531: Building Community Through Shelter Partnerships with Austin Tuck
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Ever wondered how your pet care business could make a bigger impact on the community? In this episode, Austin Tuck, owner of Tuckered Out Dog Walking, shares how she transformed her business by partnering with a local shelter through a unique sponsorship program. Austin explains how transitioning from pet sitting to daily dog walking helped reduce burnout while allowing her to focus on creating meaningful community partnerships. Her field trips for dogs offer enrichment beyond the standard walk, benefiting both pets and owners, while the shelter program boosts adoption rates and strengthens her team's connection to their work. Listen in to learn how Austin's approach to community involvement is making a difference for her business, her staff, and shelter dogs.
Main topics:
Transitioning from Pet Sitting Burnout
Implementing Field Trips for Dogs
Developing a Shelter Sponsorship Program
Staff Fulfillment Through Community Impact
Leveraging Partnerships for Brand Growth
Main takeaway: Find initiatives that will be valuable for the community, for staff, and for your business brand reputation.
About our guest:
Austin Tuck is the owner of Tuckered Out Dog Walking, a Richmond, Virginia-based pet care company. Since launching in 2021, Austin has shifted her business focus from full-service pet care to exclusively offering daily dog walking, which has allowed her to reduce burnout and provide more meaningful services to her clients. Passionate about giving back to the community, Austin developed a Shelter Sponsorship Program that partners with local animal shelters to help dogs in need. Her commitment to community impact extends to her business's unique field trips for dogs, designed to provide enrichment and public exposure for shelter animals. Austin’s dedication to both her team
Links:
www.tuckeredoutrva.com/sponsorships
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
pet sitting, dog walking, field trips, shelter partnership, burnout, client overlap, enrichment walks, sponsorship program, community impact, staff happiness, brand reputation, volunteer challenges, recurring sponsorship, training protocols, public exposure
SPEAKERS
Collin, Austin T.
Collin 00:00
Music. Welcome to pet sitter confessional, an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Today, we're brought to you by tying to pet and the National Association of Professional pet sitters. Today, we are super excited to have Austin tuck owner of tuckered out to talk about their journey in pet care and a really cool program that they've got going on in their business and in their community. Austin, super excited to have you on the show. I can't believe it's taken us this long to wrangle you and get you on the podcast. For those who aren't familiar with you and your business, can you please tell us a little bit more about who you are and all that you do?
Austin T. 00:38
Yeah, my name is Austin tuck I am the owner of tuckered out dog walking, which is located in Richmond, Virginia. We offer daily dog walking among a small team of three folks right now, hoping to continue to grow. And we launched in 2021 and offer services Monday through Friday, nine to four.
Collin 00:59
Now, when you launched in 2021 were you always a dog walking specific business, or were you offering more services at that time?
Austin T. 01:07
So in 2021 I was actually part of, like the great resignation of folks, left my corporate job and started out doing full service pet care drop ins, overnights. I even did a little bit of boarding as well. I kind of did everything. I was by myself for probably about six to nine months, and myself and our team got pretty burnt out with that model, so we gradually transitioned to the daily dog walking model. And officially, in November of 2023 discontinued the pet sitting and are, you know, exclusively Monday through Friday, daily dog walking now, which has been a really good move for us.
Collin 01:51
I know that that, I mean, was it, you said, mentioned the burnout, and that's such a big thing when it comes to the pet sitting model, it really is just so incredibly intensive, non stop, go, go, go. And a lot of times we think, Oh, if I just had employees, it would help, but it doesn't really, because we still have to manage that, take care of things when they go over, or, you know, be there to assist whenever it's 10 o'clock at night and there's a problem or something like that. Yeah,
Austin T. 02:17
exactly. And the number of times where you would post a job ad, go to the interview, go to the second interview, make it abundantly clear that this is a weekend and holiday position, and then someone comes on, and three weeks later, suddenly they don't have weekend availability anymore. It just got old, and I did a lot of research and found that there was very little to no overlap between the pet sitting and the dog walking clients. So it wasn't really a huge revenue shift for us, and it ended up working out pretty well.
Collin 02:53
Yeah, it's so fascinating, because I was just about to say how there's very little overlap for us as well, of like the people who do dog walks, they only want us to dog walks, the people who only want pet sitting, only want pet sitting. And so you end up going, well, I can grow one or both of these and try and focus my efforts so that I can be better at one of them exactly. Now I know one of the things that you do in your business is you do you do things called, called, called field trips. And I did want to ask about that, because you're doing the dog walks, you're doing these field trips. How do you differentiate those, those field trips?
Austin T. 03:29
Yeah, so the field trips, I actually stole the the title from Doug Keeling. It's the same concept as an adventure walk, adventure hike. But I live in an area that gets quite hot, like just yesterday, it was 100 degrees, so it's not always possible for us to be able to do an extensive hike. So I changed the name to field trips because that can it gives the idea that we won't necessarily be walking. Sometimes we take the dog to Lowe's. Sometimes we go to get a pup cup. Sometimes there's even a like a doggy indoor swim business near us. Sometimes we'll sign up for a 30 minute slot and take them to the pool. So the field trip service is I market it very differently, because a lot of the folks who use that kind of service a lot more work from home, people, you know, people with a little more flexibility in their day, that kind of thing. So the field trips are a minimum of 60 minutes. There's a 90 minute option as well. But no one ever really books it, to be honest. And the actual walks are 20 to 60 minutes in that range. Interesting,
Collin 04:47
but I guess, and that's hard for some people to get their their minds around, because if we're so in the dog walking mindset, it's like, well, it's all about my time out on the sidewalk or my time out on the trail. So. But really what you're selling there is you're selling the entire journey of it includes, yes, the drive is part of the package that the pup gets to go and experience, and the finding of the parking is part of the experience of everything. And just going this is just a way to add that extra enrichment in their day, and not necessarily focus on you know, pounding the pavement just to get in those miles?
