Page 9 - BusinessWest December 21, 2020

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things get better.
“We’re combining our resources to get through the winter,” she
explained. “And we’ve been very fortunate that a number of cus- tomers have decided to make the 15-minute journey across the bridge to bring their dogs here to the farm.”
That farm, all 30 acres of it, like the Hadley setting, is described by Pratt as a one-stop shop for dogs and their owners, offering everything from boarding to grooming; from day care to retail sales of food and other pet supplies; from walking to training. But because there’s less of all that, there’s now even more that people could do during one stop — or a few.
Indeed, Pratt is making the most of the indoor and outdoor spaces at the farm, and now offering new services ranging from horse boarding to riding lessons, to animals (such as several goats that arrived recently) that children and families can visit with.
“There’s a lot of things going on here that families can take part in,” said Tracey Faulstick, a business consultant working with Pratt to revise the Wagging Tails business plan. “There’s farm animals
... there’s a lot that families can participate in in terms of train-
ing, horse lessons, and more. There’s an entire community here that’s dedicated to taking care of animals and people in a very safe environment.”
Creation of this community is a classic case of pivoting, mak- ing do, and trying to earn a living and keep people employed until things get better — a business survival plan, if you will. It’s also another case — among a great many in this region — of a com- pany doing very well and expanding its operations ... until the word COVID became part of our lives.
Indeed, as dogs barked parked consistently — and loudly — in the boarding area, Pratt recounted how and why she amended her
“Going into March, we were overbooked in Hadley ... by March 15, we had one dog left, who actually went home with me at night. I called the owner and said, ‘your dog is the only one here; do you mind if I take him home?’ They said, ‘no, please do.’”
business plan more than a year ago and put some ambitious expan- sion plans on the table.
“Hadley was full at the time ... we had a waiting list,” she noted, adding that, essentially, all aspects of the business were booming, from the grooming to the training to the boarding and day care. But COVID-19 changed things in a hurry.
“Going into March, we were overbooked in Hadley ... by March 15, we had one dog left, who actually went home with me at night,” she recalled. “I called the owner and said, ‘your dog is the only one here; do you mind if I take him home?’ They said, ‘no, please do.’”
But that was just the start. Indeed, restrictions imposed by the governor essentially shut down the grooming and training opera- tions, two reliable revenue sources, for two months. Meanwhile, as noted, few people were traveling anywhere, for work or pleasure, putting a deep dent in the boarding side of the venture.
Some aspects of this business have returned to one extent or another — grooming and training, for example — and the day-care side has bounced back somewhat, as some dog owners realize the value of that service, even if they are home working all day. Pratt is hoping more people get that message.
“Dogs still need to socialize,” she explained. “Even if people are home working and with their dogs, they should still bring them to day care occasionally, to keep them socialized and keep them from getting separation anxiety; it’s better for the dogs. We were see-
ing, with people who hadn’t been here for weeks, that when they brought the dog back to day care, the dog was so happy, so excited, and so energetic that they lost most of their socialization skills — so we had to reteach them.”
This reteaching is just part of the COVID story at Wagging Tails, an intriguing saga that, like many in this region, involves imagina- tion, perseverance, and entrepreneurial spirit, all of which are need- ed to get to other side of this pandemic. u
George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]
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