We were lucky to catch up with Robert Morris recently and have shared our conversation below.

Robert, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

When I was born my family had a beautiful cocker spaniel. Some of my earliest memories are snuggling with Rusty. When he died when i was 8 I cried more than finding out Santa wasn’t real (when I was 25 years old!). My family surprised me by bringing me to my cousins and allowing me to pick from the litter of Brutus, Bruno, Barry… I chose Barry and renamed him Spike, not understanding that Spike would be a big dog. I thought I was being funny. I was grateful when my family got me a basic training book and it was the first time i’d really felt mesmerized by an endeavor. I trained Spike and we were best friends until his end when I was 22 and he passed away.

I spent several years in touring bands traveling the world. It was a lot of fun and when that ended I moved to LA. I tried my hand at a few jobs… PA on film sets, one day at Urban outfitters building the store walls and furniture. My roommate who got me that job cracked open a beer after the first day of work and told me in a rhetorical tone “you know you’re fired, right?”… Def the most demeaning but retrospectively hilarious conversations i’ve ever had. After that I was a bit humiliated and not only did I have a dislike of authority but also a fear of being humiliated again. I didn’t know what to do so I figured I’d go with what I loved. My simple obsession with dogs. I’d always gotten on the floor with every dog I met and even reached my hands through fences and had been bit on multiple occasions (no regrets).

I started hanging flyers, just like my band days, and soon people were calling me and questioning my credentials. I kept a growth mindset and looked at what other companies were doing that was good and bad and took the good and left the bad.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

YO! Dog is a daycare, boarding, hiking and walking company. We started as a walking company and soon clients began asking for daycare. During covid it really went that direction as a lot of people were home and needed their dog out of the house so they could work from home.

I’ve purposefully decided to grow my. business the way my old indie record label grew bands. Slow and steady. I understand that many in other industries want to grow as fast as they can but I’ve never shaken my hatred of letting people down. This has led me to a very consistent growth pattern and only a bunch of great reviews.

Our philosophy has been to be problem solving and helpful in anyway we can to our customers. We’ve decided to remain willing to send clients who we don’t make sense for to other great companies that do similar things. We understand that we aren’t the only show in town but we have core beliefs like “there are no bad dogs – but not all dogs can come here.” We aren’t trying to solve every problem but to make people. feel safe by knowing their dog will be around safe and “bulletproof” dogs. We aren’t trying to train dogs who could hurt someones dog because we can’t take the bumps in the road. We don’t believe all dogs should be around a bunch of dogs and there have been times where certain people have been sensitive. Those would be the 2 legit bad reviews we had… which we see as good reviews to everyone who will be sending their dog to us. We put safety over profit and the drama level is low… just how we like it!

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

During 2020 I had just leveraged all my assets to buy a new property specifically for dog daycare and boarding. I was extremely house poor and then literally the next week covid lockdowns began. It was confusing and scary. I told my team to just “hang for two weeks” as we were instructed and “no one is losing their job”. Both of which are laughable in retrospect. I had changed over all my employees from contractor status one quarter too late to receive any PPP so I was basically at zero dollars and thank god my wife’s job kept going. If not for her, I wouldn’t have been able to keep things going for a month or two when i was completely shut down.

We followed all the protocols and I was able to bring back all the stars of my employees. In the end, it made us stronger as a company.

I spent this time sweating and bleeding as I cleaned up the new disgusting property I had bought and turned it into the most beautiful dog daycare in LA. At the time, I couldn’t see light at the end of the tunnel as I’m sure most people were becoming disillusioned as things dragged on without clear answers or an end sight. I just put one foot in front of the other. I became a better carpenter, learned how to work with artists and artisans and learned more about design concepts and what the dogs wanted in a place to hang. In the end, I think I got to a beautiful spot earlier because it was the only thing keeping the depression away.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

When I was in a band in my early 20s my entire life was planned for me. There was chocolate and wine waiting when I got off stage. A hotel was booked. The bus was waiting for me. People lined up to meet me and have me sign their stuff. It was really interesting. When it ended I didn’t know how to be an employee and as I had mentioned I wasn’t a great employee in my early 20s so I got treated as such. The point is, I was very afraid of being bossed and mistreated and I’ve always kept that near and dear to my heart. I make sure I’m cheerleading and catching the team when they’re doing a great job. I let them know that no one is perfect and mistakes happen but try my best to continually improve systems so there are guard rails and mistakes happen less and less. I feel proud that the team knows that I see them in a positive light and they can come to me when something isn’t right. I am very conscious of the dynamic of employer and employee and while I expect great things, I understand it’s my responsibility to set the team up for success. If they don’t know something, it’s my fault for not making sure they were prepared. The big moral I guess is that as the leader you are ultimately responsible for EVERYTHING. Don’t blame other people.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.yodogwalker.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/yodogwalker
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/yo-dog-walker-los-angeles?sort_by=date_desc

Image Credits

I took all photos