In when I write those first couple weeks of scheduled for them, I'm checking with them, does this make sense to you? Do you like this amount of hours, and just really getting a feel in the very beginning for what they're going to be comfortable with, especially if they're working another job, you don't want them to be overwhelmed and tired. That sort of thing. It was like we
Collin 48:35
talked about kind of at the very beginning of people, people coming in, they've never done this before. They don't have experience. It's a learning curve. They're dealing with this new schedule, the new software, the new processes, new protocols, that all the mental burden and fatigue that's happening. It's it can be a pretty intensive transition process for a lot of people coming into the industry. Yes.
Justina A. 48:53
And there's even you know, you think about all the little details when when there's meds and there's this and there's that we just had a client over this mea break where I did all the visits because that was easier for me than training somebody else in there was six indoor cats and two outdoor cats. Three of them got meds, two of them were isolated. One of them ate here, one of them, they all ate something different. Like there was so much going on there. And I was like, You know what? This is like, why I started doing this because I love that. Like my organizational brain was like, oh, yeah, like Put me in coach like I'm going to I'm going to nail this I'm going to do such a good job. Like that's all I could think you know, like, every detail is going to be covered. She's gonna get the best updates ever. And my team is the exact same way. But I knew that I could just go in there and do it and feel so good about it. And there's just situations like that where I'm like, I'm going to do that and I'm going to send my team to the dog that needs a scoop of food and a walk and cuddles and they're going to have an amazing 30 minutes and they're gonna love their job because yeah, they just got to spend 30 minutes cuddling a dog, you know, they didn't have to worry about the medication, they didn't have to worry about all the details. And that made up for the rest of the visits where they did have to worry about the medication. And the alarm system and all of that.
Collin 50:17
That's that's been a big adjustment for us is managing that aspect of it as well going, I love those, there are six cats, three dogs outside inside, and there's all the medications, and there's exact beatings and placement of things like oh, that gets my brain going. It's, it's wonderful. But I get energy off of that. But if I give five of those visits to my staff back to back to back to back to back, that's gonna be one unhappy staff member. And I that's on me to recognize and know that and pull back No, no, I'm not going to give you those back to back, I'm going to give some more diversity in here for you.
Justina A. 50:53
And the same thing goes in the opposite, where there's some people, me included that I don't want five back to back, just regular dog walks that are the same every day where you don't want to use your brain. Like, I will go stir crazy if that were my schedule five days a week, but some people really liked that. That's what they want. Like, they strive off that consistency. And they love it. And they love seeing the same dog every single day. And something that you kind of just learn about your employees as you talk to them and get to know them. Like I like to ask them, like who's your favorite client? And that will tell me so much when they're like, Oh, I really love this dog. Because I'm like, okay, so you you like that consistency you like this or that. And that really helps me when I'm scheduling to put people in the right places.
Collin 51:38
Again, it's all about that conversation, right and about and about having that open up to them. Because what you what you want is you want a good experience for the for the for your staff, but ultimately, what you're trying to do with get out is excellent care for the client, right? And just all these little steps that lead up into that. And I know on your on your website, you mentioned how you, you help clients be guilt free. And I think that's a really interesting way to view what we do. So what does that mean to you,
Justina A. 52:05
we know we leave our pets and we feel so terrible, right? Like, for example, we just we went to our cabin for the weekend for my sister in law's wedding. And we always take the dogs, but we didn't because it was a crazy weekend. So my team stayed back and took care of the dogs. And you feel so terrible, right? Like killing it left my dogs behind. But then I get these updates. And I get the same updates that they send to all of our clients. And it's all these pictures and they were snuggling the dogs and they were loving on the cats. And I'm like, they're probably happier than they would be with us because they're getting this like amazing one on one attention. You know, we spend whether it's 30 minutes or an hour of this undivided attention with people's pets. And we don't do that with our own pets, right? I don't come home and sit on the floor for 30 minutes with my dog. Nobody's got time for that, right. So I like to tell our clients that you don't like this is undivided attention that your pet gets. That's amazing. But also you don't have to burden your neighbors. You don't have to feel like you're bugging, you know your mom to stop over it or your sister or worrier. neighbor kid did step over. Because there's nothing worse than your neighbor being like, oh, yeah, I'll take care of your pets. But then you don't hear from them. But you don't want to bug them because you're not paying them. So you're in this like weird situation where I'm like, here's the thing, you're paying us to be there. So if you're worried that we're not there, you call us and you say like, Hey, what time are you coming today. But they don't have to worry about that anyways, because we use time to pet they can go in the app, and they see what time we're coming, they see who's scheduled. And they can just go enjoy their vacation and relax and not worry about anything.