Austin T. 05:23
Yeah, exactly. Because even the folks who a lot of people have the argument, right, if someone's working from home, they don't need us, per se. But no one, even if you're working from home, is going to be able to take an hour, hour and a half out of their day. No one has a lunch break that that's that long to go and do something different and exciting. So people really do love that option. I've got one dog in particular who's been on a recurring field trip schedule for three years. It's helped significantly with her reactivity, and she's doing really, really well now. Yeah, that's
Collin 05:59
that's interesting too, of thinking of, how do we market a service like that? Because when we think of, oh, my walks, a lot of times we end up talking about body breaks and quick exercise and quick enrichment. But like you're saying, somebody who works from home, they can do that. They can run to the back door and let the dog outside, in between zoom calls and then shut the door. They can't go and give them an extended period outside of the home, adding that extra enrichment. So really, knowing, okay, I've got this service, I know it's unique, but I do have to use different language to get that across to people, because if I find myself using the same language, then all of a sudden there's no difference between it, and nobody knows why they should or shouldn't choose that. Yeah, exactly. Now you also have a really cool partnership with a local shelter, and you have this thing, and it's called, was it's called sponsoring a shelter dog, and I would love for you to tell us about the history of this and kind of how it got started.
Austin T. 06:58
Yeah, so there was a very large dog walking and pet sitting company who actually helped me very considerably getting started when I first opened, they offered walks to shelter dogs. Essentially, they would send a walker into the shelter. They would take whatever dog that was available out for an hour, hour and a half, to go on a walk and then return to the shelter afterwards. And folks would pay for those walks on their website. And I was always very intrigued with that program. I always thought it was wonderful. I wanted to do more, potentially get involved with that, but I didn't look into it too heavily, because someone was already offering it, right? I didn't want to step on anybody's toes, but then that company announced that they were going to be closing in March, February, March of this year. And so I emailed him back. He had actually emailed me personally before making the announcement to let me know that they were going to be closing. I emailed him back, and I asked him if he would be willing to sit down with me and walk me through his sponsorship program, because, especially since they were going to be going out of business, I thought it was really important to continue. And so we ended up sitting down for about an hour in his office, and he walked me through all the logistics. I mean, he gave me every piece of advice I could ever need. He even put me in touch with the shelter managers of the ones that he was working with. We opted to partner with just one of those shelters for a few reasons. First of all, it was the one that was most central to our service area. Didn't want to have to travel outside of the service area for these and then also I thought that even if it was just with one shelter, I thought the impact would be more significant if we could go all in with one, if that makes sense. So I ended up reaching out to this shelter. They're called Richmond Animal Care and Control. It's a city funded shelter, and they were very excited to get started. They were already pretty familiar with the concept, because they had done it with this other business before, and then we ended up launching it about two weeks after that other business closed, and the rest is history.
Collin 09:20
Well, I think it's really interesting to see that you were watching this from afar and going, Oh, wow, that's really cool. And it's a reminder of just how important when we talk about why we need to be networking, why we need to be talking with other businesses, why we need to be sharing things with other people and help raising other people up, is because you never know when opportunities like this are going to arise and that you were already going, Oh, that's really cool. I wonder how I could get involved to then suddenly going, Oh, I'm the one running it,
Austin T. 09:51
yeah, and especially when we discontinued the pet sitting side of things there, there was about a five to six month gap between when we discontinued. Pet sitting. And when we launched this program, I knew that I wanted to do something like this, and now suddenly I had the time to be able to commit to it and dedicate to that, and it's been really, really valuable for the community, for my staff, for the business, brand reputation, I mean, across the board,
Collin 10:20
oh, that's you mentioned that you finally had time once you quit doing this other thing. And when we talk about opportunity costs in running our business, sometimes it's really hard for us to see what, what opportunities could come up from quitting something. And that sometimes quitting is one of the best things we can do, because it frees us up. You know, you could have had just more time to focus on your dog walking and field trips business. But as new opportunities come onto our plate, if we're already operating at 120% there's nothing more that we can do or give. And then we have to let these opportunities go away or slide away, and finally feel like, oh, man, if only I had so understanding. Going, hey, I can simplify my life by focusing my business and making it more streamlined, whether that's through cutting services, reducing service area, changing how you're pricing or changing how you're staffing, and going, Let me reduce the complexity so that I can take advantage of opportunities as they come up.
Austin T. 11:20
Yeah, exactly, exactly, and when, when we restricted our hours as well. It It became a lot easier, not only to implement these new sorts of programs and actually explore these things that I've been wanting to do, but since we're open nine to four now, it's a lot easier to staff. Staff seem a lot happier. I'm in the process of transitioning to more of a shift scheduling model. So essentially, I would, you know, assign someone to work between 11 to two, you know, three weeks from now, and they may not know who they're going to walk, but they know they're going to be working 11 to two. And that model wasn't very feasible when, when we were doing all the things, not trying to discourage people from doing all of the things. But I just found that for me, it it made the most sense to transition this way, and then it also naturally brought along this wonderful program that I'm very passionate
Collin 12:15
about. Well, yeah, and now that you have that more restricted, those restricted hours, it's easier to do things outside of those too, right? You can do walks a little bit later finish with your existing clients if you already have a full schedule, and then you still have time to go do additional walks, either before or after this. I don't, I don't know how you, how you do that? Do you? Do you schedule these walks just like they're a normal client? Or do you schedule them during specific other time blocks?
