With her catering business shut down for the winter, stay-at-home mom Crystal Van De Pol turned to the animal world for a financial boost.
A born animal lover who grew up in Allen, Neb., around every kind of animal imaginable, from ferrets to horses, she saw it as a fun way to supplement the family income.
Dog walking, as evidenced by the success of some West Coast walkers intrigued her. She loves dogs, so last fall she decided to go all out with Ultimate Dog & Pet Care, a home-based business that will keep her from having to get a fulltime job, yet continue to provide the income lost every winter when the catering dough dried up.
Or so she hopes. In a tough economy, she found the going a little, uh, tough at first.
She even set up a Web site, though found that most of her contacts come from a classified ad in the Sioux City Journal.
She read about a San Francisco entrepreneur who was making $1,500 a week walking dogs, but she quickly learned that the need for dog walkers in the Sioux City area wasn’t that big.
“But you still get people that want their dogs shampooed and combed out. It’s another time-consuming job people don’t want to do, the brushing out, especially if you have dogs that don’t get that on a regular basis,” Van De Pol said.
So she decided to diversify, doing dog and pet bathing, a pet taxi service, dog sitting and even boarding dogs, one at a time at her home. “Actually, I found I do more boarding and more letting animals out for bathroom breaks and whatnot,” she said. “I haven’t really had anybody ask me for the walking part yet.”
Screenshot from Ultimate Dog & Pet Care