Florida pet sitting, dog walking business gets creative to stay open during pandemic

Amanda George and Lalka Morales have been building SoHo Hound, their pet-sitting and dog-walking business in Tampa, since 2013.

But then the pandemic hit last year and they lost about 90% of their clients: they used to walk about 75 dogs a day and then it dropped as low as five dogs daily.

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George told FOX Business: “To keep the business open last year we had to cut all 15 of our staff and ran the business on our own for the summer until we had enough business again to re-hire. It was something we never thought we would have to do and was a very difficult decision. Although it was hard work and 24/7, we were so happy to have any business at all.”

The women got creative to ensure their work would remain open for business.

“When people return from work or a vacation, our goal is for their pet to feel as though they never left," George said. "We offer the love and care that all pet owners would want for their most precious family members. A service that became very popular during the pandemic is our transportation service. We provide transportation to the vet, groomer, boarder, and daycare. Many people working from home now that can’t give their dog all of the attention they need during the day send them to daycare. Some clients are too busy to drive them there so we come to the rescue!"

Hope kept them going through the rough patches – as did the community that they had built before the pandemic.

George said: “Sure enough, our loyal clients starting coming back and we also started getting new clients because of the amount of people moving here from all over the country as well as essential workers who were working around the clock. Now we are back up to 10 staff and growing.”

The pandemic had its upside as the team could plan ahead for new directions such as advocating for rescue pets via the local shelters.

“Having to build up our team from scratch again we were able to start anew with fresh ideas and a clearer picture of what we wanted our company to look like and stand for," the business owner said. "Before the pandemic we were so busy and this has given us a chance to build new procedures and come up with new and easier ways to serve our clients.”

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Their clients had become family, eager to help out the pet care industry in Florida.

George said, “We are so thankful to our clients who stuck with us, encouraged us, and kept us walking their dogs even if they didn’t really need us as they were working from home. They just wanted to make sure that we would be around still when things got better."