Austin T. 12:39
Sure, so the shelter is open from or staffed. I should say from eight to five Monday through Friday, they have weekend hours as well that are slightly different, but I don't know them off the top of my head, because we don't, we don't offer them on weekends, but because you're not right. But so in the summer, like when it's very hot right now, I've been scheduling them closer to eight so slightly before our operating hours, just because, you know, our staff are happy to do it. They have the availability, and it's just a lot safer and more enjoyable for the dog and the and the staff member. We schedule them in the same sort of designated three hour windows. The shelter has their own time to pet account so they can access the schedule and see the calendar to know what days and approximate timeframes we plan on arriving, so they know that they can expect us. And then the shelter manager also has the app on her phone, and we'll send them a message when we're on the way about a 15 minute heads up or so. So if she is busy doing something else, or, you know, in the process of wrapping something up, she knows that we'll be there very shortly. They usually have the dog ready to go for us. They already have the harness on, they've got the leash. They've got the treats. Everything is set up and ready to go. So when we walk in the door, more or less, we just grab the dog and head out. They'll give us a quick little rundown about the dog's behavioral history, medical history, anything that's important for us to know so we can decide what park or trail might be most suitable for them. Obviously, if we have a highly reactive or anxious dog, we'll try to go somewhere quieter. But one of the goals of this program is actually to provide public exposure for these dogs so that the community can see them and know that they're available. We'll always put on a little bandana that says, adopt me. So if anyone wants to hear more, has questions, they can come up and ask us about it. That being said, slightly different from our usual client policies. If the dog is people friendly, no bite history, you know, happy to meet strangers, etc. Yeah, we will allow them to interact with other people because we want them to get adopted, right? We still have a hard pass on interacting with other animals and dogs and children too, just for liability, but that's probably the biggest difference with our with our shelter program, versus our client walks, because we avoid all kinds of interactions with clients in terms of humans and dogs, etc, but or the shelter dogs, you know, ultimately, we want them to have that exposure and to get adopted. So if they're friendly, they want to meet people we are. We welcome it with open arms, and we just kind of cater the walk according to the specific needs of the dog and the information that the shelter provides us at the time of us picking them up.
Collin 15:45
So the shelter is picking out that dog for you to take, versus you coming in and finding some dog and then taking it out. Is that? Is that right?
Austin T. 15:53
That is correct, and that's actually the biggest change that my company made from what the previous company was doing. So the previous company, there was a little bit less organization to it, not necessarily in a bad way, but they had very experienced handlers. And, you know, the handlers were very familiar with the shelter. They would show up, they would just kind of be like, Hey, I'm gonna go and get my dog, and they would, they would walk through the kennels and select a dog that they wanted to walk. And the shelter does have this wonderful like paw print system where, you know, a level one paw dog is very easy going, very easy to handle, whereas, like, a three paw dog is a little more difficult. Maybe someone with more experience should be handling them so they weren't going in completely blind, but they would just go, select a dog, go about their day, and they were a little more self sufficient in that way. But when I was talking with the shelter manager, when we were initially getting it set up, she said that she was noticing that a lot of the same dogs were getting to go out, not necessarily for any reason that made Sims either. People just, I don't know if it was just the first Kindle that they walked at or whatever, but people were taking the same dogs, and so she and I decided to have a little bit more structure to it. They couldn't let us know super far in advance. Who would we, who we would be walking? Obviously, because these dogs are adoptable, but they would have kind of a written list in their back pocket of who is due for an outing, who could really use this. So we were usually taking the longest residents, the ones who were having a particularly hard time getting adjusted, ones who, for whatever reason, just weren't doing very well. So there are some extra challenges with these kinds of walks. Behaviorally speaking, they're usually a little bit more complex than your typical client walk. A lot of them are also very, very high flight risks. So we we use a backup clip on all of the shelter dogs. We use them whenever possible with clients as well, and when I mean a backup clip, just for listeners to understand, basically, it's like a six inch strap where you clip one side to the collar, one side to the harness. So if you do have a dog wriggle out of their harness, which we have had happened on one of these shelter walks, still attached to the collar so they can't get away. That was apparently one of the biggest struggles that the other company ran into it happened a time or two, so we sat down and made sure we had something in place that could prevent that as much as possible. And we have not run into that situation yet. I know I'm rambling a little bit. I hope I answered the question,
Collin 18:53
yeah, you absolutely did. And I think that's it's just this is such a different thing to do, right? Because a lot of us go, oh, man, I could partner with XYZ, or I could partner with this other person or this other group, but it's like, but you do have to work through those details, right? You do have to work through this structure. And I think it is really neat that you have, you've given agency back to the back to the shelter to have them go, here's where we're really struggling. Here's because a lot of you know, people think, Oh, I'm really good at picking at random. The dogs are going to take out. It's like, No, we're not. People are terrible at randomness. We like patterns. That's all our brain does, is pattern matching. So just going, Oh, I'm going to pick a quote, unquote, random dog. No, you won't. You're going to pick the same dog that somebody else did, because that's what everybody does like. So having them go no, this one hasn't been walked in a while, or this one really needs to get out and get some exposure here that helps that partnership and makes them feel like they have that control, or some control in this so that they're not just waiting for you to figure it out and them go, oh, okay, well, I guess that's okay. It allows them to be much more vocal and involved and becomes more valuable to them because they. You know, we're working together on this. And it allows you to then to go, okay, we can, we can put together programs or plans to get somebody more out consistently if they're really, really struggling, so that they don't just get one time a month and then we don't see them for another long time. It allows those that communication to go on. Then you mentioned the the manager has the app. Do they just have a generic profile in time to pet or, you know, shelter dog, or do they try and update a little bit of information about that dog before do you take them out?
