741: When “Bad Behavior” Is Actually Communication with Lauren Sisak
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What if the behavior we label as a problem is actually a dog trying to tell us something important? Lauren Sisak, founder of Sit Stay Stella, joins Collin to explore how pet care professionals can better understand anxious, reactive, and overwhelmed dogs by paying attention to what their behavior is communicating. Lauren explains her green, yellow, and red zone framework, how to recognize when a dog cannot perform a familiar behavior, and why treats, distance, and environmental changes can be powerful tools. They also discuss safer meet-and-greets, building trust without forcing interaction, and communicating clearly with clients about what their dogs actually need. Along the way, Lauren connects those same lessons to entrepreneurship, boundaries, sustainable growth, and learning to give ourselves the same grace we give the dogs in our care.
Main topics:
Understanding canine stress signals
Green yellow red zones
Safer dog meet-and-greets
Communicating expectations with clients
Boundaries for sustainable businesses
Main takeaway: “The moment that they see the scary thing and they check in with you first, you’re golden.”
Trust with a dog does not always look like cuddles, perfect leash manners, or immediately accepting affection. Sometimes, the biggest breakthrough happens when something scary appears and the dog chooses to look at you. As Lauren Sisak explains, “The moment that they see the scary thing and they check in with you first, you’re golden.”
That check-in tells us the dog is beginning to see us as part of their support system. Getting there requires patience, observation, consistency, and a willingness to listen when a dog says an environment or interaction is too much. As pet sitters and dog walkers, our job is not simply to get a dog to comply. It is to create enough safety and predictability that they learn they can work through difficult moments with us.
About our guest: Lauren Sisak is the founder of Sit Stay Stella, a dog training and concierge pet care company serving clients in the New York City area. Her work was heavily influenced by her experiences with her own dogs, including Stella, whose anxiety and reactivity led Lauren deeper into positive-reinforcement and force-free training. Today, Lauren and her team provide personalized training and pet care with an emphasis on dogs who may need additional patience, support, and individualized routines. Her approach focuses on protecting a dog’s agency while helping pet parents develop practical skills that strengthen their relationship with their dogs.
Links:
Sit Stay Stella Website: sitstaystella.com
Stellar Sitter Course / Course Waitlist:https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdFjuUJ_U3vbR7aW7xb6Kz4HYJvBH4-Oi7LlXH293WWsNcChQ/viewform
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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by our guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Pet Sitter Confessional, its hosts, or sponsors. We interview individuals based on their experience and expertise within the pet care industry. Any statements made outside of this platform, or unrelated to the topic discussed, are solely the responsibility of the guest.
A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
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Collin 0:02
Welcome to Pet Sitter Confessional, an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Today, we're brought to you by our friends at Timed Pet and Pet Sitters International. How do we, as dog walkers and pet sitters, make sure that we are properly addressing the behavioral issues that we see in our clients' pets from day to day, and do it in a consistent manner, working with the client instead of working against them. And also, how do we build trust with our clients? How do we communicate well? And just life as an entrepreneur. We're covering a lot of topics today, and that's because I'm talking to Lauren Sisak, owner and founder of Sit Stay Stella. And I did work on the enunciation of that before I sat down here because I knew that was going to be a wild ride, and I'm really excited to have Lauren on to talk about these these topics because as business owners we often get caught up in just the minutia day to day operations when we forget about the more long term impacts of some of the actions that we're having and so Lauren, super excited to be talking with you today. For those who aren't familiar with you or your business, please tell us a little bit more about all that you do.
Lauren Sisak 1:06
Thank you, Collin. What a fabulous introduction! Can you please follow me around everywhere?
Collin 1:12
We'll talk afterwards.
Lauren Sisak 1:14
Okay, cool, cool. So, say Stella is based in Manhattan in Brooklyn, and we focus on our dogs that need a little extra PLC. So thank your seniors, reactive pups, even our parents that just need a little extra hand holding through the pet sitting process. And we also do training, sitting, walking, hoarding, anything except for what a groomer, vet, or other medical professional might do.
Collin 1:46
Now, how did you start getting specialized into those more needy pets? There.
Lauren Sisak 1:52
So the fun part, Collin, is I never had to get into it, Collin, because I was already in
Collin 1:58
it. I see.
Lauren Sisak 2:01
So Stella, as her name would suggest, is my entire personality, and I adopted Stella after my senior dog Sammy passed away. He was delightful, super chill. We would go to Marshalls together. We would brunch together. He was just a delightful pup, except for when he, you know, would bite me when you would have to pick him up, things just minors, minors, and so I adopted Stella with the hopes of being able to infuse this puppy with everything I could to make her perfect, and she turned out to be very anxious, could only pee in the middle of the dog park, could not be left alone, was pulling pretty hard on a leash, and she was already 35 pounds at that point. So it was super fun, air quotes. And then I started working on her, and it got to a point where I actually had someone say, "You know, I think you need to spend time with normal dogs, quote unquote normal, and just have just have a little, you know, palate cleanser, just a little break from her. So I decided I decided to start dog sitting as a way to get a break from Stella, but I never actually got what you would consider a quote unquote normal dog, and now we can argue what is normal and all of that stuff. But at the time, I just thought, wow, I'm getting really unlucky.
Collin 3:40
Well, and because you think it's you, it's hard. And you started that sentence by saying, like, I wanted to have like this perfect dog, and I think there are so many people out there that have this idealized version of the dog that is going to be in their life, and that can come from a previous dog that they had. I know a lot of our clients. It's they have memories of the dog they had growing up, and they want that kind of dog. And they go out, they get their dog, and they're left going, "What is happening right now? What I I wanted the dog that I could take to the dog park, that I could take to brunch, that I could ride in the car, that I could go and do all these stuff. What is this thing in front of me right now? And there's a lot of frustration. Did you bet? Did you deal with any like frustrations through that, or like guilt through that process?
Lauren Sisak 4:30
Well, we dealt with frustration, depression, lots of regret. I thought about returning her a million times over, starting fresh. Decided maybe maybe you don't need a dog. So yeah, I I really really struggled because she also was. Warming up to anyone else, so she only liked me, my partner at the time, and the two people that she met the day we adopted her. So my two best friends, Sarah and Tony, and that was her inner circle and her network. But at first, I didn't really know that I had a dog with stranger danger because when she would meet people, I thought that she was excited to meet them. But I could see now I can see where the conflict was coming from. Right? She was like, "I think I like you. I don't know. I don't know. I have all these feelings, and so I didn't really know we had a problem until if I adopted her. Oh wow, we're coming up on her adoption anniversary too. I adopted her in September, and I would say November is when I realized like we really have a problem here. And I thought it was a big shift, but now that I am a dog trainer and a behavioral behavior professional. I know it was always there. She didn't flip. All the warning signs were there from day one.
Collin 6:12
Well, so maybe talk about some of those those common like things that people label those behavior problems when it's actually because those problems that I hear from from my clients, a lot of it's like, well, is this a problem or is the dog trying to tell me something, and I'm missing that, and I'm just going, well, I don't know, so this is a problem that the dog has.
