Summary:
This episode features dog walker Mackenzie Hafen, owner of Sunfire Canines. She discusses how she got started as a dog walker, how Covid-19 has impacted her business, and some of her favorite apps for her business.
Topics on this episode:
How she got started and where Sunfire Canines came from
Her interest in dog behavior
How Covid-19 has impacted her community and business
What she thinks the rest of 2020 will look like and the future of her business
Some of her favorite resources
Main takeaway? The road ahead is still full of both opportunities and curveballs, but we will persist!
About our guest:
Hi, my name is Mackenzie and I'm a dog walker and pet sitter in Pittsburgh, PA. My business is called Sunfire Canines. I provide group dog walks, private walks around the neighborhood, daily visits and overnight care. Im proud to say that I have a background in dog training and behavior as well. This allows me to provide care for those that have had training already and need the consistency and for those who are in need of training or behavioral help.
Links:
Give us a call! (636) 364-8260
Check out our Covid-19 resources
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Subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, & TuneIn
Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com
A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
dog, walking, logo, clients, people, mackenzie, sunfire, pet, pet sitter, whatnot, area, dog walkers, canva, bit, started, canines, home, photos, leash, training
SPEAKERS
Collin, Mackenzie
00:17
I'm Collin and I'm Meghan. And this is pet sitter confessional,
00:20
an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter.
Collin 00:28
Well, hello and welcome back, everybody hope you've had a wonderful week. Mackenzie Hafen is owner of Sunfire canines pet sitting and dog walking company out of Pennsylvania. She joins us this week to discuss how COVID-19 has impacted her dog walking business, how she's been able to remain in contact with her clients and a little bit about her backstory and how she got started.
Mackenzie 00:49
So let's dive right in. Thanks for having me call and I'm super excited to be here. Like you said I own 10 fire canines. I am out of Pittsburgh, PA I serve as a small part of the suburb in Pittsburgh. I try to keep my route and all my clients in a small area just so I can maximize my clients then how I got into dogs. For me. I knew, like way back when I was 10 that I wanted to work with dogs. And a lot of people feel that you're kind of like, Oh, you like dogs? You like animals? You should be a vet, or a vet tech, like no, I don't like math. I don't like fine. I bought my first dog when I was 10. And she was an American Eskimo. I took her to a training class, and they did this exercise where it's called pass the puppy. And everybody was writing copies and work with the copy that was created. And this guy comes over to me and he's like, okay, here's my dog. They took my little white fluffy puppy away from me and handed me his diet. I think it was an Akita. And, like, Oh, this is way bigger than I am like it's possible. Listen to me. I'm just standing there holding the leash like, what am I going to do? Yes an instructor instructor goes through all the obedience man is like okay, I can do it I can do I sound like like myself as an adult Listen to me, almost like that down. And then all the behave the commands and retreated back are puppies. And the owner said to me, oh, he listens better. You then listen to me. And in that moment I was like, Oh, I can do this. This is where I want to be.
Collin 02:31
Yeah, of just that moment of You know what? Yeah, I can do this and this is kind of cool. And let's you know, let's let's explore this a little more and see where it turns out. So that's that's really cool that you had a Nikita push you along the way. Now Sunfire canines, where did that name come
Mackenzie 02:51
from? And 2011 I started working at a doggy daycare. And there was a car lot across the street from the daycare and I didn't have A card that I was eating was right at high school. And obviously working there, I was saving up to buy a car. And always just look out and browse and say like, oh, which car I want? What did I get up on fire and fire. anybody listening to this would know that my first dream car would be a little beyond, but it's not conducive to like driving dogs around at all. They're way too small. But neither really was a fun fire. But it's the only thing that like I could afford. But yes, my company is named after my car. I like the name because I don't I didn't want it to be like my name because I branched out. Like, it'd be like, Oh, where's mixtape? It was like Mackenzie's dog walking. Like, Oh, where's McKenzie? If you're not like personally doing that client,
Collin 03:52
when you've kind of brought some of the imagery, I think a little bit into your your logo to that Sunfire and You know, sunset. So tell us a little bit about the logo that you have.