Austin T. 20:32
It's a very generic profile. Since these dogs are all adoptable and they aren't really able to let us know in advance who we're going to be walking, especially this summer with us coming primarily in the morning. Sometimes as soon as they open, it's really difficult for them to be able to have that done in advance. And I don't want to put any extra stress on them either. I'm hoping to alleviate some of the work they have to do, not make more for them. So their profile is very basic. I mean, it's essentially just emergency contact information, address instructions on how to access the building and where to park. And then I have a very generic instruction list. All of our clients have a detailed checklist written for them individually. It's customized based on their their specific dogs. And for this shelter, I basically just have written, like, step by step, here is what you do, here's where you go. And in terms of behaviors, I just have written, you know, you can assume that these dogs are going to be nervous, they're going to be flight risks, be sure to ask about any dietary restrictions, etc. And it's worked out very well that way. It does mean there's a little bit more up for interpretation and a little bit more clarity that we have to have in person, in terms of a face to face conversation and a little more work on the back end of things, but it has worked out very well. And the fact that the shelter is the one with the time to pet account versus, say, the person who paid for the walk, it does mean that they have a full history of all the walks that we did, and they can easily get in touch with us through the communication feature, you know, if something happens, we can let them know when we're on the way, etc, etc. So it's worked out very well. Have
Collin 22:27
you heard of time to pet? Dan from NYC, pooch has this to say, time to pet has been a total game changer for us. It helped us streamline many aspects of our operation, from scheduling and communication to billing and customer management, we actually tested other pet sitting softwares in the past, but these other solutions were clunky and riddled with problems. Everything in time to pet has been so well thought out. It's intuitive, feature rich, and it's always improving. If you're looking for new pet sitting software, give time to pet a try. Listeners of our show will save 50% off your first three months by visiting time to bed. Com, slash confession, and you mentioned a key component of this. These are, these are sponsoring a shelter dog. So somebody is is paying for this. Walk us through how that process works, because I know there's a lot on the back end here. So let's say somebody's interested in sponsoring this dog, or, you know, a dog, because it's, you know, they just want to sponsor a dog at the shelter. How do they pay for that? And what does that process
Austin T. 23:24
look like? Sure, so I use WordPress. Our website is through WordPress, and I found the easiest way to set up a commerce platform was just to create a payment link through stripe, which is the same processor we use in time to pet anyway, so you can just go into time to pet. I created a payment link and embedded it on the WordPress site. There is a specific page dedicated to our shelter sponsorship program, and then, right then and there, without having to click anywhere else there's a button to purchase. They can either purchase a one time, you know, just one walk, two walks, however many, or they can set up a recurring monthly payment where they would donate one walk every month that stripe automatically invoices them and charges them each month for and then, in order to keep track of everything, I ended up setting up a profile with Zapier so every time a strike payment comes through, it automatically takes all of the payment information and the contact information for the sponsor and integrates it into a Google spreadsheet. Um, lets me know the name, email address, date of purchase, and how much they ended up purchasing, how many walks, and then I keep track of it that way. And when I schedule the walk in time to pet, I update the tracker with the date of the walk and the walker that's been assigned come time to actually. Complete the walk and send them the report. All the sponsors do get the full report card. We screenshot it and email it to them. I just reference back to the spreadsheet based on the date in time to pet and then take care of it that way. There's a lot of back end stuff that has to be done, and it sounds really complicated, but it is very seamless and easy to keep up with. Well,
Collin 25:24
especially because the the the shelter has their own time to pet account, right? When you see that report slide through, you can go, Okay, we've done the walk. You may I may have forgotten that it was today, but here it is now. I need to go. Go, okay, who is this dog? You know what? Who did the walk? So I can go, reference my cross reference my spreadsheet to see that is, and then I can send that off to the person who did sponsor that and going, you know, there are, there are fail safes there. And it is important to know, again, any program that we do, no matter what it is, there's going to be back end management work. There's just going to be some way of tracking things and trying to make it as seamless as possible is really important. Because if we want to do this for the long haul, we really want to have an impact. We have to have those in place so that we are more likely to continue to do it. Because if we do have that promise of, yeah, if you sponsor a dog, you're going to get an update about how the dog walk went. Well, if they don't get that like, that's kind of a disappointment to them, and we've let that person down, they're less likely to sponsor another time or share about that experience on social media or tell their friends, so we do have
Austin T. 26:26
to keep up with that. Yeah, and that being said, since we are screenshotting these report cards and sending them over to the sponsor, we do have to go about how we write them out slightly differently. So we want everything to be overwhelmingly positive, right? We want the sponsor to feel good that they purchased this walk and that the dog, even if they didn't have the best time in the world, you know, they got out, they got to experience things, they got some public visibility. So the report card looks a little different from a client walk with the client walks, I tell folks to be, you know, outwardly very transparent. You know, if the dog didn't seem to be feeling well, if you didn't have the best time, do include that, you know, using reinforcing positive language, but not muddying things over. But with these shelter walks. It's a little it's a little bit different. I tell folks, keep it overwhelmingly positive. Don't outwardly lie. But there's no need, really to include if they had diarrhea on the walk, like the sponsor doesn't care. So we write the report very positive, very high level, just so that when the sponsor receives it, they feel good about themselves. And if there was anything that was of concern, medically or otherwise, to just express that verbally to the shelter when you return, so that they know. But the sponsor doesn't have to get all of the nitty gritty about all of that, if that makes sense. So that is one thing that is slightly different in terms of, in terms of the structure of how we do it, yeah,
Collin 28:06
because the sponsor is wanting to give this dog an experience, right? So having to going, Okay, I need to talk about the experience and the benefits that the dog got in the things we got to see and the things we got to smell and listen to, and how our time was, but you're right. I don't updating them about a medical problem isn't really beneficial to the dog, because that's not the decision maker in that dog's life right now, right? Unless they choose to adopt it, like I'm sure that may happen one day, but going no all concerns in that nature do need to be directed to the people who are overseeing the care and control of this dog. This sponsor paid for an experience and good feelings and a wonderful time for that dog. So we need to showcase that as best we can, like you said, not outwardly lying. We never want to do that. But we can talk about the well, maybe I won't talk about the seven minutes that I spent with the dog lunging at the squirrel, but I will talk about the two minutes we sat next to the park bench listening to the train come by or whatever. That is, right?