Lauren Sisak 6:33
Yes, yes, and you know they're not that different, and I always take the approach with dog training that if it's a problem for you or it's a problem for the public in terms of safety, then let's work on it. But if it doesn't bother you and it's not unsafe for the public, I don't care. There's no gold standard for me. So, for example, if it doesn't bother you that your 10 pound dog is jumping on people, and we can all agree that 10 pounds is not unsafe, right? We're not going to knock down our grandmas with our 10 pound pomski. Okay, we're good. Then I would say I don't care. I'm not going to work on a perfect sit. I'm not going to work on a perfect greeting. If it's un if it's not unsafe and you don't care, let's move on to the next to do item. We have plenty of work to do. Let's not head to our plate. So, you know, your question was the different collin behaviors. What was your question, Collin?
Collin 7:41
Oh, just what are some things that you hear people say this is a problem, this is a behavior issue when it's actually the dog trying to communicate something about itself?
Lauren Sisak 7:48
Perfect example of an issue that is actually a dog trying to communicate a lot of things is pulling. So we like to think of a dog pulling on leash as being very disobedient, how dare you walk in front of me and drag me along the street? When most times in New York City, remember we're living in a really busy city. At any given point, you're seeing a dozen people walk by, another half dozen dogs, an ambulance, a cop car, the street cleaning, the garbage truck, the bodega rolling out their trash, the restaurant cleaning the sidewalk with their hose and scrubbing, and someone's also skateboarding, and you're also next to a bike path, and that's a that is a common block. That's not just oh, that's a busy area. That is your chill street to practice on. Okay, so cooling can actually be a sign of anxiety and uncertainty about the environment. So we have a couple of choices when we're scared of something. We can freeze, we can run away. That's flight. We can bite, so that would be barking, lunging, thrashing at the leash, all of those things. And there's a couple of other things we could do, but let's focus on these three. So in that case, a dog is actually trying to run away from all of this super overwhelming stimulus. And when I say stimulus, I mean that bus, that bike, that person, that dog. It's all just too much, and they just got to get away from it. But they don't realize they really can't get away from it on the street or sidewalk, they would have to go inside, right? And some dogs do try to pull you back inside, but often they're just pulling because they have no idea how else to cope with all of this environmental nonsense.
Collin 9:57
Well, and I I like that of hey this. Is the dog? It's telling you something, and as you're talking, we have a we offer the service where we do these puppy field trips, where we take a dog out and we go and explore different environments and stuff. And it's so fascinating to know to watch the change in behavior of that dog as I go from a park, an open field, a pet friendly store, a busy downtown, and look at how they are moving through that environment. And we had to start like it's this different because it's a problem when the 175 pound Great Dane puppy doesn't want to be in the environment anymore. Because also you're not going to be in the environment anymore. You will be wherever that dog is taking you, and I like how you know how you backtrack this and going. Let's address the immediate issues and problems in like health, safety, livability. Let's work in that, and because there's this tendency then to go, well, I'll just never take my dog in those environments, and in some cases, you may say, like you're going, where is that? Where is the not there environment? Are you you flying out of state? Are you moving somewhere? Like this, these are decisions now that we're faced with to go. Okay, I I do need to actually address this in some capacity instead of just you know trying to quote unquote live with
Lauren Sisak 11:21
it. Correct, and to your point, even if you're able to escape this environment, let's say you go to the Berkshires one weekend. You know it's really fun, Collin. Is now your dog went from having all of this white noise of always knowing there's a ton of people, always knowing there's a ton of dogs. To now, there's this false sense of security at first, where there's nobody around. But that first time they see another person or another dog, that bubble gone. Oh wait, people are actually around. That's fun, right? And so, then each time they see one of those people, it counts even more because there's less predictability around it happening, and it's usually happening in a more confrontational manner. What I mean by confrontational is if you're walking through a swarm of people, you're not really singling out any one individual. They're all just blending together. Whereas now, if I see someone walking down an alley to me, are you about to rob? Are we about to have a situation, right? Like that, a little bit more tense. I can fixate on your face a little bit more. I notice what your clothing looks like. I notice how you move. Do you have an odd gait, or you know, are you carrying an umbrella? Are you carrying a big box? Now I can really take in all of those details to the point where a sketch artist would be able to have the perfect image of you on the 5o'clock news. But in that crowd, if you said if you had that same sketch, and the police said, "Did you see this person walking through the crowd? You're like, "Oh, I don't know. Did I Maybe so. To your point with this perfect environment and all this stuff, I would argue the perfect environment doesn't exist. We can get better environments, and it's more important to figure out where is my dog most successful. What can I change about the environment, and if I can't change the environment, what can I change about our routine to make the environment work for me?
Collin 13:51
This is a lot of the dog is communicating things. The dog is trying to make decisions for itself in those environments. Us listening to that, do you see a difference between things a dog won't do versus a dog can't do in that moment? Okay, okay. Talk. So what? What is that difference then?
Lauren Sisak 14:11
Yes. So there. When I want you to think about green, yellow, and red zones. Green, everything that your dog can do, they will do in that environment. So that's indoors, most likely for everyone. That's everywhere. I would argue your dog is going to be able to perform all of their behaviors at their best ability indoors without distractions and without any anything going on, you're also going to be able to use a lower level of reinforcement like kibble. Okay, so that's going to be your easiest green zone. Everyone is thinking we're able to process things. It's a great land and green land. Yellow, we start to lose a little bit of this. So now we're starting to pick and choose what we can do, even though we know how to do it. Right? It might feel a little uncomfortable. Best example: a sit. So your dog can definitely sit indoors. Every dog knows how to sit. I promise you, unless obviously we have physical challenges going on. But if no physical challenges are existing, every dog can sit. You don't have to teach them that. You're just pairing the word "sit" with the action. But every dog comes out of the womb, knowing how to sit. I would argue, and that's where you start to see they know it, and you say, "My dog knows sit, but why won't they sit outside? Come on, Fluffy, you know this, and this is where they won't do it because it's uncomfortable, or maybe the ground is wet and freezing. Right, that's going to happen in both of our states. I know that, Metropolitan. There you go.
Collin 16:11
We have that common.
Lauren Sisak 16:13
Not a geography wizard, but I know weather, and or they don't mind the surface, and now they go. Oh, but if I sit, I'm gonna feel a little bit more trapped when that dog passes by. I don't like that. I don't like feeling trapped. And then red zone. This is everything is off the table. There are no rules in red zone. Okay, your dog is in their most reptilian state. They are just trying to survive. They are trying to escape whatever feels yucky or what you might hear a trainer say. What is aversive, right? So that's really uncomfortable. We don't like aversive things. We will do everything we can to avoid unpleasant things, and in that red zone, your I would I don't I'm not even trying to get a behavior on cue. I'm just trying to get them to work with me, and if if you can't even do a simple pattern game or eat that treat, we have to we have to pull that escape route right now because we are in trouble and it is not going to get better. It's going to be really hard to move from red to yellow and green. Probably impossible at that state. So you're really just trying to triage and minimize your damage in your red zone. Yellow, I would argue, you can get back to green, and then on the the flip, you can be in green, and you can go from green to yellow to red very quickly. So these are definitely movable areas, but I always try to use that color coding with my clients because it's a really easy visual to be like, okay, we're in green zone. I should expect a little bit more yellow zone. I'm lowering my expectations, and red zone, I am not asking anything of my dog. I have zero expectations, and we're just trying to get through this cyst together.