Mackenzie 04:03
I didn't get my logo up until this year of 2020. And I saw a logo. That was my friend has a daycare. And he had this logo. And I was like, Oh my gosh, like, I love your logo like I need, whoever designs your logo, design mine. She gave me her information. And I got on the logo artists waiting list. And he said, Okay, well what do we like? Maybe like six to eight weeks. And this was like, late November, early December. I'm doing on vacation in February. So I knew I just knew that she was gonna tell me. This bike turned to design the logo. While I was on vacation days into my vacation. He tells me your neck.
Collin 04:53
You want to wait, you want to proceed? And actually everything obviously went fine. I was like, I don't want to wait because her Writing along. Now we'll do this by folder. Again, sceptre is awesome, really happy with it too. It's one of those things it's really hard to again, in hard things to do in business is pick a name and then pick a logo. And I don't know if maybe being on the beach influenced, you know, the the beautiful sunset that you have or sunrise logo or anything.
Mackenzie 05:22
When I picked the name from fire canines, I knew that I wanted it to obviously have a son in the logo, the dogs in the leather on my dog Jeffers in the diva, you know, so I mean, I've heard mixed things about putting your own dog in your logo, because then it's like too much about them and not about your business being more like a silhouette. I thought now that I'm going to do what I want.
Collin 05:46
Again, that's a hard decision. And, you know, I've seen a lot of people that have had either a tribute to their dog or to be to their pet in their logo and, you know, your regular client isn't going to know that they're just going to go Oh, there are dogs here. This is a dog server Send us you know, company that makes sense. So it's, I still think that that connection is really important to have in a logo. So what kind of services do you offer
Mackenzie 06:08
in your business? One of the services that I find with my through our program for Microsoft, and that was designed because I realized how much do dogs need to go out and be out and be active and stimulated for that amount of time. So I'll have my two hour group, I'll do a visit which is like going over somebody's house, midday, sending them out going potty, some of them get walked, some don't get lost. They just plan the order out them and then I'll be tested in Ohio. I kind of got away from doing overnights at my house. I'd much rather first thing
Collin 06:50
especially depending on size of house location, your neighbors you know, that kind of thing of you know, in home boarding is kind of a delicate balance I think between continue to work And having a home life and having some sort of separation when I come
Mackenzie 07:03
home, and I tell people to be on it, they're like, Oh, you don't offer a dog in your house, like, be honest. Like when I come home, I won't be home. And some of the dogs, they're just not used to that hard environment of like, this is the new routine. These are my dogs these Mike asked, and for them to like, pick up on that it's just
Collin 07:25
as someone in the business like really good that you were able to make that note of No, I need separation, some way to get away from all this because it can become all consuming, especially if Okay, now I've got dogs in my house 20 472 that I'm caring for like it can be never ending,
Mackenzie 07:41
especially if you don't have a dog. That's what I like to call travel savvy. So somebody signs up for boarding in your home, and it's a five year old dog that's never left this house. And now his environment is completely flipped upside down. Not good.
Collin 07:55
So a lot of what you're talking about here is and I hear it is Dog behavior and sounds like you've really paid attention to a lot of that and put a lot of thought into the animal behavior in the pets that you are caring for. Is that something that you've always done? Or how did that get started and draw your attention.
Mackenzie 08:12
So I do have a background in dog training and dog behavior. I went to a lot of, you know, dog training seminars and behavior seminars and whatnot. I do enjoy that a lot and actually wanted to do more Dog Training when I first started working with the dogs, but I kind of fell into the pet sitting and dog walking role. But honestly, like, wearing my dog walker, especially like to our group, we do a lot of dog training as well. Keeping up with girls and consistency, making sure that they're walking nice. They're not, you know, laying there not lunging or not barking. That's what a lot of people miss out on is like all the consistency and training that we do like behind the scenes of walking.