Austin T. 29:11
Yeah, yeah, no, exactly. And it's not often that someone will respond to the email, but when they do, I mean, everyone is overjoyed. The photos and the quality of these report cards are wonderful. The person who does the bulk of them right now, all of my staff are trained on how to do it, but there's one person who's particularly passionate about it, because she actually used to work as an animal control officer at this exact shelter. So she knows how the shelter works. She knows the staff there, and it's something she's very passionate about and and she's she's wonderful, like I the the quality of her reports is top tier.
Collin 29:56
It's nice being able to have someone like that who's kind of the. You know, it's not their thing. They're kind of the lead on it, right? Somebody who can go, Okay, well, this is what I can give to you, since you're really passionate about it, and other people can fill in as necessary, but it gives you a lot of peace of mind and gives a lot of consistency to the shelter to know, okay, this is somebody who we like, I can invest in now, because they're, we're really working together on this. Yeah, exactly. What other kind of feedback have you gotten about this program? I know you mentioned kind of when people respond back to it, but community wise, because you did mention three benefits when you talked about this program, of, sure, it benefits the dog, but you also mentioned, like, it benefits the staff, it benefits the community, it benefits your brand. So as far as feedback, what have you experienced? Sure?
Austin T. 30:45
So in terms of the benefits of the program, like you mentioned, the dog gets to have an enriching experience outside of the kennel. Like I said, we're usually taking dogs that are not doing super well, or maybe haven't gotten to go out so much. So even if we aren't able to go somewhere and give them a whole lot of public exposure, they still just get an enriching and decompressing quiet time away. The shelter is in the heart of Richmond. It's the city funded shelter, so lot of loud noises, not a whole lot of green spaces. They do get walks, but you know, like every other shelter in the country, they're completely overcrowded and understaffed, so these walks are not often going to be the enriching snafari style walks that dogs really need. So there's that benefit for the dogs, it also provides the shelter with valuable information that they can use to place these dogs with the right adopters. A lot of times, they get strays that come in, or perhaps the dog's Guardian passed away, and they just don't know a whole lot of information about the dogs, and so having dedicated one on one time with someone who knows what to look for is very valuable for them to know, okay, this dog maybe wouldn't do so well placed with other dogs, or, you know, maybe wouldn't do so well with other kids, etc. So it gives them some really useful information to help them successfully get adopted and not return. And then it also produces substantial exposure for these dogs, both public and on social media. So in the event that we take them to a busier Park, and you know, folks can see them walking around with their adopt me bandana. People can come up and ask questions about the dog. We can let them know where the dog's available. Tell them to tell their friends. Or even if we don't see a whole lot of people for whatever reason, every dog does get their own social media post. So after every walk, we take the best pictures from the report card, a short blurb about their personality and where folks can go to find the dog. We tag the shelter as well, and we post it on our social media. And the engagement on those types of posts is like so much surpassing the engagement of any of our other posts. I've had the most shared post was 200 200 people shared this one dog. Her name was cherry. She has still not yet been adopted. This was a couple weeks ago, but just the engagement with the post is a benefit, obviously, for the dog, but also for the brand exposure of the company. People know who we are. I've had people reach out just to say, thank you for offering this type of program. I've had people business owners, reach out, both locally and from across the country, asking questions about the program, how to do it, how to get it started. They're interested in doing something like that themselves, I've helped coach successfully at least three that I know of companies who have implemented a similar program. One of them is actually a trainer that I network with that's local to me, pretty far south from where I am, so there's no overlap in service area, and they were able to reach out to shelters that are not feasible for us to work with, just due to distance. So the program has expanded locally, and it's been wonderful. And then in terms of staff happiness, I mentioned the one staff member who is very passionate about rescue work and has a lot of experience working with this particular shelter, and then shelters in general, and she has told me time and time again how much this type of work fills her cup. The main reason she doesn't still work in shelters, excuse me, is. Because of the burnout that comes with that kind of work, and being involved in this kind of program allows her to have that good feeling without the burnout that's associated with it, so she can still stay involved in this line of work. But on a much more positive note, yeah and yeah, and then just folks on social media are always commenting about, you know, how wonderful the program is. And the shelter manager, we touch base every so often, and they are just over the moon the stuff that they have to deal with. I've I knew it was bad, but since working with them, I I've learned some inside knowledge about the stuff they see and have to work with, and how hard it is, and just being able to help, even if it's just taking a dog out of the kennel for an hour so they can clean, it is substantial.