Collin 18:19
Have you heard of Time to Pet? Doug from Bad to the Bone Pet Care has this to say:
Doug Keeling 18:24
Time to Pet has made managing my team and clients so much easier. Our clients love the easy-to-use app and scheduling features, and our sitters love being able to have all of their information organized and easily accessible. My favorite feature is the instant messaging. By keeping conversations on Time to Pet, we are able to monitor our team and ensure nothing ever falls through the cracks.
Collin 18:43
If you're looking for new pet sitting software, give Tying to Pet a try. Listeners of our show will save 50% off your first three months by visiting tying topet.com/confessional. As we were talking about that yellow zone, I think as also as dog walkers and pet sitters, we encounter this when we meet the client for the first time, and the client goes sit, sit. Oh, they know how to sit, and the dog is just obviously like like not going to sit for that. They won't sit because they're overwhelmed. They're excited about that new person. There's things going, the newness in the environment. They're not going to do that, and we have to remember and keep that in mind because sometimes you know a lot of times my first thought is, oh gosh, is this dog trained? Like, uh, uh oh, what am I getting into? But we, you're right. Like we do have. You know what,
Lauren Sisak 19:25
Collin? If you met Sally, you'd be like,
Collin 19:27
oh gosh, never mind. But I like having that reminder of, hey, this is okay. Like we're gonna, we're gonna. It's maybe they didn't sit that time. What's gonna happen in 20 minutes when I try, or what's going to happen whenever I try on my next visit and do that assessment, and then when we're working through that scale, you know, I I hope people realize like you you mentioned something there, Lauren, of when you're in that red zone, you start being like, what do I do to get them in their attention on me? And everybody's done this. You might not. Thinking in the very technical, like scale ladder with the treats and the enrichment and amount of the value of that reward, but you have all we've all called the name of the dog, we've all whistled at the dog, we've all tugged on the leash a little bit, we've all offered a treat, we've all like we've all done you've done this ramp up of I need to get this dog their attention away from that and back over, is there a is there a set ladder to that that maybe we need to be making more predictable as far as raising so that I because I know it can be tempting to go from like Fifi to like going over and picking up the dog and carrying them like, how do we step up and through that as far as measures go when they're in that red zone?
Lauren Sisak 20:47
That's a great question. I would say there are a few simple tests that I perform when I see that dog starting to lose their focus with me and seeing we're approaching the red zone. Sometimes you can see it before, but let's assume we're already in the red zone. I would say the easiest behavior for any dog to do in a red zone is eat a treat. If they cannot eat a treat, I'm I'm forgetting the rest of our test. So I would say just go straight to that test. Can they eat the treat? If no, I would try a couple of different ways. So first, being handing them the treat. If we don't have any concerns with the dog, you know, having a a treat provided to them. If they don't like it that way, try putting it on the ground. Point it out to them on the ground. Sometimes removing the peer pressure of your hand can work wonders. That just happened to me on a couple of walks yesterday, actually. Sometimes the treat on the ground isn't exciting enough, so maybe you roll the treat. Okay, let's see. Do they like that? And then you can also toss the treat, and then a final test I would perform is kind of getting them to track the treat. Can really that one can be really exciting for our dogs that love chasing squirrels, birds, cars, all of those things. If they really like a good chase, you can build up the excitement for that treat. If you've tried all of these, then the next thing would be to make sure that you're you're you check your treat pouch. Are you using Are you using your highest value treat? And when we're talking about value, I want you to think about low value being kibble, right? That's what they eat every day. Very boring. Not really going to get them excited if we're competing with their favorite thing like a squirrel. Medium is usually your freeze dried treats, right? We start your hands might get a little messy with these, but unlikely. They're probably really easy to deliver without any residue being left on your hands. And then high value treats, stinky, juicy, likely going to leave residue on your hands. So that's your deli meats, your cheese. There's a like Trader Joe's. Do you guys have Trader Joe's?
Collin 23:30
Yes, we do. Yeah,
Lauren Sisak 23:31
that's exciting. They're everywhere. They have this salmon skin that's crunchy and it's oily, and that really leaves residue on your hands. It's a really good one for your lickables. I would put lickables probably either medium or high, depending on the dog. So that would be the exception to your hands getting dirty rule. But usually, if you think about it, that latter. So if I have given this dog ham, and they love ham, and you've also tried all of my tricks: handing it to them, putting it on the ground, tossing it, having them track, treat all those things. Get out of here. We work with this dog. Don't even worry about saying their name because how are you going to reinforce them responding to their name?
Collin 24:19
Yeah,
Lauren Sisak 24:21
and how are you going to get them to do all these other fancy behaviors that you may or may not have worked with them on? So then I would say you're just in oh shit, let's get home. And if if you do have a small dog, yeah, you mentioned picking them up, I would be really careful about when we're picking up the dog. I really use that for emergencies only because it does take a lot of agency away from that small dog. And when I say agency, I mean the choice for them to stay and figure it out, work it out themselves. And when I pick them up, we. We leave them no choice. We and and often small dogs are susceptible to that agency being taken away a lot more often than our big dogs. I'm never picking up Stella, right? If she's working something out, we're working it out together. I'm picking her up and removing her from the environment, so I would say picking up the dog is a last last resort option, and you know safety first, of course. So if it's between them getting hit by the car because they won't move, or taking away their their agency, take away their agency in that moment, but don't abuse that that privilege,
Collin 25:41
yeah. I I use that exact same example of hey, we're gonna work together here in a fear-free, stress-free way, and I'm never gonna force you into these situations. If you stop in the middle of the road and a Mack truck is barreling down towards us, we're going to move out of the road, right? And we're gonna have to, but because that that decision barrier between that that that that line that we're looking at is ultimately all about building trust with that with what does like you work with stressful you know stressed out anxious overwhelmed these how do you really know when that click happens and that dog starts building that trust with you, people on your team, or even sometimes with the owner themselves.
Lauren Sisak 26:26
Yes, I would say the moment that they see the scary thing and they check in with you first, you're golden. We're best friends. Let's ride out into the sunset together. They just look to you to let them know, "Hey, I need a little bit of assistance here. Can you help me? Yeah,
Collin 26:49
it's it's interesting. I often we meet, you know, overwhelmed, stressed out, anxious pets, and what do they do during a lot of times during the meet and greet? They go and back and hide behind the owner's legs. They try and put the they get close to the owner, then we'll start working with them. They start building that trust, and we don't. Sometimes we don't even really see it until I'll go and reintroduce like a new team member, and now the dog is hiding behind my legs, and I'm like, ah, yes, ha ha, like we do, we did a thing. That's
Lauren Sisak 27:24
true, and
Collin 27:25
it's it's it's wonderful when that happens. When you realize, like, oh my gosh, we did cross it. And sometimes, again, it can happen. You can catch it sometimes, or if you sometimes it can take a while, be more subtle until they can put in that really stressful situation, and they go, nope. I'm. We need to. I need help now. And you're the person I look to for help. And that all builds from listening, paying attention, respecting those boundaries of what they can't and won't, and then us protecting them in those moments and moving them out or encouraging them and reinforcing the behaviors that we do want.