Collin 08:56
No, it really is. It's not just taking photos. For a quick walk, there's a lot that goes into that whether the client understands that or not like a trained pet sitter, or trained dog walker or doing leash corrections, they're working on commands. And all that is, is brought into that. And if you especially were doing pack blocks at that point, you're really dealing with a lot of different attitudes and behaviors going on.
Mackenzie 09:20
I'll have maybe like four to five jobs at a time. Small shall usually have a day as two dogs. Occasionally, I can take my dogs, my personal dogs with me, too. I'll come home and I'll be so tired. And it's not from walking. It's just from like, keeping up with them and making sure they say, like, in line, this is what we're doing. This is where we need to go. Because if you let them kind of do whatever they want, then they're just going to do whatever they want and drag you around. But I know the owners appreciate it, then that's why they send me Don't be like, Oh, he needs structure in his life and then the mechanic.
Collin 09:57
Yeah, it's not just that, you know, the physical toll of walking and doing all of that, which I think as COVID has come in a lot of us have realized like, Oh, I'm not getting in my 20,000 steps or whatever I used to. And, but it's also, it's also the mental aspect to have I'm not, you know, mentally engaged, your brain is just turned on. And as you said, of doing these little corrections, paying attention to little behaviors constantly while you're on those walks like that, that does and is such a mental exertion, I think, a way above and beyond any physical exertion to
Mackenzie 10:32
when I pair them in groups, I've tried them and what like, what they like to do, and what they're able to do. Some of them are able to be off leash, some of them, not in lunch. Some of them really liked the place back and some of them rather explore the woods. So when I put them in groups, like I said, I take that into consideration of what they like to do. I can't have a fetch group once a month that's in the woods exploring wandering off isn't such time for all claims that some of them are entering. exchangeable they'll do whatever I think worth is doing. They're just happy to be out willing to that shows a lot of this planning and forethought on the on the front end that a lot of people don't even don't even consider, Oh, I thought you would just take dogs and wherever they were, you just put them all in a group and go, but the whole
Collin 11:20
there's a whole other thought process that goes goes into that, that clients, you know, have no idea what's going on, you know, most the time
Mackenzie 11:27
the way things go, but it has to be in a structured way.
Collin 11:31
So, so with a lot of this and a lot of your structure can transition into a little bit about how that's changed a little bit with COVID-19. So what did that look like early on a couple months ago, you know, what were some of the signs that you saw? Or, you know, things how did that transpire for you?
Mackenzie 11:50
Gosh, um, I guess the early days of COVID it wasn't so much real for me up until, I mean, really, honestly real for everyone. until people stopped doing the work. And it was like a major thing because we've had like the swine flu and whatnot doing before worlds and essentially shut down for that. I mean, we still, we're moving forward a little bit tough because especially with my group of dogs, I walk them out at the local park, some of the clients will meet me out at the park. And then some of them I'll pick up and physically take them there. And it's been a little bit difficult because now there's a lot more people out. There's so many people on the trails and stuff and the places where I used to be able to take them off leash and they could run around in their areas and whatnot. They're just filled with people everywhere. Then we've been a lot of on leash and a lot of walking. And a lot of avoiding others. I'm happy the other people who are home, have time to take their dogs out. Please, please don't let your dogs brush up to mine. Please don't do that.
Collin 12:58
Well, that's kind of exposing Little bit of this difference in people's mindsets of maybe before they never used to take their dogs out, but now they're needing a release and someplace to go. And they they're not, you know, they might not know about this etiquette or, or be as knowledgeable about dog behavior as the dog walkers and pet sitters in these areas. And so there is all of a sudden this tension of like, what, what are you doing?
Mackenzie 13:23
Because when I would work, go out and walk in the park, I see the same people COVID it was the same people. Thank you little dogs and walk past us was fine.
