About our Dog Walking Franchise
What does Friends for Pets do?
Friends for Pets is a pet care service company offering home based pet care services in local communities. Our services are all created to provide the pets in our care with the highest standard of welfare and include:-
- Dog Walking - Friends for Pets offers a 30 or 60 minute dog walking for clients.
- Puppy & Veteran dog care - If the dog is too young or too old to enjoy their walks fully, Friends for Pets can pop in and let the client’s dog out into the garden for a quick toilet break in the day. We sometimes feed and give medication to pets.
- Doggy Day care - This is where we will care for the dog in our home whilst the client is out in the day.
- Overnight boarding - The dog will be kept as part of the family in one of our pet carers homes. The service is a cage free alternative to kennels.
- Pet Visiting - we offer an in home pet care service where we visit the client’s home for as long as they require as many times a day as they require. This service includes feeding, watering, cleaning litter trays and cages and administering medication if required.
- Pet sitting - If the client would prefer a pet or dog sitter to visit their home for a few hours during the day, one of the pet carers can come and stay in the client’s home during the day.
- House sitting - One of the pet carers will stay in the client’s home either for 12 hours overnight or for 24 hours whilst the client is away.
- Small pet boarding - We are able to board small pets in one of our pet carer’s homes whilst the client is away.
Our Story
Friends for Pets was set up in the Cheddar area of Somerset in 2008 by Becca Wilson. Always wanting a career with animals, Becca completed an MSc in Animal Science specialising in Animal Behaviour & Welfare. As part of this course Becca worked on a collaborative project between Bristol University Veterinary School and a Working Equine Charity in Pakistan which included helping to train the vets and animal health workers in Pakistan and East Africa. With the political situation abroad changing, Becca took up a lecturing post at a local Further Education College teaching Students in Animal Care. At the same time Becca started doing some dog walking and pet sitting for a few people with the aim of having an animal-based job that fitted around her own pets and her lecturing. Through word of mouth and recommendations, word spread of the new business and soon the dog walking and pet sitting became a full time job. Friends for Pets was born!Within a couple of months of starting up, rapid growth of the company meant a couple of extra pairs of hands were needed to help with the need for our work (we still have some of these original pet carers helping us!). This growth continued until we had around 85 pet carers covering a large area of the South West. This was proving very difficult to manage from one central office and standards of service were slipping so it was decided to franchise the dog walking and pet sitting business so each area could be managed by a person local to the area who could keep the highest standards of pet care and allow a more controlled growth of the company. Each team has a small, long-standing team of pet carers that become extended members of our client’s families. Becca is exceptionally picky with who is awarded a dog walking pet franchise and only looks for pet-focused franchise owners who are driven by the same ethics and standards as herself making us stand apart from other pet franchise companies. A few years on and we have developed an Award-Winning team of expert managers and pet carers who offer the highest standard of Pet Care that we can to local communities.
Our Dog Walking Franchise
Why would you become part of a dog walking franchise company when you can just do it yourself?
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Our ethos and values
As Friends for Pets pet carers, animals in our care are treated with the upmost kindness and respect.
Our business thrives on exceptional customer service and we aim to provide a facility that our clients recommend to their family, friends and colleagues. Friends for Pets vision are:-
- To provide the highest standards of pet care by treating them as one of our own.
- To provide an excellent customer service to all of our clients.
- To be responsive to the needs of our clients.
- To improve the welfare of pet’s across the UK through our charity and governmental work.