Lauren Sisak 28:01
This is a really good segue to talking about how to meet dogs for the first time.
Collin 28:08
Yeah,
Lauren Sisak 28:09
and I've actually been building out a course for. It was initially designed for my team, and I'm going to sell, and you know everyone can have access to it, but it started because I was repeating myself with the team, and I realized, oh, I'm gonna forget to tell someone something. So we just have to brain put all my knowledge into something, and then I thought, oh, well, if I'm already doing this, might as well share, right? Like everyone can have access to this, and I spend a lot of time in meeting a dog. Of course, Stella inspired that because she had a whole protocol to meet her, but also because I found that it's not intuitive how we should meet a dog, and I'm finding that most dogs need a special breeding routine, and if you go into it thinking it's likely I'm going to have to do some of this to get to win over this dog, and then being surprised when you get that really friendly golden retriever, you're great. But if you go into it thinking all dogs love me, I do this for a living. You you've already failed before you've stepped foot into the
Collin 29:30
house. Or what we get a lot of times, you know, people apply to work for us, and they their experiences were with what with their dogs and how their dog and they may have had one, maybe two dogs in their lifetime. If they're crazy, they've had three, and now it's like okay. And I'm going to introduce you to hundreds of dogs from all different walks of life who didn't have the kind of training, the background, the upbringing, the environment that you had with your dogs. And you're right; it's it's that is one of the first things. We only get 30 minutes, an hour, maybe a couple hours if we're doing some adventury kind of things or longer walks or pack walks. Like now, this is how do we set ourselves up for success for those periods in that intro, and it's not just the first time we meet them; it's the every time. I love how you said have a meeting routine, like how is that something that you kind of have a standard template for, and then you modify, or do you like to have a try and build out a completely custom one based off of interviewing the client and you know stuff you do beforehand?
Lauren Sisak 30:36
We have our tricks that generally work for everyone, and I'll share those. Don't worry, no gatekeeping here, Collin. That being said, each dog has their own special formula, so we may not be doing everything from those tricks, and we may be manipulating some of those tricks are doing iterations, and I'll share some. I'll share a standard example and a really custom, unique one that I was quite proud of in the past month. And so, basic tricks that you're not going to get yourself into trouble on okay. I would always ask, "Does your dog do better meeting people inside or outside the home? That answer is going to tell you a lot. Does this person even notice the difference? If they don't, if they say, "Ah, I don't know, it doesn't matter, or we've never tried outside. Now you know, kind of, you're able to gage your your client's dog knowledge, right? So let's let's adjust based on our client. Let's not ask a lot of them. We're gonna we're gonna change that later. So if they don't know, then I would say, okay, how does your dog usually meet people? And they might say, oh, I just let the person walk in, or I keep them in a room, or I keep them behind a gate. Whatever the answer is, you say, well, what does that normally look like? And if they say something like, well, the dog goes crazy. I need you to define crazy for me because my definition of what crazy looks like is going to look way different than yours. What does crazy look like for Fluffy? Oh, they're jumping, they're snarling, they're screaming, whatever. You're going to get all of this information. Okay, you're also going to ask: Have they ever bitten anyone? Pretty critical.
Collin 32:51
Yeah,
Lauren Sisak 32:52
pretty critical. Let's safety first. I always I just said this to someone. I feel like there are a lot of people who have never been bit by a dog, and it shows. Yeah, it shows. I think I think getting bit by a dog is a very humbling and educational experience, and I wish there was a way for you to learn without living it. And I I try to tell everyone these things, but sometimes you just have to live it. Unfortunately, so okay. When they bit the person or the dog, what what happened before? You know, was it when the person was entering? If the person was entering the home and they got bit, okay, we're gonna triage this a different way. But if they got bit because a person stuck their face in the dog's face. I would put that in the. I'm gonna give this dog the benefit of the doubt. The human kind of did something okay, but if it's oh, we're just hanging out, and I walk through the door and the dog bit me, we're gonna we're gonna approach that a different way, but if it's under a special set of circumstances that's very predictable and I would argue very avoidable, I'm gonna lower that risk internally. So if you have a dog that has bit before, then you're you're adding in a bit before when meeting someone, or it's been unpredictable. Like if the client has no idea why it happened, I would assume all safety. So in that case, I'm telling the client what I want that setup to look like, and don't worry, I'm going to tell you all of them because we're just running through our questions, and then you're going to ask, "Do you have treats that this dog really likes? They'll say yes or no. If yes, okay, please have them readily available on you. And can you leave some outside for me? And this this also goes to a decision point, Collin. I don't know how you feel about this. We don't provide our own treats, and it's yeah, you don't either. Okay,
Collin 35:13
no,
Lauren Sisak 35:13
on the same page here.
Collin 35:15
Yeah,
Lauren Sisak 35:15
cost allergies, and also I want the client to own their own treats.
