Hey! This is Laura, small business owner of Patter of Paws (PoP), based in West Oxfordshire. I’m now in my third year of running my successful dog walking and wedding chaperone business. I love what I do day-to-day but I also love to write, and so, here is the first chapter of my blog.
It’s taken a while to get to this stage. I certainly do not expect it to be award-winning, nonetheless I hope I will be able to give you an insight into how and why I do what I do. It matters not whether you are a client of PoP, a friend, a family member, a business owner or even a follower from one of my social media platforms , I wish to share how I got where I am today.
I will also be aiming to give general advice on some of PoP’s services, plus some other areas when it comes to dogs that I feel I can write easily about. All will be based on my experience so far!
So, let’s go back to the start, and find out a little more about me.
From a young age, all I have ever remembered is being around dogs and having them as part of our family. My Dad, since being in his mid twenties has had a dog by his side. Initially it was a Springer Spaniel. Then, in the last 25 years he changed to the calmer breed of Labradors (he says for the sake of his mental health, hehe.) He has over 45 years experience in training gundogs. No internet then so he learnt from books on how to train and a good dose of trial and error. His love of working with his dogs pre-dates my arrival back in 1984.
Not meaning to be biassed, but my Dad is extremely good at what he does, and will no doubt continue to do so for many more years to come. He currently works his dogs in Scotland on one of the world’s top shooting estates! I will chat even more about what I have learned, and will continue to learn from my Dad – it is worth a whole chapter, or two, in itself.
Before PoP was born I worked in marketing. I fell into it when I was in my early twenties off the back of working in an estate agency and creating property details for prospective buyers, newspaper and online advertising. From there, I worked in academic marketing alongside studying for a Certificate in Marketing. I then worked in B2B, B2C and finally in SaaS. Later on in my career I realised that I loved client retention marketing, so working with clients, partners and internal teams to manage events (I used to call them my ‘work weddings’), case studies, support material, plus so much more. It blows my mind thinking about how broad my roles were and just how much I covered. I loved it and thrived on it. Although I was painfully shy as a kid growing up, I loved being out and about, meeting and working alongside people. But then the March 2020 pandemic arrived and like so many other people, things changed for me and my mindset.
At the time, “Spencer”, my Dachshund was nearly 3 years old and he LOVED me being at home. It was heaven for him; working away at my desk he occasionally sat on my lap for Zoom calls or popped out into the garden to catch some rays whilst I was slogging it out creating a client webinar. What I did not know or realise was just how much Spencer was relying on me for company. Since he was a pup, he was sociable and loved meeting new people, dogs and getting out. Obviously all that changed when the lockdowns came into force. I did not realise until I started to head out more the behavioural effect this had on him. One day, a neighbour had mentioned Spencer was barking when I was away from the house. I felt sick being told this and suddenly panicked. Spencer had hardly ever barked or grumbled when I left him for short amounts of time prior to lockdown. He would get a walk in the morning before I headed into the office and then another when I came home at lunch. The thought of him howling and barking away just made me feel uneasy and the guilt really kicked in. (I will chat more about how I re-trained Spencer in another chapter, but it was absolutely not a ‘quick fix’ getting him happy in his own company again.)
In the Autumn of 2020 I remember sitting at my desk at home and no longer feeling any love for my career. I thought I would do it for so many more years to come. Yes, things were starting to ease off with regards to being able to get out of the house, walk Spencer, socialise with friends and start to live a ‘normal’ life again. However, that was not enough for me… I wanted something else. I wanted to just be outside in the fresh air and be with Spencer (along with some new pals for him). I also no longer wanted someone else pocketing so many hours, months and years of my hard work. And so, I had discussions with a handful of my nearest and dearest, getting their thoughts (some of which I am sure was utter disbelief). I handed in my 4 week notice and set out to start up my own dog walking business. I wanted it to be one that my own dog would love, being part of.
Patter of Paws 