Other Programs for Puppies

This month we’re talking about ways to help get puppies in your pet care center get started off on the right paw.  The Dog Gurus are not fans of having puppies under 4 months of age attend a regular day of daycare.  Instead, provide a better service to your pet parents by offering special programs tailored for puppies!

Your monthly bonus this month was a Puppy Socialization Package which gave you everything you needed to create a special program for puppies under 4 months of age.

Now, in this post we want to give you some other ideas on how to keep puppies safe and continue to generate more revenue for your business.  These ideas can all be done for a fee that you ask your clients to pay, or you can offer them for free if you have a strategic plan for using them to generate more business at your facility.  Track the business you get to be sure that it’s worth your time though.  If you aren’t generating new business then be sure to tweak the program to make sure you are turning your attendees into regular customers.

• Puppy head start programs – You know all those questions new owners ask about their puppy? Create a class or online webinar to answer them!  This is a great way to provide helpful tips to get a puppy started off on the right paw and set yourself up as the dog expert in your community.  This can bring in new clients if you create a sales pitch at the end and provide an incentive to get the puppy to your facility for puppy socialization.
• Socialization classes – Create a socialization class that the owners can attend with their dogs. This is another great way to offer a free or low price class to get pet parents to visit your facility. Then use it as a way to invite them to try your other services.
• Housetraining program – If you have young puppies at your facility, you can help with their housetraining program by putting them on a potty schedule and taking them out more frequently. Create this as an additional service to help any pet parent who is still working to housetrain their puppy at home.
• AKC Star Puppy – Use the AKC Star Puppy program to offer a class for puppies. If you have an evaluator you can also offer the test for this program. For information on this program visit this link.
• Just for fun classes – get paid to play with puppies by offering fun classes that teach the puppies to use FitPaws equipment, agility equipment, or other obstacles. If you have a trainer on staff you could also offer to teach fun tricks to the puppies. Not only will the clients love seeing their puppy develop their skills, the puppies will build their confidence through learning.

Be sure to partner with local veterinarians, rescue groups or breeders so they know about your puppy programs.  You can save them valuable time by offering to help educate the pet parent about new puppy questions.  Other pet professionals will feel comfortable referring to you if they know you are giving out valuable information to their clients.