Collin 13:33
So did you ever have to close down or stop services entirely? Or have you been able to operate this whole time?
Mackenzie 13:40
I've been open this full time. I feel bad for those people that have to close. Not by choice but add to I'm really lucky for the support system I have with my family and my boyfriend. And I'm able to do the storm because essentially this job is a luxury job, and it's not essential, but I talked to a few other dog walkers in mind. area and they were still open. So I stayed open. And they said, so clear to go. I was I was happy to service those people that still needed me and whatnot,
Collin 14:09
when you think about it of just how thankful you are for the clients that you have, and that are still there and continue to support you, you know, how did clients react to this? You know, how did you commute? Talk to them about things that were going on? Or did they have a lot of questions for you during this time?
Mackenzie 14:24
I'm not really to be honest. I talked to a few of my clients who I thought would possibly have an issue with it. And I said, Hey, this is what's going on, this is what I'm doing. And they're like, that's fine. No, he still wants to come out and run around with you. So okay, we'll take precautions. And most of the time, like for the new contacts, it was either they left the dog in the garage or like a mudroom area. And I could just go in and get the dog and come out but didn't have to see them or the dogs are they physically off the property and put them in my car, they could just open the door and the dog would run out and run the car. I mean, some of them were still working from home. They were happy to that I was still working because dogs could get out when they did their zoom calls and whatnot, and talk it out. And
Collin 15:10
I was out now Well, that's really cool and glad that, yeah, they were still able to provide service to them. One of the recent guidelines that came out from the CDC was about limiting exposure between pets from different families. And since since you do group walk, what were your thoughts about that? Did you have any concerns? Or you know, how did that how did you process that?
Mackenzie 15:32
I was I was, I was confused, or super confused, because for a couple of reasons. First, I see the CDC puts that out, and then no offense to the public, but I can't really breeze on a good day. And then also that comes out. And they're like limit that limit dogs dog interactions. And then like two hours later, I get emails from the daycares in my area for dogs are opening up. I was just all around confused about it. And then I did contact One of the other dog walkers in my area. He's a good mentor for all those little dog walkers out there. I asked him, I said, are you stopping like mixing clients? The other end? He said no. Like, it's just like, ingestion, I guess. But the permission, of course.
Collin 16:15
Yeah, I know that was one of our first thoughts was
Mackenzie 16:18
it just wasn't clear like I just didn't I honestly didn't understand it. And I didn't want to put anybody at risk or stuff. I told my clients like if you don't want your dog around the other dogs but fine, like I just won't come get them and they're like, no, they're fine. Like wipe them down when we get home because I'd make sure like cleaned everything in my car and make sure there wasn't like that. Like
Collin 16:39
Yeah, it really did seem like a guideline that was just a true overabundance of caution of them trying to limit exposure from as many different vectors as possible. But when you're in that industry, all of a sudden you're like, Okay, now. Now what do I do? And it is confusing still. Yeah. And I think that they put it out. They're because they just didn't really know. So instead of them just saying like, I don't know, they're just gonna put it out there just with caution thinking about how 2020 has started and kind of some of the limitations and restrictions that Pennsylvania has in place. How do you see the rest of 2020 looking for you and your business and the dog walking?