Collin 35:20
Yeah,
Lauren Sisak 35:21
yeah. Let's just let's just make sure. Okay, great. I love that. I knew we I knew we were on the same page here, Collin. So those would be the main the the main three. I would say for like before you go ahead and meet the dog, you're going to have more questions based on each of those responses, but let's go with our easy one first. So they say this dog usually loves all people as long as you don't ABC wear a hat. Maybe they prefer feminine presenting. All of these things, right? So you're gonna do. You're gonna make sure you're not wearing a hat. You're not carrying anything, and you're going to set the correct sitter for the dog's preferences. And remember, dogs-they don't mean to be picky. They just prefer certain heights, certain, you know, masculine versus feminine, they can be really picky, and it can really make a difference. And again, if your client knows this, they're a little bit savvier, so we're going to be able to work with that a little bit more. They have no idea you're going to assume all all safety precautions. So our our easiest one, they love meeting people. They might jump on you, but they're a small dog. I don't care, or whatever. I have no bites, and I have these yummy treats for you. So this one, you guys have decided you're going to come inside, right? I always make sure I say hi. So good to see you, human. And I ignore the dog at first. And some clients can be put off by this. You're going to want to make sure you warn them. Hey, I don't. I'm not being rude. I'm giving Fluffy a second to get to know me, and when you call that out, it actually is going to make you sound so, so experienced, so savvy. They're gonna be like, "Oh, this sitter knows what they're doing. They're making me feel comfortable. They have a protocol. Okay, I feel good, right? So you come in, you're talking to the parent. Act normal. If I could get a tattoo of act normal, I would make sure that you are talking to this person like you know them. Because if you come in quiet, you don't greet the person. Most dogs are going to find that really weird, really weird. And if you have those treats, go ahead and toss them away from you. This is really important. You're going to want them away from you because we're giving the dog a chance to eat those treats away from you. So there's no peer pressure to get closer to me to get the treat. Never hand them the treat right off the bat because then they may say, "Ooh, I'm gonna dip my toes in the deep end because I really like bacon. Oh, life
Speaker 1 38:30
raw,
Lauren Sisak 38:31
and unfortunately, that life wrap for them may be a biting you. Um, so you're gonna toss that away from you, and I am. I do film every intro, so I put my camera in my fanny pack, and it there's like a way to put it, or you can get a body cam. You can get really fancy with that, but I always film it so that you don't have to look at the dog, and you can replay later if something went wrong, and then you'll know. I would say within the next five minutes what we're dealing with. Is this dog into you? Are you about to be best friends? Oh, they just brought you a ball. They're bumping into you. They're leaning. They're giving you your their butt. They want some scritches. Like you know within the first five minutes what's going on. If this dog is running away from you, hiding, not coming back for more treats, you're going to move a little bit slower in this process. Okay, and you're just going to keep tossing treats. I would say, unless this dog is literally sitting on your lap and bumping into you and asking for pets, you are not touching this dog under any circumstances. I don't care what the parent said. You might be the the first one to encounter the problem, or the parent may not understand body language, and that's not their fault, right? If you're best friends, then you can go ahead and move into your normal routine. If you're not best friends, then you just keep it slow, keep talking to the client, and all of that stuff. That's that's green to go both ways. I think I think if you're always knowing whatever the client said cannot be accurate or could change,
Collin 40:25
right? Because they, the language is so important, and I, I had to laugh when you were talking about like making sure you understand what things mean. Because I had a first for me this year. We had a client who reached out and said, "Now, when you come in, he's going to go all Cujo on you, and I'm like, I I do not know that reference. I have never heard that. I have no idea. So like, here I am watching JoJo's Bizarre Adventures to figure out who Cujo is to understand what they're talking about. And and I just was like, okay, how does the dog respond? Like, what is what are they vocalizing? What are they doing? Like, I had to just start getting on the same terms, because if we just start to go, oh, okay, yeah, sure, and then go, I'll figure it out when I get there. We're going to be so far behind the eight ball on that, and so out of our depth, and trying to really think on the fly. And it's in the situations where we do have those dogs who go straight to, I'm uncomfortable. Let me try and bite. Or I'm uncomfortable. Let me try and do this. That if I'm not aware or have worked through some precise wording, because it also impacts the client too. Like I can now give them good words to say. Oh, here's how I would describe what I'm seeing or what I'm hearing from you, these are much better words than saying he goes all Cujo on you like that. That's not very many people get that reference.
Lauren Sisak 41:49
You know what's so funny is my client, my first client. Well, first or second, because both of them will argue if they hear me say that. I met them the same day, and I don't know which appointment was first. They were her apart, but Miss Clementine, her mom does call her Cujo when she has that. But I got to be honest, I never, I never actually watched this reference. I only know it in reference to to Clementine and said Stella there.
Speaker 2 42:17
Oh,
Lauren Sisak 42:17
Stella and Cujo.
Collin 42:19
No,
Lauren Sisak 42:19
but she's asleep, so we'll not pick on the sleeping giant.
Collin 42:24
Yes. Now you have spent many years developing and working on the behavior, the body language, the communication. I'm most curious, Lauren. How has that helped you communicate with with people? Because as much as you deal with the dogs, there's always a person, and now you have a team that you're growing as well. How has it changed how you communicate or read people as well?
Lauren Sisak 42:52
Oh man, I thought that I was really reading people before, and now, you want to talk about really overthinking things? We're there, and when I was a baby trainer, I was just so excited to know all of this knowledge, and I was really focused on the dog because I wanted them to do the behavior that I knew I could get them to do, and I was really bad at describing what I was doing while I was doing it. And I knew I could do, I could teach 10 different things in the hour lesson, and dog would get it. But the client is probably still on behavior one. You're like, whoa, whoa, whoa! What's going on? And I would take possession of the leash. I it was the Lauren show. Okay, and now I actually rarely take the leash in a lesson, and if I do, it's for a quick second to show them something because it forces me to really narrate and describe what I want the client to do, and I have had to really tailor everything to the client and and also my stellar sitters because just because I know how to do it and it's super clear to me doesn't mean it's really clear to the other person. And I take them not being successful as information. I was not clear in my explanation, or I didn't pick the right thing for this client. Right? I need to adjust what I'm asking them to do. If what I was asking them to do, the client, the dog may be able to do, and it may be the perfect thing to get them out of this pickle. But I don't care if the client can't do it.
Collin 44:56
Yeah, yeah. Nothing will make you doubt. Your abilities more than trying to communicate to somebody else how to do it without you being like even like touching or doing anything, and that it can be so frustrating. But I think it is so clarifying as well for us when we can sit down and go, I know what to do, but being able to communicate it is a whole other ballgame. It's a whole other aspect to this, and it's critical for the clients that you have and for the team that you're growing because all of my head knowledge is completely useless when I'm not in the room. That's not all of a sudden I'm not helping anybody, and so having to like, did you like, what was that process like to get better at Communicating and and how much silent screaming did you do internally? I guess is what I'm asking, Laura. A
Lauren Sisak 45:48
lot of therapy. I worked on this a lot with my therapist. You know, we would debrief a lot because Collin, can you believe that some clients did not like like excuse me. Do you not know? No, I'm kidding. But ego plays a huge, huge role in this. And anyone who wants to be an entrepreneur, check your ego at the door because people aren't going to like you, and you're going to receive bad reviews, and someone requests a refund, and if it's never happened to you, it's going to happen. It like it's inevitable, and maybe you're the lucky one. But just assume you're the exception to the rule. If you never get negative feedback and you never get a refund, you're the exception.
Collin 46:35
Yeah. So
Lauren Sisak 46:36
I worked on it a lot with my therapists of understanding. Okay, is this a me problem or is this a client problem? And if it is a client problem, which it very may well be, then is this even our ideal client, right? Am I swimming upstream here and fighting against myself? And I could describe everything perfectly, but if I have that client that expects one session to be a magic fix, or for me to be able to come in and have one of my stellar sitters get their dog to suddenly not be reacting to everything on the street and not be pulling, then we're we're mismatched on expectations and what we can deliver. So I need to I need to make sure that my marketing and my onboarding processes do a lot of this work for me. So I'm not reinventing the wheel in the session and saying, "Hold on, you're looking more for a trainer, less for a walker or a sitter, right? And let's let's have that conversation. So, making sure your systems do a lot of work for you.
Collin 47:53
And now a word from our friends at Pet Setters International.