Collin 53:45
The relationship that we have with our clients is so weird because they bring in all these expectations and prior experiences. And I can't tell you how many times clients have apologized to me for a quote unquote, complicated visit are all the things are asking me to do. And how many times I've had to say, no, no, this is my job. I'm here for
Justina A. 54:05
notes. And I'm like, leave all the notes. I love the notes. The notes are the boss.
Collin 54:08
Yeah, please write a book, please. Absolutely. Do you have some videos you can send me of how you do a certain process. I would love to have that. And I think it's a very freeing process for the client at that point to go, oh, like I can I can pour everything I need to into this person to this company because they're here for that. And it does. It does. All of a sudden they start to unburden because they don't feel bad checking in they don't feel bad asking you to come in a second time or third time that day or they don't they don't ask for that it because they've had to in the past and they felt bad about it. So a lot of that is just us kind of helping manage those expectations and talking them through that. But it is very interesting relationship. I think about that a lot. The more people are like, Oh, I'm sorry. I'm having you like no, no. What are you doing? I'm here for you.
Justina A. 54:53
We love this. That client that had the six indoor cats. She had a little picture book, and it had their picture and their name and I'm like this is so Awesome, like, I love that people love their pets, and they love talking about their pets, and they, they love setting up their account in time to pet because they get to talk about their pets and their unique needs. And even like when I go on trips, and I leave notes for the sitters here, um, I love it, like, I love typing up those notes. And like, even if nothing has really changed a whole lot, it just, it feels good to me, you know, I
Collin 55:26
can always tell kind of what the client relationship is going to be like, given the amount of detail and information that gives me on those new forms. You know, I get the clients where it's like food, and they're like, yes, and you're like, Okay, this is gonna be, this is gonna be fun. And then you say, you know, someone will say food, and they're like, well, 113, you know, it's like all these exact, measured out to the 100th decimal point on a scale. And you're like, Okay, you're my people. You, you mentioned, you're in Minnesota. And so, you know, we touched a little bit on the the kind of mental burden and fatigue that takes place from worrying about the winter weather. But how does that change how you you schedule and book things and kind of prepare for
Justina A. 56:12
visits? Yeah, it's a good question. So really, like scheduling wise, it doesn't change a whole lot, because you just when I'm reading the schedule three weeks out, you don't know what the weather is going to be like, so Shergill in the same way. But when we know that there's bad weather coming, we might just adjust things at the time, maybe we start earlier, maybe we push things back a little bit. Because if there's a big snowstorm overnight, going out and starting at six in the morning is going to be terrible, the roads aren't plowed, the roads aren't salted. So we might just push things back. One thing I do with clients in winter months, especially if they're going on a big vacation is I asked them to have a backup that's maybe like their next door neighbor, somebody that can walk to their house if needed. Now knock on wood about what I hear, we've never had to do that we show up we are there. You know, one of the things I talk about with my employees is that they're comfortable driving in the snow, obviously, we have a decently sized service area, like our main service area is a five mile radius from our from our downtown. But we go outside of it for an additional fee. So we do have clients who are 10 to 15 miles away, which 10 miles away in a snowstorm could be 45 minutes. Yeah, so that's just one of those situations to where it's like I'm on deck, I'm going to hopefully just be the backup person. So that if we're getting behind, maybe I'd have to go do a few of those visits just to keep us in check. But also our clients have grace with us, they understand that we live in Minnesota and things are unpredictable. And if your dog eats supper two hours late, because there was a snowstorm, at the end of the day your dog is safe, your dog got outside your dog has slowed. Your dog still got Cuddles, you know, we might have to maybe cut visits short, if there's really bad weather. For like our daytime, or like our daily dog walks, we usually do 30 minutes. And if the weather's really bad, like say it's really, really cold out or in the summer really, really hot. We'll still spend 30 minutes with that pet, but we just adjust it and we go indoors, we do potty breaks, we play indoors, that sort of thing. The only reason we would maybe cut the visit short would be because we need to get to them all. And the roads are bad. And it's going to take us a half hour to get from visit to visit. But that's just communication to as soon as there's bad weather. I'm messaging all of our clients who are on that day, and I'm already in contact with them about what can change what could potentially happen. And every once in a while, you know, we have so many people that work from home now. Thank you COVID. And we still walk their dogs that they might say, Hey, if you want to skip Fido today, if that helps you because you need the extra time because of the roads, that's perfectly fine. So we might have a situation like that that really helps us
Collin 59:01
out what's really key there is the pre emptive aspect of reaching out the day of to notify the clients and going, Hey, these are current conditions, this is the plan moving forward. Just want to make you all alert. You know, where we're headed your way kind of thing. So that they're not again, this kind of guilt free peace of mind. They're not left guessing they're not left going, oh gosh, what are they doing? How they're gonna handle this? It's like, no, we've already sent out the email or messages to how they're going to do that. So that they know, right? So they're not contacting you going, where are you? How's it going? Anything like that? Nope, we're taking care of that right off the bat. And
Justina A. 59:33
we honestly we provide really exceptional service. And so when something doesn't go perfectly, they have a lot of grace with us because they they know who we are what to expect from us on a daily basis. When I was in Hawaii and somebody was sick, and all of a sudden there was one person working that day trying to do to people's jobs. She just reached out to the clients and affected and they were also okay with it. Like what unit you're going to be Behind today, you're never behind, you know, you never, you always show up. So, because of that, I think it's just, it's a really great relationship with the clients. It's really personal. And they know that they can trust us, they know that we're going to be there. And we're going to do everything that we can to take the best care of
Collin 1:00:17
their pet. Because I know a lot of people ask about the cold weather gear and that kind of stuff. Do you have any recommendations or things people should be looking into for, for what makes that good and reliable stuff.
