Stay at Home Paws MN LLC

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Stay At Home Paws - My Story

When I decided to become a Veterinary Technician in 1990, I was told that there were many different career options for me. Not only private practice, but emergency work, research, specialization, equine and other large animal also. Upon graduating in 1992 and passing my national and state certification exams, I officially became a Certified Veterinary Technician. Since then, I have worked in several veterinary hospitals, all in the Twin Cities and surrounding areas. I have worked with horses, cows, goats, dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, guinea pigs, and hamsters in a clinical setting. I also worked one year in emergency veterinary medicine during which I learned a lot!

During my very first full time, paid vet tech position, I was chatting with a client about their dogs. They had about 15 champion show English Springer Spaniels. They traveled all over the country doing dog shows and were sometimes away from home for weeks at a time. The dogs that were not showing, in heat or pregnant had to stay home. They were telling me how stressful boarding was for the dogs and how they wished they had someone that could be a “stay at home dog caretaker”. Although I knew absolutely nothing about pet sitting or boarding or doing anything at all, really, with 15 show dogs at a time, I offered to help. I’m sure they got their money’s worth. Oh, more accurately, they got a heck of a deal. I can guarantee that they liked my naivete because, let’s just say that I think it would have qualified as “less than minimum wage”.

Plus, I’m not going to lie, it was a horrible experience! The dogs were beautiful and well behaved, but I had not anticipated the amount of work that it took to properly care for that many dogs. And most, importantly, the need to keep them all separated because they had both intact males and females. That was fun. Oh, did I mention I got the flu that week? Yep, the kind where there is no way you are traveling further than a couple of rooms from the bathroom, and you really have no idea if you are hot or cold, and you can’t tell where exactly it hurts because it pretty much hurts everywhere, and you don’t really even know what planet you are on? I’m pretty sure I did not sleep at all that weekend. Mainly because I couldn’t breathe. I often wonder why, with that first experience, I ever wanted to do it again??

Well, the longer I continued in the animal care business as a Vet Tech, the more I realized that the human-animal bond is something pretty amazing. People don’t always want to leave their pets behind when they travel, but for the most part they do not have a choice. What they do have a choice about, however, is where their pet spends his/her vacation. Now remember, this was in the early-mid 90’s. Most boarding facilities lacked a certain “homey feeling”. If the animals were not in stainless steel kennels, they might be in slightly larger runs. They didn’t have comfy suites back then and their interaction with humans was likely limited to twice daily potty breaks and a bowl of food given to them once or twice a day, which incidentally might not even be their regular diet. There were very few places that even allowed any contact between the animals. Dogs, especially, are social animals and I could see how they could become depressed in a relatively short period of time. That was not something that I wanted to see. It made me sad. So even though my one experience up to that point was less than ideal, I could not deny that when I was there, those dogs were happy. They didn’t have to leave home! They had their best buddies, their best beds, their best couches and toys and chairs and carpets and fireplaces and food / water bowls. And yards! Did I mention they got to play in their own yard? Where their family knew they would be safe and comfortable? Yep, they scored.

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