Speaker 3 47:56
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Collin 48:25
I really love that because oftentimes we think, well, whoever is in front of me is in front of me, and I just have to work with them, and that's what I have to do. And the answer is no, you don't. And it's totally fine to go through an onboarding intake process and go, actually, no, you don't need this, and that's not what we're looking to partner with and be doing today. So, or right now. So, here are some recommendations. Very well. Then I love that turning the eye and going, okay, how do I communicate to people to say again? It's all about communication. Turns out, I'm for you. If you think like this, if you act like this, if these are your problems, if this is what gets you going, we want to be the one to solve that and work with you on that. Because all of a sudden, then it's my style, my systems, my operations are designed for you, and I'm not having, like you said, Lauren, to reinvent and suddenly, because that's how we look up. And in five years, I've got exception, exception, exception, exception. I've got oh well, we don't do that for this client, but we do it for everybody else. And I'm doing this, and oh, don't remember, and and everything is a complete mess. Instead, going, I'm going to stay in my lane. I'm going to communicate to people, and that way, when I apply how we operate, because we get this a lot for us, Lauren. We go. People want the dog walk, but they might not want the dog walk how I offer the dog walk.
Lauren Sisak 49:47
Yes.
Collin 49:48
And okay, that's fine. How do I make sure the people who want how I offer the dog walk get in front of me? And that's what I actually need to focus on.
Lauren Sisak 49:57
Absolutely. And it can be really tough. When you're starting out, or even if you are a mature business and you hit speed bumps, right? And now you're looking at the bank account. You're stressed. How am I going to pay my team? How am I going to pay for these systems that we so fancily put together and spent a lot of money putting together, right? I heard you advertising for Time to Bet. We love Time to Bet. Yeah, that was a really big process, and we're still, you know, doing some transitional things. And if I could suddenly not afford it, ooh, we would have a big Stressful. So, and this is something I still struggle with. So, I don't have all the answers, but I I am in a better place than I was than in in 2023. So, keep in mind, for those of you that don't know, I left my corporate job in right almost three years ago, in August 2023, and I had maybe six to eight months of savings. I had investments. You know, I'm thinking I did this correctly, but I had to move apartments to pick an apartment that was better suited for the business, so think about you're out three months of rent in New York City, and my rent was 3500. Collin, it is four 600 right now. So I know, I know, Collin, and I don't, I don't gatekeep on numbers here, so we'll talk numbers. I went through egg freezing. Luckily, that was covered by my previous firm, but that was more of an emotional cost and a physical cost. I had to send Stella to Florida, and we did that on a semi-private jet called JSX, which is super dog friendly. Look them up; they're great. We are not sponsored, but would love to be. And that's pretty expensive. Couple 1000 there, few 1000 to send my dog to Miami with my parents, and had to invest in getting the apartment ready for dogs, so cleaning the yard, getting the turf, maybe another 1000 in getting the apartment set up, and now you, I spent another 1500 on our special flooring downstairs for the gym flooring, so you have all these startup costs, and I'm sure. Oh, the website setting up HoneyBook-that was the CRM, or you know how you track your leads and organize everything, invoice people, right? There was a lot of startup costs, and then you're not making money, so that reserve that you may or may not have, right? And again, I'm I know 100% that I'm coming from a very privileged place when I started the business, and most people would have started this with a mountain of credit card debt and no reserve. So, yeah, this is this is this is with best case scenarios in place, and it was still really hard. And I just see money flying through the doors. And we're now at November, so September, call it. I kind of took it off to do egg freezing. October, I opened the doors to the daycare, and I had a friend fly in, and my rates were wrong. Math wasn't math thing. Collin made a really big face for anyone that's listening because he knows how painful it can be to do all of this work and be priced incorrectly. Right? That's that's a whole. We could do a whole podcast episode on pricing, and so I'm just I'm running through money. Oh, a dog eats my laptop, Collin. Like literally, choose the edge of it. His name was Taco, which is the funniest part. It's great. So go choose my laptop. I get locked out of my apartment. That's like another 400 because it was like weekend overnight. New York is crazy. I don't think locksmiths are like that anywhere else. And this client comes to me who is this big time influencer. Her her husband's a really important guy, and actually a really inspirational speaker that I followed, and was a big reason why I made the job. He basically said in one video, "If you're not willing to lose your house for your dream, it's not your dream. You you got to be willing to bet the house, bet put go." All in. If you're not willing to go all in, then how can you move forward? And that spoke to me.
Lauren Sisak 55:07
That might freak out other people, but that was the that was something I still come back to where I was like, "You're right. If I don't if I don't take away all of these safety nets, how am I going to succeed? Right. And then you have no choice. You either do or you you don't survive. But if you keep trying to do it while you're one foot in corporate, there's a limit to how much you can do. And so I'm thinking this client is going to be my big break. She's gonna love me. She's gonna post about me to her you know, 500,000 followers. Her husband is this super famous guy. He's got millions of followers. Like this is this could be huge for me. And I book her. I tell her the price. The price is still wrong for the service being offered, but we're getting closer. We're getting closer, and we book her, and she hasn't paid the deposit yet. And I'm with my new system, and you know I'm here. Oh yes, this is this is what I do. And when dogs stayed here, and like really, she's like the first one to really test this out. And at the last minute, she cancels. Oh no! I was gonna pay my rent this month. Like we were gonna get close, you know, and I was gonna be not stressed. And I got so depressed from that Collin, so depressed because I was like, "Oh, she didn't like me. She found someone cheaper. She found someone better. Boo hoo hoo. Woe is me.
Collin 56:50
Yeah.
Lauren Sisak 56:51
And then you know, I took a step back and I was like, wait a second. As I started getting other clients, and I gotta be honest. It's still we probably weren't in ideal client territory for for months, but we were getting warmer. But then I had that that comparison of hold on, I probably was never gonna make her happy. She wanted this, and look at all these other clients that really want to work with me. We can have a conversation and all of this stuff. And funny enough, she actually came back. She came back, and I busted my chops for this client. I made so many exceptions for her, and right now she is not an active client, and there's good reason for that. Where it's not my ideal client, just because someone has a ton of money and has a ton of followers, does not make them ideal. And she was one that consistently pushed boundaries and asked for exceptions and late payments, which is so funny, Collin having a lot of money does not equate timely payment. It does not usually the opposite because that's where your systems and all these protect you. But all to say that I've been there where I said yes to things because of the bank account and because of the panic, and I operated from this survival instinct place of like I just have to make it to the next day and next month, and I just have to pay my rent. I was in my red zone going back to dogs. I was not thinking operationally long term about my mental health. Is this going to be replicatable? Is this going to be someone who's going to advocate for us? I just, I just was was chasing the next big thing, and I was lasered in, and I couldn't take a step back. You could only take a step back in green zone, right? But in red zone, we're just saying yes, we're doing it, and we're in it, and we're we're not thinking strategically. And I still to this day, Collin, even with all of our systems and all of our processes and all of our perfect marketing and onboarding and we still tweak it, and I still find myself saying yes to something and be like, "Should have said no to that. Should have said no to that. Was that worth losing my weekend? Probably not. Good learning lesson. So as long as you appreciate that it's going to take time, and you're you're gonna be constantly pivoting. I think you're in a good spot. I think the the worst thing you can do is think, oh, I figured it all out, and we're done. And this is our system, and this is our process, and this is our marketing. If you think of it like, oh, I'm just gonna have to change it every so often, and it's okay. I can wave a magic wand and change it. You're good. You're great.