Justina A. 1:00:28
So one of my employees, her name is Sophie, She is originally from Germany. And she always says, There is no wrong weather, there's only wrong clothing. And I tie employees, obviously, when they're hired, we walk dogs and all whether whether it's 100 degrees and 20. Below, we are, we're gonna we're gonna be outside, like, you know, we're gonna take care of these pets. Obviously, we're not going on long walks when it's really cold. But you know, you're going to be out in the elements and to plan accordingly. So my best advice is not necessarily like certain brands or anything like that. Lots of layers, you can always take off layers, you can always add layers, keep extra layers of things in your car, always, always, always have an extra pair of socks with you, no matter what time of the year it is. Because wet socks are the worst. I keep an extra pair of socks and an extra pair of shoes. Because if you're in the middle of a long day, your shoes and socks are wet, like brutal. Yeah, forget it. And then my other favorite piece of clothing are the gloves that pop open so that your fingers are free for picking up dog poop. Yeah. Another really good tip is when it's really really cold out, open all of your dog poop bags and advanced you'd have to reach in your pocket and it's already good to go and you're not fumbling
Collin 1:01:43
i That's one of my one of the first things I tell all of our staff, I say, Hey, this is going to save your lab pro tip. Just always, even in good weather always just open and get into that habit of always opening it because not the few things are worse than staying there in a blizzard or pouring down rain and you can't get it. You just
Justina A. 1:02:01
want to scream. You're walking two dogs at once. And they're chasing squirrels in opposite directions and you're trying to open up poop bag. It's like there's Yeah, you don't want to deal with any of the neighbors are all looking at you.
Collin 1:02:13
We don't we want it we want to be we don't want to be a spectacle as much as possible. We just one
Justina A. 1:02:18
other really good point or two though, is like spikes for your shoes, like Yaktrax. There's a couple different brands, but they're basically shoe covers that go over your shoes or boots that have little spikes in them so that you don't slip on the ice. Yeah, those have been really, really helpful, obviously, and make sure that you're not like walking through somebody's house with those on but you're taking your shoes off anyways in the house. So but those are great, because you don't realize that little dusting of snow that fell over the ice that's underneath. Like, there's just nothing worse than falling while you're walking the dog. Just you
Collin 1:02:51
know, I want to thank you so much for for coming on the show today. How can people get in touch with you follow along with your company and start learning from you?
Justina A. 1:03:00
Yeah, so you can find us online www dot Justine's petsitting.com. And then our Instagram and Facebook, Instagram is at Justice petsitting. And then Facebook is just seen as petsitting service. And you can follow there you can see the bunnies that we've ordered and all the cute pictures of all the animals that we take care of on our social media accounts.
Collin 1:03:24
The longer I have been in the pet care industry, the more I have come to appreciate the intense mental burden and mental fatigue that takes place in any given day that we are out caring for people's pets, the constant transitions brand new information a problem solving is always being on in observant and ready to go really do take their toll. And this is a huge adjustment that many people take a while to get used to. We as business owners as entrepreneurs need to find ways to help ourselves, adapt and overcome these having good solid boundaries, tools, mechanisms, technologies, gear, whatever that is. And then we need to share this with others especially if we decide that we need to hire staff we cannot forget the mechanisms, the muscles that we have built over the years to overcome, accomplish and handle that kind of mental stress and pardon. We need to help others do that. Want to thank today's sponsor is tied to pet and the National Association of Professional pet sitters for sponsoring today and making today's show possible and we really want to thank you for listening. Have a wonderful rest of your week and we'll be back again soon.