Collin 36:01
You know, it really is a holistic approach there, right? Of going, No, we have as a company, we have our core values, and we have way we want to operate, and how do we find things that align with that? Because that feeds into everything. Yeah, it's more brand recognition, sure, but that staff happiness is so important to go no, here is a mission that we have as a company, and to know here's where we can invest in here's another expression of our core values, not just to our clients, but this is a community service that we're able to provide. Allows for a lot more consistency in that and for people to be connected with. Have you ever received any pushback on this? You know? I know sometimes in our local communities, we'll see see posts of somebody going, oh, you know, I need help with my dog. And people will comment and say, well, if those businesses would just provide these services for free, you know, they would help. They make enough money as it is, anything like that where people kind of push back on this and going, Well, why don't you just do these walks? You know, out of the goodness of your heart,
Austin T. 37:10
no, I haven't witnessed any of that, at least yet. Maybe because this is a program that people are familiar with. Since I didn't create it, I just sort of kept it going, sure, um, haven't really dealt with with a whole lot of that. I do have people who have questions in terms of the financial benefit to the company. We do obviously charge for the walks, and it's at a slight discount from our usual field trip price. Um, there's a slight profit there, but really to offset the cost of the liability the Zapier software for tracking and everything like that. And since we do have employees who do these, obviously they get paid for these, for the work that they're doing. Not so I guess, to answer your question, not a whole lot of not a whole lot of pushback. There are volunteer programs already in place for things like this, where, like, for example, I know the SPCA, the local SPCA where I am, they have volunteers that will walk dogs, but the program isn't quite as robust. These folks aren't spending a significant amount of time doing these kinds of things. They're usually walking around the shelter or something like that. So having a specific program in place where someone is dedicating a significant amount of time for one dog to take them somewhere else, I think, is where there's a little bit of difference in where people understand, you know, why we aren't able to just do it for free, yeah,
Collin 38:50
well, and just going, like, Yeah, this is one way we can make this program sustainable. And I think that's what's really important to point out. Of like, Sure, volunteer programs exist, but they only exist when people have free time, when they have experience, when they have the ability or desire. Here is a dedicated program that we want to see persist for perpetuity and possibly grow and expand. One way we do that is we are, yeah, sure. We are paying people to do this. So there's another incentive there to that person, and we want to make this so that it's not just relying on kind of whims and fancies of our own desires and when we have time, but when things are are paid for, it does help, and it can. I know this that's kind of a weird thing to juggle, right as a business of going this is a benefit that I want to provide, but I do have financial obligations because of it. So how do I cover those costs, and how do I make sure that it's it works itself out exactly?
Austin T. 39:45
And one of the other benefits to the shelter as well, any shelter that has a volunteer program is going to have to train those folks, right? Yeah, we've already trained everyone. Everyone has CPR and First Aid certifications. Everyone. Undergoes dog body language and handling courses so the shelter is doesn't have to invest quite as much of their own resources into the program as they might for like a volunteer program, again,
Collin 40:13
taking more weight off of them so they can focus on picking the good dogs or picking the right dogs for that time and doing the work that they actually need to be doing, which is caring for the pets in their building, not training of an army of volunteers who may or may not show up whenever they're actually needed. Are you looking to elevate your business? Join the National Association of Professional pet sitters or naps today, they have their upcoming annual in person conference, February 28 through March 2 of 2025 being held in Tempe, Arizona. Registration is currently open for $225 it's a conference that's going to be filled with amazing speakers. One that you're not going to want to miss is the pet marketing unleash team is going to be involved in a panel discussion on effective web design and branding strategies. Again, go to pet sitters.org and get your tickets today for the NAPS 2025 conference in Tempe, Arizona.
Austin T. 41:13
So I actually do have experience volunteering with the SPCA, and so I'm a member of their Facebook groups and everything, and they do have significant trouble finding coverage and reliable people who stick around
Collin 41:27
knowing, Okay, now here's here's our way of solving that right. Here's our way of taking care of that. Going we want consistency. We want reliability. We want to be able to walk these dogs for the long term. Here's a program to make that work. I know part of the way you do that for going for future things and for keeping this moving forward, you implemented that, that monthly reoccurring sponsorship option, as far as, how is that going, versus the one offs for
Austin T. 41:53
you, sure? So we have probably, I think, four folks set up for a monthly recurring model right now, and we didn't initially start out with that option, but there were a number of people who were commenting on our social media posts asking for it. And you know, then when we announced the launch, we had a few people who signed up right away. And it's very easy and seamless to set up on stripe as well. We just created a separate payment link that automatically does everything for us, and the sponsor gets an automatic email invoice before they get charged for their monthly walk. The only thing that we really need to be cognizant about paying attention to is the amount of time between the date of purchase and when the walk is scheduled. So the folks who just book a one off, we guarantee that the walk will be done within six weeks. But obviously, if they're on a monthly schedule, we need to shorten that up to four weeks. So it's just a little extra that we have to pay attention to,
Collin 43:00
yeah, making sure that you're you're going, Oh no, this is the person. I've got to slot them maybe up a one or two earlier so that I can push this out, so that there were me again, these obligations of Yeah, on a monthly I don't want to all of a sudden be charging somebody on a monthly basis, and me not having a walk to dog that month, because then all of a sudden, well, they've paid for a month, but they've also paid for this month. So I need month, so I need to do two this month, and then I'm just catching up and running on the trade on the treadmill after that
Austin T. 43:29
exactly. And we do have it set up so that it's only one walk per person per subscription. Maybe in the future we can adjust that, but I feel like the subscription model is already a pretty good commitment anyway, so I'm not too too worried about that. Do
Collin 43:45
you reach out to people who have sponsored dogs in the past on a separate email list to see if they're interested on doing that again? Or do you just allow them to kind of reengage at their own desire?