Collin 1:00:04
It's a hard mindset to be in, though, especially as your business grows and matures. Because I've found that suddenly, as my business gets bigger, as businesses get bigger, there's worth. There's more to protect now. There's more at stake. It feels like there's a lot at stake when you're in the beginning and you're watching money fly out, and you're just desperate for the clients to start rolling in, and you just quit your job to go do this big dream thing. Like there's a lot at stake there, but suddenly, whenever you grow, now it's well, people are working for me, or I pay my livelihood with this. This puts food on the table for my kids or my family. I pay for insurance out of this. This is my everything. It can become almost debilitating to the sense of I don't want to change anything because it worked yesterday, so I don't ever want to change. How how do you stay in that mindset, Lauren? Of okay, we we we got to keep making little changes, making little changes.
Lauren Sisak 1:00:58
I'm in that right now. I'm not going to lie. I would say there's about five people on the team that I am. We are their primary source of income, and I I pay them weekly, so I know how much it is, and I know what I'm covering, and I'm seeing them able to pay off credit cards and take vacations and feel okay to say no to that sitting, so I can feel I can always feel that transition when I've onboarded someone, and I can see when their financial spot changes. I see it, and I feel it. I've witnessed it enough times. Said no, like okay, we're making an impact here, and that's so exciting. So, how do I? I have a lot of support. My therapist did fire me. That's another story. But because I couldn't keep our schedule, but it's fine. We're good. We're fine. We're we're we're therapized. It's fine. Collin, I don't know how you don't put this on video because you are hysterical on video. The people do not appreciate Collin voice only, but Collin has the most like the perfect expression and reaction, and it makes my job a lot easier because I know I know we're vibing, but so I have a COO, Michelle, and she is my lighthouse, if you will. So I'm really good about calling her and panicking and saying I don't like how this feels. We we need to change something. I don't know what it is, and I'm gonna be honest, Collin. That call was yesterday. I was crying on that call, and I was so stressed out. And I was like, I don't know what we need to fix, but I know we need to fix it, and let's figure it out. And so I just I have this trust that I can dump and get it all out with her. So it's really important to have your Michelle, and I would say I don't think it should be a friend, right? Because your friends can only can you can only hear about the business so much, and they're biased. They want you to succeed. They're not going to say to you, "Hey, Lauren, have you considered marketing and pivoting and changing your pricing? And they might, they might if they they're savvy. But also, like, don't put that on them. Talk about fun stuff with them. That should be your fun outlet. So have your person in your business who is loyal to the business, invested in the business, and if you can't afford a Michelle, we question if we can afford Michelle every day. No, I'm kidding. Um, somewhat. Um, then talking to other colleagues in the space, so finding another another pet sitter, another pet pro, whether they're a dog trainer, a groomer, whatever, you're going to have similar pain points. That's important. The next thing I would say is, I'm actually going to create this, but it's something that I do with clients, and I don't know why I don't have mine. Is having your brag list, so we can be told so often in society, like, "Oh, you're you're a narcissist. You have like way too much ego. You think you're hot stuff and all of the stuff, and so and especially if you are a female, oof! Forget championing your champion, championing, championing. Forget being your best champion or championing yourself. You can pick that one in your edits, Collin. Because, oh, woman, you are too too much. Like, oh, but it can be more normal for a man to you know pound their chest and tell everyone what they've accomplished. But for a woman, oof, you cross the line there. And so this list is just for you. You don't have to post it, put it anywhere. You don't have to tell anyone about it. I want you to write down everything you have accomplished today, yesterday, past month, past year, and that is going to be your reminder that you've already done this before. You already got over this hurdle. You did it then. You did it last year. You've done it 10 times over, and this feels so important and so horrible because you're in it. But it also felt so horrible and so pivotal back then.
Lauren Sisak 1:05:55
You got through it, and then you were like, "Oh, it wasn't that big of a deal, or like that, actually, in the grand scheme of things, wasn't that horrible, right? And that's actually how that was a big way that I stayed sober. Also, so I got sober right around November of 2023, which every if everyone remembers, was when we were panicking and we were really depressed that we did not get picked by our super fancy client, and I would say sobriety isn't for everyone. But I credit a lot of my business success to staying sober and having a lot healthier outlets.
Collin 1:06:39
I, Lauren, you know it's having that ability to look back at what you've already conquered is huge. And I also want to say congratulations on those three years of sobriety because that's amazing. And it's not easy, even if you aren't running a business and doing everything, and to pile that on. So, like, that's amazing that you've been able to do that and the support network. It's, it's, but it is that that reminder because every time when we look at, hey, I've got to make this big decision. Hey, what other big decisions have I made in the past? What other big pivots have I done? Oh yeah, I created a business whole cloth from nothing that didn't exist before. I I did do that, so maybe it's okay if I change my marketing to change, you know, to to focus on a particular kind of anxiety or breed of dog or whatever. Maybe that's okay because I did this other big thing, and that is so encouraging every time. And that's where you build and you get those skill sets. And also, like I, the things that you're conquering now are not the same things that you could have conquered several two years ago, three years ago. We've come so far, and when we don't look at that, we end up still thinking. I I fall into this almost every day, Lauren. Of of I still think of myself as baby business owner from six years ago. Walking into this, being like, "Well, gosh, golly, I don't know what's going on, guys. What what is this? Like I still view myself as that, and then I'm like, "No, like we're in so many territories. I've got all these team members. I'm I'm growing. I'm building. I've done all this stuff. Like I, we can do this, and we still because our we don't grow as much as our businesses do a lot of times. And
Lauren Sisak 1:08:12
I would I would I would push back on that. I think we do grow, but we don't acknowledge it as much because the business you have metrics. You could say our revenue grew six percentage, and we have these many more new leads. But how do you say I'm 10% more confident?
Collin 1:08:29
Right. You don't. Yeah. That that's what I meant to say. Like we don't recognize the growth. It's not as outward or as a parent on a spreadsheet or on a PNL or at tax time, it's just it's just not, and that's part of this. As a business owner, I have to continually, just as we ask those dogs to check in with ourselves, I've got to check in with myself. I've got to make sure that hey, where am I? How am I doing? Am I okay for mental health, emotional, spiritually, physically? Also, you know, you know, badassery of like, how how am I doing these days? Like, how am I really rocking it? And that's what allows us to stay focused and and take on those new things and really know, hey, I'm making it right now.
