We were lucky to catch up with Monica Miles recently and have shared our conversation below.

Monica, appreciate you joining us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

I owned a childcare center before Backyard Dog Care. When the idea of Backyard came up I was was ready for a new adventure. My son, Brandon, came to me and my husband with an idea to open a Dog Care center. He had a Labrador/Retriever who was in daycare quite often and Brandon was frustrated with the quality he was getting. Brandon had a business plan written but couldn’t get the funding for it. When Dan and I looked at his business plan we thought it was a great idea!
Once we got the Corporation set up with the three of us we then started looking for a place to build and start the business.
I found a location that was just an empty lot ready for construction. Once we got the location confirmed things started moving quickly. I talked to banks for funding, contractors for building, businesses with dog kennels and supplies – it was quite the project lining up all the different pieces to work together to make it happen.
Things were going very smoothly at first. We wanted to open in Fall of 2019 but the building wasn’t ready yet so it got pushed back into 2020. Then Covid-19 happened. We lost our current funding and banks wouldn’t loan us money since we weren’t an essential business so we ended up using personal funds and loans to get it finished. Also it was very helpful that our landlord worked with us on financing so we could get the final pieces of construction finished.
We finalized building and constructing in August 2020 – official opening day was September 9, 2020!

Monica, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

A little bit about me personally – I was raised in Utah, the oldest of 8 children. I grew up watching my whole family work hard and I continue that work ethic in my daily life. I am married – Dan is a major reason our business does as well as it does as he handles all the finances. We have 3 grown children, 3 grandkids and between us all 6 dogs! Brandon is our second son and he works with us at Backyard and is amazing at working with dogs and making sure our high quality standards are kept each day. My area of expertise in the business is point of service and employee quality.
As I said earlier, Brandon is the one who came to me and Dan about starting a dog care business. The idea of Backyard Dog Care & Boarding, Inc started in the beginning of 2019 and it took until September of 2020 to finally get our doors opened. We were still building in the height of COVID-19 which pushed us back almost 8 months and when we opened people weren’t traveling so it was a very slow start. We have worked very hard to get our name out to the community and are very pleased with where we are so far – and very excited for the future of Backyard Dog Care.
One of the most exciting things we offer at Backyard Dog Care is a home away from home experience for dogs. We often say if you can’t be at home, come play in our Backyard! Dogs can play inside and outside and they get to run around all day long in our 7000+ sf facility. They get the comfort of home at night with their belongings or some soft blankets or beds from us. We treat each dog that comes and plays/stays with us just like they are our own dog. We love sending pictures and updates to their owners and who gets to play with dogs all day long? (WE DO!)
Our biggest priority is the health and safety of every dog who comes to play with us, as well as the health and safety of our staff. Cleanliness is an important component at our facility. Every time a person walks through the doors we want it to look clean and organized and smell clean and fresh. This is our standard for the entire building. Every one of our staff takes this seriously and is very good at keeping the facility clean. They also are amazing at providing an inviting, safe and fun environment for all the dogs.
We love that we can give back! We have partnered with a couple different organizations who help out our homeless pups. These pups have been rescued from the streets, euthanasia lists at shelters, puppy mills and various other horrible conditions. We get to donate our facility, our food, our time and our love to these pups overnight. While at Backyard Dog Care we give them food, lots of love and a safe and clean place to rest for the evening or a couple days until they continue their journey to their forever homes. We had a donation drive this past Christmas and because of the generosity of our clients we get to send a blanket with each of these pups to keep with them on their travels. This helps reduce their anxiety to have something that smells like home to them. We fall in love with each pup that comes through our doors.
This year we are adding a few new items to our services and we are so excited to offer even more great things to our pups and their owners. We are expanding our grooming services to include full cuts, nail trims and whatever our dogs need to look their best. We have custom bandanas each one goes home with so they are ready for their portraits!
We are also adding some solo play and small group play sessions so the pups can have elevated human interaction and play with their fellow packmates.
And lastly we are adding some custom-made dog treats! These are exclusively made for Backyard Dog Care and the dogs have approved every offering so far! We will vary the type and flavors each month.
All of this can be seen on our website – so check it out and let me know if there is anything else you would like to see at Backyard!

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

Like I said earlier, we opened during COVID-19. Banks were loaning money to essential businesses only and we are considered a luxury business. Our initial loans that we had coming were eventually denied. We ended up refinancing our home, taking out a line of credit against our other business and using up all our savings to get Backyard Dog Care built. We opened 10 months later than we originally planned as construction was delayed which made it even scarier money-wise.
We have an amazing landlord who let us pay whatever rent we could afford until we could pay it all (of course, we had to pay it all back but that was very generous!). We had a great marketing company who specialized in getting your business known on social media and that was helpful. So while we started out with 1-5 dogs a day we slowly gained a presence and word of mouth helped us grow.
We keep a very close eye on the bottom line and we were losing money every month. Since we were only able to borrow what it cost to build the building we didn’t have any extra working capital to help with the slow start we knew we’d have. About 6 months into the business we were now personally funding payroll and anything extra that was needed. We came to the conclusion that if we didn’t start breaking even within the next 6 months that we were going to have to close down.
Closing the business was not an option so we had to figure out some low-cost/high-yield ideas to bring more business in. We started putting fliers out everywhere we could, we asked apartment complexes if we could put them on their doors, handed them out when we were at the store to strangers, started a social media campaign that you got discounted services when you shared our content. What a great feeling when at month 5 (of 6) we finally broke even! Then at our deadline date we actually made a profit – it was $100! We were so excited.
Since then we still have better months than others but after 6 years in business we know when it will be slower and when we can expect the crowds.
Keeping an eye on all the money that is coming in and going out is one of the most important things to help keep any business going. We still set goals for income, expenses, quality, employee incentives and everything else that helps us be successful.

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

We have worked so hard to get a great reputation within the community. We absolutely love what we do! We show that enthusiasm when we greet each dog by name. We forget the owners’ names sometimes but they know we know their pup and that’s what matters. We are honest with our customers. We tell them exactly how their pup’s visit was – did they play, did they rest, did they eat – we will call them when we have concerns about their health or behavior, we send them pictures when they ask and even surprise them with pictures sometimes just because we caught something so fun!
Our customers appreciate how we keep our facility clean and organized. They know we do everything we can to keep their dog happy, safe and healthy. We keep our costs affordable. We include things that other places charge for in our basic price. We are transparent with our pricing, what we offer and also where our boundaries are. We specialize in dogs and their care – we know what we are doing and that shows.
It is very gratifying to hear when a new customer comes in that another customer has referred them to us! That is our best and favorite advertising method. We are confident with what we have and what we offer but we are also humble enough to know that there is always room to learn and grow. We will always keep learning and growing so we can keep offering the best services to our pups.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.BackyardDogcare.com
• Instagram: @backyard.dogcare

Image Credits

Picture of Brandon & Monica – Kenzie Fisher
all other pictures Dan, Monica & Brandon Miles