Austin T. 43:58
I currently don't. Obviously, I do collect all of their email addresses in the spreadsheet, so it probably wouldn't be that difficult to start implementing that. And in the email that we send with the report card, I do include a little blurb that just says that it's available if they're interested. And folks that I see who crop up more than once that aren't on that recurring model. I do make a point to mention it. I will admit marketing is not my strongest suit, especially email marketing, so that's something that hopefully I can start to implement more in the future as the program continues to
Collin 44:38
grow, yeah, and as people become more interested going, just like in our own business, how do I keep people engaged in this? Like, okay, because now you're going, Okay, well, this person might not even have a pet. I could never even serve them in their dog walking needs, possibly. So how can I keep them engaged in this, to keep them sharing, to keep them talking about it. And, yeah, there is, again, as a business, going. Sure there is a selfish reason for that going brand recognition. People get to know who we are and what we do and all that stuff. But also they can help more dogs. They can help walk more dogs. We can help this partnership with this. And so the more people we can get engaged in that, the better it is for everybody.
Austin T. 45:16
Yeah, absolutely. And we do actually have a lot of folks who use us because they don't have a dog, or they're not in a position to adopt a dog, but they still want to help. Maybe they don't have the time to volunteer on their own, or something else is in the way where they want to help, but they just can't dedicate the time or the energy, or what have you that is involved with helping the shelter directly through adoptions or fostering or what have you. And so we do get a lot of folks who this is a really great way for them to get involved and feel good about helping that fits into their lifestyle.
Collin 45:58
I was just about to say some people, they have this heart, this desire to help, but they might not be physically able to or they may be very busy professionals who don't have the time to get dedicated to this. So it's a way for them to go, Oh, great. I can pay somebody to go do this. And yeah, they get the feel goods of it. They know they're helping. And then you get to service the the dogs at the shelter, and again, going, but it's going, how do I connect with those people, and how do I get them to see the benefit of this, and how this is a, this is now a burden that they have of, oh, they have a desire to help, but they can't, or they don't know how, or they don't have the time. Hey, look, we can help with that, and here's a program that we have to to assist you. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, so you've been doing this now for several years. When you look towards the future, what kind of plans or what are you You know, what kind of gears are turning when you look ahead, in terms
Austin T. 46:48
of this program, I I know there's more that we can be doing to help the shelters. This program has been wonderful. People love it, but I would love to get more involved in more direct fundraising and public events with shelters, particularly the shelter that we've been working with. I'm currently in talks with the shelter manager about doing some kind of sponsored adoption, like, for example, they'll get businesses who will donate the adoption fees for some of their most difficult to adopt out animals, the longest residents, and that company will pay for those fees so that whoever adopts them will be free. I am in talks with setting something up to get our company involved in something like that, like a free adoption weekend. Not sure what that's going to look like, but that's kind of in the immediate future of what I want to happen. And then beyond that, I mean just continuing to market and tell people about the program, help other businesses, both locally and across the country, learn more about how they can do something like this, pay it forward, like that other business did with me, because I do think that it's a wonderful program, especially especially now these days, given the state of the shelters. And I mean, I personally would also love to be able to adopt or foster animals, but I have some special needs pets of my own who I know wouldn't be receptive to another animal in the house. So I can sympathize with why people are so excited about this program, and how it can help them get involved if they aren't able to otherwise,
Collin 48:35
just going, Okay, we have a mission here. We have a course that's set. Where else does that lead? And we're always thinking about those opportunities again, back to those opportunities in our business, going, Okay, well, here I am, here's what I'm doing, here's what I've learned, here's what I know, and here's the relationships that I've built. How do I move forward with this? Is there anything else should I do? Anything else? It's all those questions that we're always asking of going, Okay, well, do I have time to make this I could, you know, I'm probably make this a full time thing if you wanted to doing everything else. But going, is that what I want to do? And knowing, as long as it aligns with our mission vision and values and our personal morals and ethics as a person and as a business, what does that do? And going, Okay, I know there's going to be benefits from this, but if we have a passion about this, how can we make that align? How can we make that sustainable, and not just these, these, one off, these quick hits, these things, because anything we want to do, we want to do it really well, and we want to be able to invest and to help other people. And that's what this is. At the end of the day, we're helping dogs get connected with people, and you are allowing people to have a good chance of success with that dog. You're helping that person see what they want and get what they want. Yeah, exactly. So you mentioned about paying it forward and helping I know we've talked about a ton of things here. As far as the tech back end, we've talked about the getting it connected with people, some of the specific trainings and the softwares that you. Use and the things that you've also learned. But if somebody's listening to this and they are interested in starting a program like this, what kind of other advice would you, would you have for that person?
Austin T. 50:11
Sure, my biggest piece of advice, at least when you're starting out, is to partner with a specific shelter. And I say this because that shelter is probably going to have a larger social media following than you. They've probably been in business for longer. They probably have a larger online presence. Your community knows who they are, so build and nurture a relationship with that specific shelter, or multiple shelters, if you like, but get very specific offering it broadly may not bring the traction that you're looking for. So to put this into perspective, when we announced our program, the shelter. I tagged the shelter in it, and then they also shared it and created their own post, and within 48 hours, we got over 30 purchases. And I'm I firmly believe it's because the shelter that has hundreds of 1000s of followers, shared it and people were so excited, and they got involved right away. So that would be my first like logistical piece, and obviously continuing to nurture and foster that relationship and check in with them. But then, more logistically speaking, before you announce something like this, do a lot of research on how you're going to make it work, both the tracking and logistical back end pieces, and then also the training piece, the safety piece, speaking directly with the shelter to figure out what is going to work the most efficiently and safely for the both of You, and come up with a standard process or for this type of program, train your staff on it, make sure there's consistency. Because, like I said, the walks are a little bit more complex than a standard client walk, so you want to make sure you have all of the safety pieces in play
Collin 52:19
well, all the more reason to start with a specific shelter, because you've got to get this all lined out. Because not all shelters are the same, right? They just aren't. They're going to have their own experiences and biases and procedures that they want to follow and have done so being able to go, no, let me get this done really, really well with one, it's going to simplify all those processes, all those procedures, all those trainings, the pickup, the drop off, the handoff, the communication style, you're going to be able to really focus on that and make sure it's really good before you start going, yeah, let me do this 30 times, because I could imagine if all of a sudden, you know, you shared this out, and 30 other shelters also shared it out, and they all purchased 30, you know, 30 people from each 30 shelter did that. It's like, oh my gosh. Like, all of a sudden I'm dealing with a lot of headache.
