Squeaks Mobile Dog Run...our new business!
Who wouldn’t want to work with dogs as a living? To be honest, it wasn’t on my mind until early February 2022. Over the previous year, there was much transition in our lives from Covid. My beautiful wife and I were planning to open a business near Woodinville, WA but with the economy and costs increasing we held off on starting up Big Apple Deli & Wine. I am originally from New York and miss my traditional New York Deli, but I also love wine and have worked in the industry for many moons. We had planned to find a location to rent in the area and bring some tradition NY deli to the area but held off as the economy changed.
I’m the numbers guy, Nicole is the dreamer and we’ve always spoke about multiple streams of income, but our jobs have gotten in the way, specifically mine over the past four to five years. I cannot tell you how many ideas Nicole has come to me with that I’ve said “NO” too for one reason or another, typically numbers related. Then one day in early February, maybe even late January, Nicole comes to me to show me a TikTok video. It was a video of a dog exercising on a treadmill in the back of a cargo van, Nicole says she wants to find this for our dogs to supplement to the exercise routines. She searches and searches for anyone doing this in our area (Western Washington) and she couldn’t find anyone. She asks me, “is this a business we can do?”
Could we have dreamed this, maybe, but over the next month and a half we dove deeper into the world of dog exercise and how to start our business. What our name would be? Where to get the treadmills? Can we find a van? Who we are and where we want to go? How do we give back in our community? There were many questions to answer but on March 16th, 2022, we made our decision to commit and start up Squeaks Mobile Dog Run.
Over my past employment history, I’ve worked for a few large companies, some mid-sized local companies, even worked for mom-and-pop operations and have had the privilege to own two small businesses but never a business that hired people to work regularly. My most recent “corporate” experience left me desiring something more, a business that seems to care for people, their employees more than the bottom line. I sought to find more of a work life balance, that quality of life we all should be seeking.
That’s our goal, to own a business that provides quality of life. Quality of life for us, for our clients, for their dogs, for our future employees and the community at large. We are creating a new business service that has never existed in our area and the way we see it, there is a circle of quality of life that we can start to provide. If we can help a dog be more relaxed, less stressed, less anxious simply through a unique form of exercise, that dog will have a more enriched life, a better quality of life from the mental and physical workout we can provide. This more enriched dog is now more relaxed providing a better quality of life for the family who is raising the dog. The family has a better quality of life which transitions to a better community quality of life and so on. This is the circle of quality of life from proper dog enrichment.
We want to provide a better quality of life for everyone and every dog that we encounter. We want to grow a business that provides its valuable employees with quality of life. Yes, profit is important to a business but to not share in that profit is also wrong. Today, people are struggling with basic necessities, minimum wage isn’t enough for anyone to really live on. If we can be successful, we will make sure that we share in our quality of life. Is there anyone who doesn’t want to work with dogs all day? Well there may be a few, but this change in our work life balance has us seeking to share these experiences with as many dogs and people as possible.
Squeaks Mobile Dog Run (www.squeaksmobiledogrun.com) is the first mobile dog gym in Washington State. We have two dog-powered treadmills in the back of our cargo van that can offer dog exercise for dogs from 10 to 70 pounds and from 20 to 150 pounds. There are NO MOTORS on our treadmills, the dogs do all the work. It is a complete mental and physical workout for your dog. All dogs go through learning at different rates, some dogs can pick up this workout in a few minutes, other dogs take several sessions. Our sessions are 30-minutes long and we are working with your dog to ensure their health and mental well-being the entire time.
We started Squeaks Mobile Dog Run to change our lives, community and benefit as many dogs and people as we can.
If you are interested in learning more, please visit us at www.squeaksmobiledogrun.com or give us a call at 425-WOOF-RUN (966-3786)
WOOF!
Seth & Nicole