Pets stay while way

Pets & Animals Pets & Animals: Chat / Discussions
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As most on here know and for those relatively new My wife and I owned a large boarding kennel and cattery (licenced for 119 dogs and 42 cats) in the west midlands of the UK. We built up the business from virtually nothing, to highly successful and profitable one .We retired 10 or11 years ago having owned the business for about 25 years. This evening I thought I would take a peak at the reviews under the new owner. That bought back a lot of memories. Clients that liked and those who did not like . Same old complaints about opening times -bringing in pets toys- etc . there are a few new ones we never got but won’t mention on here.
I well remember the struggle we had when we purchased the business. First 7 years was touch and go if we made it or not, and all the long long hours that went into it
was it worth the effort? yes having taken over with only 350 clients on the books to approx 3,500+ when we sold.
This was a complete change of direction work wise ,from being a British telephone engineer (work on switchboards) in the south of the UK to the Midlands and a boarding establishment owner. One hell of a risk, all or nothing so it had to work. selling the house to a new to us one the the kennels in to grounds.
even the front wall was just crumbing brickwork that could be easily pushed over

to a brand new one

just small fraction of what was needed, as well as kennel; bars rusting away to new mesh ones fitted

Just one of the kennel blocks

and from rough concrete floor to tiles

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That sounds like a tremendous amount of work .

Do you miss it regret retiring / selling it and what made you go from " safe " 9 to 5 sort of speak to such risky work as far as so many living animals ?

Any type dogs you would not take ?

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Not compsavvy
thank for your questions.
to answer the first one. yes and no to regretting selling it. having been under a lot of pressure working for BT, I was getting stress out so much I was being physically sick on the way home after work with a hell of a megrain. Something had to give, and the answer was a job change and dogs have been our life since we got married back in 1972. That is another story. Hence boarding animals.
Working for oneself my heath slowely improved over several months and finally no stress other than we put on ourselves. Before bosses were asking for more and more and cutting down job times.
Here in the UK here is the dangerous dogs act specifying certain breeds, and those we would not touch

99.9% we boarded were ok ,I can think of only a handfull we had issues with when we had to c all the owners contact to collect

the cattery (shown fully booked with owners cat boxes )

futher half replaced to match the rest. New roof to cattery. Complete rewire for power to each cat pen as they all had heated beds. Added alarms everywhere kennels and cattery as well as CCTV . had to rewire the kennels as well for same reason
Even laid the turf infront of the cattery as it was just rubble before. Not fogetting fire precautions and safety fire certs to comply with regs

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Your kennel looked great and give you credit for going on your own doing what you wanted as few do , takes courage , risk taker . I think regulations in kennels are higher in the UK then here .

A friend who was a cook for an old place in Bayside , NY called First Edition went to Pharmacy school while working there , he became a Pharmacist but loves to cook .

Retired at 67 and thus the food truck , He bought a food truck so a retired Pharmacist , retired Plumber and retired school custodian we head on out 3 nights a week , lol but that is easy as you took the risk before retiring .

I was never on my own I worked for a place that sent me to hotels , Motels , Restaurants , businesses to do plumbing jobs .

My passion are fish and thought perhaps one day an exotic fish pet store but here the competition is fierce and in Albany my old haunts no market for it .

I know there is dangerous dogs law by you but thought they still had some dangerous breeds or ignored .

Boarding cats I would have never thought of I imagine the dogs were the main boarders ?

Was it difficult to find reliable employees since working with live animals ?

Truth is I would have thought more headaches with a kennel then working ‘’ for the man ‘’ as we say here in the states .

Big fan of the English Bull Terrier but think that breed now classified under dangerous dogs but as you know they are not .

I had m /f Alapaha bulldogs in the 80s / 90s as had a huge fenced in yard in Albany , they were inside dogs but nice to let them run in yard when they wanted and no need to walk them , lol yard was big enough .

Here I have taken care of a " neighbors " French Mastiff which if not in classified as dangerous dog in UK you know very intelligent breed .

A mastiff as intelligent as a working breed .

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We only had a manageress who came with the kennels :icon_rolleyes:. She taught us all we needed to know and remained until we sold up. Then the new owners kept her on. She passed away about 3/4 years ago.

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