We recently connected with Alice Jones and have shared our conversation below.
Alice, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What do you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry? Any stories or anecdotes that illustrate why this matters?
A lot of people think of dog daycare as a simple solution for when you need to leave your dog alone—a place to drop them off before work. In reality, daycare provides essential socialization, as well as physical and mental stimulation, helping your dog develop into a healthy, well-behaved, and happy dog.
For many dogs, energy can quickly build up, leading to boredom and undesirable behaviors at home. Whether it’s excessive barking, chewing furniture, or digging, these actions are often the result of a dog’s need for stimulation. By offering a safe, interactive environment, daycare allows your dog to release pent-up energy in a productive way. Instead of being left to entertain themselves, dogs can play and interact in a space designed to meet their needs. In addition to curbing boredom-related behavioral problems, frequent exercise is likely to improve joint and muscle strength, help with weight loss, and significantly increase your dog’s life expectancy.
But it’s not just about your pup’s day-to-day energy levels or physical health. Mental stimulation is equally important in the long run. Just like people, dogs benefit from variety and new experiences. Interacting with new dogs, people, and environments helps fight off anxiety, depression, and even cognitive decline as they age. Regular mental engagement ensures that your pup stays sharp and mentally healthy, helping prevent issues like separation anxiety or even poor sleeping and eating habits.
One of the key benefits of daycare is socialization. Dogs are naturally social creatures, and it’s crucial they have opportunities to interact with others. Daycare helps build their confidence around other dogs and teaches appropriate social behaviors. Without regular socialization, dogs can become anxious, fearful, or even aggressive. Daycare can prevent these issues by encouraging positive behaviors and good social skills, allowing you to trust your dog at the park or with your friends’ dogs.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Dakota and Friends Dog Services is local Dog daycare that offers an exciting and loving environment waiting for your canine friends! We provide beautiful and safe indoor-outdoor play areas with plenty of space to socialize and get energy out.
Previously known as “Dog Buddies,” this beloved dog daycare facility was a struggling business, failing to make ends meet and sadly had to close down. Thanks to a Customer who couldn’t bear to let her pup lose the place, she decided to open up her very own daycare in the same (but newly improved) location, with the same great staff she loved!
At Dakota and Friends, we take pride in offering a more personalized and attentive experience for your beloved pup. Unlike high-volume daycares, where dogs are often split into large groups and shuffled in and out of kennels, our smaller packs allow each dog to get the attention they deserve. This means more one-on-one time with our team, allowing us to get to know your dog’s unique personality, preferences, and needs.
A smaller group setting means a less crowded environment where the dogs have more room and freedom to have fun. Our spacious playroom and yard serve as a more relaxed atmosphere where dogs can bond and play without the stress of being separated or crammed into overcrowded spaces.
Beyond all the fun, our setting is ideal for safety, as well as fostering good behavior and socialization. In chaotic high-volume daycares, bad habits and behaviors can easily form and accidents are more likely to happen; but in our daycare, we have a large focus on training and encouraging good behaviors and discouraging the bad, which creates a safer and more controlled environment. We intervene quickly when needed, maintaining safety and helping your dog develop positive social skills. Here, there is less chaos, less stress, and more fun!
With a more exclusive, close-knit experience, each pup forms a real, personal relationship with our passionate team. We know all their names, we know their quirks, and we make it our mission to ensure they feel comfortable, safe, and happy during their time with us. This level of care, attention, and individualized focus is what sets us apart—we believe every dog deserves to feel special, be safe, and have fun in their own way.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
The best source of clients for us is actually word of mouth. Most of our new clients have been referred to us by existing clients. We offer a free referral day to anyone who brings us a new customer to help incentivize bringing us new dogs. But mostly they do it because they are genuinely happy with our service and honestly recommend us to their friends, family, or just strangers at the dog park.
We have also seen a large increase in new clientele since completing our website. I think having a nice looking website that is easy to navigate, consistently updated, and provides all necessary information is very important for a business. We live in a technologically reliant society with a short attention span, so making things quick and easy for your potential clients is important. If you are starting up a new business, getting a website professionally built can be extremely expensive, we were quoted around $6000.00 for just a basic website. We ended up designing our own through Squarespace and it was much more cost efficient.
We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.
We have the privilege of seeing most of our clients on a daily basis when they drop off and pick up their dogs from daycare. It is extremely important to us to make every interaction a positive one, and to develop a strong rapport with all of our clients. We strive to have a constant and honest line of communication, and I think that’s what really sets us apart from other similar businesses in the industry.
Most businesses are built on customer service in one way or another, so the way your business is represented in those situations is very important. I have worked in a variety of customer service jobs for the better part of 10 years, and if I could take away one valuable lesson from that experience – it would be to just be honest, people appreciate honesty, whether its bad news or good news. And from the perspective of a customer, I usually know when someone is being dishonest with me, and it is something I always remember about that business, which is not a good association to have, and odds are, I will not return to that business.
Having an honest and open dialog with our clients, really helps foster a strong and trusting relationship. And in a dog daycare, trust is the most important thing. To most people – their dogs are a member of their family and they need to have complete trust in who they leave them with. Without this level of trust, there’s no hope in having loyal clients or a successful business.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.dakotaandfriends.com
- Instagram: @dakotaandfriendsdogservices
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Dakota-and-Friends-Dog-Services/61564210574446/?mibextid=LQQJ4d
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dakota-and-friends-39795a339/
Image Credits
Alice Jones and Austin Safadi