Austin T. 53:09
Yeah, I I learned that the hard way, a little bit. I was just planning on manually keeping this spreadsheet. And then I woke up the day after announcement, and I was like, that's not going to work, is it? And that's when I looked into Zapier, which has been wonderful, and it was not difficult to set up, but I probably would have done that from the start if I if I knew how popular it was going to get.
Collin 53:34
And then I really like how you also mentioned continuing to foster that relationship. Don't just let it be a set it and forget it. Thing. Have those check ins with the manager, with the staff, with the people there. See what's working, see what's not working, see what you can improve. See if there's an area of specialty that they are needing to go in that maybe you can or cannot provide. Because if all of a sudden they're like, Oh yeah, actually, we really want you guys to start handling these bite risk dogs, and you're like, Ah, wait a minute. Let's rethink some of these things. Like you having that open communication and dialog is going to benefit everybody, because we want to see those dogs have success, and you want to make sure that your staff and yourself are okay and that you're set up for
Austin T. 54:13
success too, exactly. And having that open dialog also allowed us to get more insight into areas that they were struggling with, we came to find out that they were having trouble finding adopters, in part because there were people whose lifestyles weren't conducive to bringing on a dog because they didn't have someone for that midday care. They lived by themselves and didn't think they'd be able to do it all. So we ended up implementing a specific partnership with them to offer discounts for the first three months for any dog that gets adopted from their shelter. And the benefit of that too is we probably already walked that dog. So the dog probably already knows us. I We just launched that so I haven't, I can't really speak to the success of that yet. Haven't had any folks sign on as of yet, but I'm hoping that that helps the shelter to address that immediate pain point that these potential adopters have. Oh, here is this business that can assist you with that midday potty break while you're at work. And good news for you is they're offering discounts to our alumni, yeah, because
Collin 55:31
a lot of people think, oh, it's not for me, because my I'm too my life is too complicated. And we're already trying to tell people, no, your life isn't too complicated. We can help you with that, right? That's exactly what we do and going but this is a perfect fit for that again. Now you're helping each other, and it just it does become that true partnership of the shelter wants to see that dog succeed in that person's home and see that them not return. And here's another way that we can do that, yeah,
Austin T. 55:58
and we also partner very closely with a few different trainers, one of which has a very similar program. They offer discounts to help rescues get adopted for the first several months after they leave the shelter. So we can always put people in touch with those kinds of resources as well, just beyond what our company can do, one thing I forgot to mention is, if you were looking to do something like this, you'd have more luck reaching out to a city or county funded shelter. Those more like privately funded ones may be more difficult to get in touch with, may have more barriers to entry.
Collin 56:35
I love that Austin that is super cool, and I really appreciate you taking time out of your busy day to come on and share and talk to us about this program and get people excited about this, about helping our community is giving back in a way, making sure that is sustainable and does work for everybody else. I know there's, again, there's a whole lot more here, and I know you helps people specifically with this and give more advice and such. So if people are interested in following along with your work, or getting connected with you and asking specific questions about this. How best can they do
Austin T. 57:04
that? Sure. So again, we're tuckered out. Dog walking. Our website is tuckered out. Rva.com forward slash sponsorships, is where you can go to find more information about this program specifically, and you can follow us on Facebook and Instagram at tuckered out RVA, or you can email me directly, tuckered out rva@gmail.com
Collin 57:27
Perfect. Well, I will have those links on the website and in the show notes, so people can get connected right with you and go see those adorable photos of the dogs that you take out and see everything else you've got going on often. Thank you so much. I'm really, really thankful to finally have you on the show and have you share about this, this program that you've been working on, it's really cool. So thank you so much. Yeah,
Austin T. 57:49
thank you so much for having me. This
Collin 57:50
has been great. My biggest takeaway from my conversation with Austin was when she discussed the three benefits that she found from a program like this, there were benefits to their community, their staff and their brand, this program helps the community get pets adopted. It allows people to see something happening and take an effect on something that they think is important. And then Austin talked about the benefits to their staff, that they were connected, that they saw something that was bigger than themselves, that they wanted to be a part of, making their staff fall in love with the business all over again, and then yes, their brand, their brand, benefited from something like this because their company stood for something important that allow people to become attracted to it, see it as something worthwhile, worth promoting and worth being a part of. When we look to be involved in anything in our business, know that the impacts that it will have branch far beyond anything in the immediate term, and we should be thinking big picture. When we attach our name to something, or when we have an initiative that we're interested in getting out there. We'd love to hear your ideas and things that you are doing in your business that help your community and grow your brand. Shoot us an email at Pet Sitter confessional@gmail.com we want to thank today's sponsors, time to pet and the National Association of Professional pet sitters for making the show possible. And we really want to thank you for listening. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your week, and we'll be back again soon. You.
