We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Laura Ryan. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Laura below.

Alright, Laura thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

Pup Patrol Walkers has always been the story about passion which is like many other successful businesses. We are a family owned business mainly myself, Laura and my husband, Tom. But, so many of our family members have chipped in and that is a huge part of our growth. When we decided that we wanted to “walk dogs for a living”, it was literally just a leash, lots of puppy love and long walks. One walk per day, turned into 8 walks per day and then 3 walkers-walking 8 dogs per day and so on. Our oldest son, Viktor is also an entrepreneur. Viktor helped us with our marketing while he was growing his “4 Walls Marketing” company. He slowly taught us that we are in a delicate volume business, meaning that we can only grow our business with the right people and that is what we found. We built an amazing team at our Worcester, MA location that allowed us to continue operating in MA and still move to Orlando, FL to start Pup Patrol Walkers 2. We just launched our 3rd location in Maryland, thanks to our former MA star, Sarah. Sarah is now the proud Director of the Maryland location as we guide her through the ups and downs of the growth process.

All 3 teams are growing! It hasn’t always been easy though. Our biggest hiccup, like many businesses was, “who needs their dogs walked when they’re not leaving their houses?” Covid was a big anchor hanging off a cruise ship on it’s way to destiny. Fortunately, we were not the titanic. With creative marketing and critical thinking, we made ourselves available to the most essential workers; First Responders, Nurses and Doctors. Their jobs didn’t stop and neither did ours. We grew out “overnights business” and slept on a lot of couches while others sacrificed for our country. Overnights have always been a big source of revenue for us but the first 12-18 months of doing it during the virus, was surreal.

Our team’s have always focused on teamwork, creativity and communication. We truly love what we do and all of our Pup Patrol Family. We’ve trained puppies and we’ve lost some to doggy heaven. We’ve loved them all like they’re own pups and that’s why we continue to grow.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Pup Patrol was started after my husband, Tom had a major neck surgery and could no longer work for the company he worked with for almost 25 years. We knew that we weren’t business savvy, that’s our son, Viktor. But we knew that we loved our two dogs and knew that there was a demand for dog care. We had two very active dogs and always had trouble finding the right people to care for our dogs.
We currently offer Dog walks, doggie visits, overnight care and many other pet care services for almost any type of pet. Dog walks and overnights are a majority of our business.

Our business has mostly grown through word of mouth networking and some social media marketing. We attend different fairs and festivals and love working with local print companies. We credit our growth to extremely loyal clients and a great Pup Patrol Family. We couldn’t have three locations if it wasn’t for the great team that we have.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Consistency and passion. Our team has been with us for a long long time. We always show up for our clients. We’re all a family.

Have you ever had to pivot?

During the pandemic I was like so many others at a cross road, my location in Massachusetts fortunately had many clients who were essential employees however Florida was moving/growing extremely slowly. I took this time to begin chasing another dream and became a travel agent. I feel the 2 industries go hand in hand in many ways I’ve spun my pet care into being a “traveling pet nanny” my niche with this is when booking vacations for families with pets they can get all their vacation needs met with 1 person. I’ve definitely opened my mind to being more flexible in the needs of humans and their pets and do all I can to assist.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.puppatrolwalkers.net/
• Instagram: PupPatrolWalkers
• Facebook: PupPatrolWalkers
• Other: TikTok: travelplanner77