Mackenzie 17:20
There's no one really traveling, obviously. And I just, I don't know. We'll see what happens in the fall. The Fall might be pretty busy. I had weddings from April to end the summer that all got rescheduled to the fall that people were getting married and they needed me to stay over their house. I guess it looks like our walking, not too much breastfeeding. I think I have one scheduled for the end of August. And we'll see how that holds up. But I know a bunch of the weddings that I had planned on sitting there all move to the fall. Phone brings, I quickly forgot because I was just oh I don't have any pets. Things like that. To go to the concert and go, like do all this up and then I remember there's a reason why this was canceled I remember now it's just like that quick you forgot that quick I forgot to call I can go that concert now. I'm like, wait. I'm in Allegheny County they announced the other day with all the pools are closed. So we have a waterpark, dang castle and the amusement park anyway, sometimes I will get like, this days isn't the best thing because they go to Kennywood or they go to a castle or they go to the baseball game, the pirates and they need me to stop by and feed the dog and let them out. I don't even know if we're going to be open this year. So we'll see. It was really kind of sad because every may there's this little school fair, and they sell the deal not walking past I just hit me I was like, there's no doughnuts this year. And these donuts are a big deal. The line will be all the way across the street through the parking lot. One of the reasons why named Sunfire canines and I didn't put like actual dog walking in pets. In the name in the logo was because I never knew. Like I knew I wanted to do dog walking and pet sitting. And then eventually I did want to like branch out to do more dog training or go whichever route that I could do. So when I also want to take the name from fire canines, I want to be able to be able to branch out into any category that is going to sell into more dog training, it'd be fine if it were pet sitting and be fine, but for the future I would love I would honestly love to like Shadow or like walk with another dog walker from a different area or like a different thing. See how they manage it. Like the dog walkers in New York who have like 10 dogs at a time. I'd love to see that. Only because I want to know where they put all their food. I think they just carry it in a grocery bag. No, seriously, listen, as I walk four dogs, and each of them will sometimes like four times, sometimes double at a time. So I'm constantly like making stuff but the trash and throwing it away during the way and they walk eight balls. Where's it all going? I don't know. I guess they carry a grocery bag. I want to know your answer. I want to know. But yeah, I think the future for me would be doing a little bit more Dog Training what I originally started off on. If you look on my Facebook page, you can see that I'll dabble in that a little bit of my, our group. We'll do some training exercises. What not?
Collin 20:21
Yeah, no, that'd be very exciting. There's a lot of different avenues to pursue with that and ways to grow and expand to and it's a great add on service to you've already got the dogs in front of you, you know, you can that's something you can start start working in
Mackenzie 20:34
that and I went to community college for a little bit for theater, and I would love to possibly work with breeding dogs for theater or for like commercials. I had one opportunity. They were filming a TV show in Pittsburgh working at the hotel, and the production team and the dog trainer was staying at our hotel. So you're like, oh, Mackenzie, you were dogs? And I said yeah, and they're like, Did you like become these dogs trained to work in visco. And I said, Yes. Either, I want to see that. And it was from a training perspective, it was super cool because the dog had to be on on ads and like you have all this camera equipment and all these people staring standing around, you know, sometimes it was loud, it was super quiet, the dog had to just adopt and for them to train the dog to be able to handle the situation I think was pretty amazing.
Collin 21:26
Right? And it's, it's still I think, to the rest of the year, we're gonna continue to be reminded of those little things that maybe we took for granted or didn't think would have been impacted but but are going to So thinking about maybe some of your favorite resources, or tools or things that you use in your business or day to day life. What are some of your favorite resources for pet sitters that you recommend others that they use or maybe
Mackenzie 21:53
look up? Yeah. Okay. So everything from my scheduling, I just use pen and paper. I'm not that big. I just added paper and then Google calendars. I used to use Excel and like everybody's information in there, like each day of like when I saw them and all this and that was like, I just read it here and like pen and paper, I just, I just like that. And then for your mileage, I highly, highly, highly suggest use mile IQ. It's super easy. Download the app, I think it's, I forget how much it is, but it's so much a year by it. And then you can write it off in business. And it'll track your mileage and like, where you go and whatnot. And then once you do that same route over and over and over again, it'll recognize that and then you can just put it in automatically for it recognizes that though, you can judge it'll say, Oh, you drove from home to his house. And whenever you go, and I have somebody do my taxes, you can just show them the app or print out what it is and you can add it to them. Super easy. Just swipe for business or swipe for leisure, and there's like other options, but it's so easy to keep your mileage
Collin 22:57
using those kind of tools to try and reduce As many barriers as possible, so you can take advantage of things like those tax write offs. If you are finding that you're not recording your mileage because it's too complicated or you forget, well, mileiq sounds like something that you can get in and really make it as easy as possible so that you can get that write off at the end of the year.