Lauren Sisak 1:09:14
Absolutely, and it's a struggle. It is a daily choice you need to make to choose yourself over the business, and if we're going to tech metrics, I may be doing it 50-50 right now. We're working on it, but just like I would say with dog training, the approximation or the effort is more important than being successful, so if I'm trying to get that dog closer to doing a behavior, I wouldn't say bad dog if they only gave me a centimeter, right? I would say, oh, good boy, she got closer today than you did yesterday, and so just looking at ourselves more like dogs. And it's gonna sound funny for a second, Collin, but just hear me out, right? Right? Right? We give dogs so much grace, and I think it's because we think of them as a lesser mammal, right? We think, oh, well, you can't do more, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna be nicer to you today, and we expect ourselves to do so much more because we are the big bad human, and we have thumbs that work. But we're mammals at the end of the day, and we have a lot in common. And so let's let's dog train ourselves a little bit, and you don't have to be a dog trainer to do this. I want you to reward the good. Take a look at the bad and see: is it the environment? What can I do to make it easier for myself? And how can I get more of the good and less of the bad, right? And also, for don't forget to reinforce yourself. So, back to me crying on the phone yesterday. In case anyone was wondering more about that, I was so overtired. I was so overscheduled because Perfect storm. People get sick. People go on vacation, and if they can't do the walk, we don't say sorry, client. I know we do a walk every Monday. Guess what? The CEO is walking your dog today, and that's not that's not easy for the CEO to do. We we are taking time out of being a strategic thought leader for your team and for the business, but also maybe that was time I needed to rest. Something so bit it's so simple, And so, if I know that my issue was being overscheduled, then how do we change the environment to make it less likely for me to be overscheduled? How do we make it more possible for me to get rest? How do we pivot the rest of the week, knowing I'm going in and I'm already toast? That's a problem, right? It's only Monday, and I'm I'm ready for Friday, and you-that's no way. That's no way to live. Like none of us are going to survive if we're just living for the weekend, and we're going to argue, Collin. When when did you get your consistent two days off a week? And if you tell me you still don't have it, then we have another conversation. But when consistent two days off a week?
Collin 1:12:59
Yeah, it was probably not until like a year and a half ago, or maybe like it was. It was pretty recent, honestly. Like, and we've been in business doing this full time for six years now, and so I mean, it took a long time before we started to have that. And even now, there are those those weeks where it's like, I I I I get I get one and a half days, or I get a day right. Like I gotta, but trying to fight for that. And we did. We do something called a no meeting Monday, where I try my best to have like no scheduled meetings at all. Anybody internal or external to the company on Mondays, and that helps me just like extend, not let like extend the weekend in the sense of like I'm still a little bit more behind the scenes on Mondays and I'm not like digging in and active and public and that kind of stuff outwardly, which really helps ease into the week, helps get caught up, helps catch up from what happened on Saturday and Sunday because if I show up on Monday and I'm like great I've got meetings and also I've got all these emails to dig out of and also I have to like you can't do all that, and so we found like even just carving out the days off, but also these like kind of nothing blobs of I've got to like, and that helps me absorb the things as they come up. Of sure, are there weeks where I do have meetings on Mondays? Yeah, on the really insane, busy, crazy weeks. I will schedule on Monday because I now can absorb that and distribute it a little bit more. But it allows us to like just adapt a bit. But it's hard. You got to fight for that every day. If it seems like
Lauren Sisak 1:14:34
absolutely, and that's an exception to your rule that you're making, right? You should stay flexible and know that best made plans-they're gonna get ready, and it's okay. And if you have ADHD like me, oh no, right? Because if you find I don't for all my neurodivergent and spicy brain people out there. The worst thing that can happen to someone with ADHD is you are locked in, and now someone bursts your focus bubble. Horrible, but unfortunately, it's gonna happen. Your dog is going to bark, and you're gonna get a delivery right when you got into the swing of something, and that flexibility is is really key, but also just even trying to put those boundaries down in the first place. And it's painful, but something that a lot of people have said to me out of the over the years. This isn't I didn't come up with this, so nobody give me credit for it. But if you're setting down a boundary and it's making the other person feel uncomfortable, right? So if you say, "Dear client, I can't accept bookings with less than 24 hours notice, or there's a $50 fee, right? You have a choice. You can you can say that, but the fee is making it more painful for the client to choose this, so it's going to decrease their behavior, for my behavior nerds, I did use punishment in there, but it's communicated effectively, right? So it's choice. There's agency. Don't panic, people. Then if the client says "wan win win, that doesn't work for me, or "Oh no, $50, we know we're on the right track because we have set ourselves up for failure. If that client thought it was really possible and super easy to always be last minute,
Collin 1:16:36
yeah,
Lauren Sisak 1:16:37
then that's when you. That's not when you say, "Oh, that policy stinks. Let me change it. That's when you say I have to double down.
Speaker 2 1:16:46
Yeah,
Lauren Sisak 1:16:47
and I've given them a choice. I can do it, but it's going to cost you more money, and that's going to protect my piece and also decrease those times and make sure that I'm properly compensated for readjusting my schedule At the last,
Collin 1:17:03
Lauren, I really want to thank you for coming on the show today and encouraging us to give ourselves grace to set those boundaries, but also to take the time and patience to get to know the dogs, ask good questions beforehand, and know that we're partnering with clients for the long-term success of them and us as a business. I know there's a lot here, and I was scrolling through. I didn't even get to ask me half the questions that I had prepared for us today. So all that means, Lauren, is I've got to have you back on in a second episode. So we'll get that we'll get that book. But I have just so thoroughly enjoyed getting to talk to you about this. For those who want to learn more, get connected, and follow along with you, how best can they do that?
Lauren Sisak 1:17:41
You can follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Sit Stay Stella. And for our pet sitters out there, we are rolling out the Stellar Sitter certification course this fall. We have a early promo, so go ahead and look that up. I share all of my secrets. I do not let any of the secret sauce out of the recipe. You can know exactly how we run our business, how I think about things from a training lens, and also from a customer service perspective. So check that out, and yeah, we're on social. Come join us; it's it's fun out there for sure.
Collin 1:18:27
Cool. Well, I will have those links in the show notes and on the website, so people can click and get connected with you and start getting that information. Lauren, again, thank you so much for coming on the show today. This has just been such an immense pleasure.
Lauren Sisak 1:18:39
Thank you so much, Collin. It's been really fun talking to you, and I really hope the next time you have this on YouTube because the people need your facial expression.
Collin 1:18:49
We'll work. We'll work on that. Let me break out the video editor. Thank you. My favorite part of my conversation with Lauren was when she reminded us that the moment they see the scary thing and check in with you first. You're golden. Trust with a dog does not always look like cuddles and perfect leash manners or just immediately accepting affection. And if that's the first time I'm telling you that, go ahead and listen back to this conversation again. Sometimes, sometimes trust. Right. The the biggest breakthrough happens when when something scary happens, and they look at you. That simple look. Why? Why? Because that that check in tells us that the dog, the one that is in our care, is beginning to see us as part of their support system, but getting there often requires patience, consistency, planning, observation, and a willingness a willingness to listen when the dog says no to something that we want to do. It's. No going around the corner. No going down the stairs. No going through the trail. No going under the tree. When we listen in that moment, when they're telling us this is too much, that's where that trust begins. Our jobs, our jobs as dog walkers and pet sitters, it is not, and it should never be just to get the animal to comply and do the thing and force it into that situation. Our goal, ultimately, is to create enough safety and and predictability that the pets in our care learn that they can work through those difficult moments with us. That is what their owners. That's what they want, and that's what we want as well. We want to thank you for listening today, and we want to thank our sponsors, Time to Pet and Pet Sitters International, for making this show possible. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your week, and we'll be back again soon.