Mackenzie 23:18
Oh, yeah, it's super easy to use. And even if the app is running in the background of your phone, even if you forget, it still logs it. The only thing is, is that if you do a lot of traveling that isn't related to your business, it will pick up on that it's a pretty cool app. And I do enjoy it a lot. It's super easy to use that app. And then I also I just bought Canva, which was recommended by like, all the social media marketing platforms. And before I bought it, I was just playing around with it. And then all like the cool pictures and the better pictures. You have to buy your I think you can buy them individually or you can just buy like the whole app itself, or whatever. I bought the whole app. I like But now, when I go and look at other websites or other websites,
Collin 24:07
oh no.
24:09
The illusion has been ruined.
Mackenzie 24:12
When I take photos, I started the photos on Canva that like I don't see a lot. And it's not. It's not that I don't want people to know them using Canva. It's just, I don't want to use like a stock photo
Collin 24:25
protip for Canva scroll down a couple times to go down through the selections right?
Mackenzie 24:31
Like five times, and you'll find something that someone hasn't already
Collin 24:36
know. It's a really, really cool tool. And I encourage anybody who's listening who hasn't used it or checked it out like it's a great way to get access to really fast way of making logos or Instagram posts or things like that because you get access to stock photo art and stock images that you can throw on and make something really fast.
Mackenzie 24:58
Yeah, I it's There's so much on it. Like there's like hundreds of thousands of photos on on there. And it's almost overwhelming what you can do on there. You can just sit and play around with it. I think I get like my bed I have like midnight artistry. And I get like my best idea like, o'clock in the morning. One of the cool things that I that I found I've played around with a little bit too is that you can import your logo, and then pull colors from that. So just NC throughout all of your photos and things like that too. For branding colors. I understand it in the branding font. I understand it. There's so many other colors I like because yellow and orange and you want to use the colors but I try to keep it consistent. My Facebook looks a lot better than my Instagram. My Instagram is kind of just like a hodge podge of photos that like aren't as great as the ones that made it the face. But I have like it's different because I like have a different audience between Instagram And one of my clients and then Instagram is just a random people that follow the hashtag German Shepherd or whatever.
Collin 26:08
Well, Mackenzie, thank you so much for coming on today and sharing your background and how these times have affected you and how you've been able to continue to persist and keep going through them. If people want to check out your cool new logo and your website and all that stuff, how can they get in touch with you and reach out and follow you follow along?
Mackenzie 26:29
Yes. So Instagram, it's just that Sunfire canines and then canines just spell the whole word. Ma n I NF and then my Facebook is Sunfire canines as well. Like I said, My Facebook is a little bit more, a little bit more educational than my Instagram. My Instagram is just pictures of dogs.
Collin 26:51
Well, again, it's been a real pleasure talking with you Mackenzie and we wish you all the best and we'll hopefully be able to have you back on soon and hear how things are going and Have the
Mackenzie 27:00
progress. Sure. Thank you for having me. There's a good chat.
Collin 27:04
Listening to Mackenzie. It is such a wonderful reminder of the different perspectives that each one of us has and brings to the table when we share our stories and our experiences. Thinking back to Episode 58, where Megan and I discussed a lot of the lessons that we were taking away from this, McKenzie touched on many of them the importance of not giving up being resourceful of being able to reflect and rely on your community. All of those are things that we've all experienced in unique and varied ways, and we love hearing from you. Check out our website at pet sitter confessional.com. You can find out more about each of our guests from this episode and all the previous ones. Read detailed show notes and find out how to contact us you can email us at pet server confessional@gmail.com or give us a call 63636482 six zero. Leave us a voicemail and let us know what you're up to these days. We'd love to be able to feature it in an upcoming episode. We'll be back again on Monday. Talk to you again soon.
