Ministry of Dog turns into a Franchise
A WOMAN who started a “dog day care” business after being diagnosed with a heart condition is turning it into a franchise.
Alison Williams’ success with her company Ministry of Dog earned her a nomination for Business Mother of the Year in last year’s Dorset Venus Awards. Now she is seeking franchisees and says she has had a number of approaches. Alison started the dog walking and day care franchise business in 2012 after leaving her office job following a health scare.
“At 40, I found out that I had this congenital heart defect that we didn’t know anything about up until that point,” she said.“It kind of made me think that I wanted to leave the office lifestyle.“I wanted to get fit and I wanted to go outside and be more active. I had been in large corporate companies pretty much all my life in marketing and customer services, so I wanted to do something totally different. I love the outside, I love walking my dogs and I thought I wonder if I can make a living doing this.“It went from strength to strength and now I’ve got a team working for me.”
She decided 18 months ago to look at turning the business into a pet care franchise. She said the idea was so popular in her own area of Wimborne and Ferndown that there was room for a franchisee locally as well as in franchise territories within Bournemouth and Poole.
“I’m turning down work every week because it’s so popular here,” she said.
Many of Alison’s customers are working people who are not at home to exercise their dogs. She collects them in the morning and takes care of them all day. She said the business had fitted in with the need to raise George, 19, Juliet, seven. Alison employs three dog walkers, working with pets from jackpoodles to Weimaraners.
“It’s like children – you take them out for a couple of long runs during the day and have a quiet time at lunch. We try and structure it like child care,” she said. “I realised quite early on that I wanted to franchise the business and it was a question of finding the right people to work with.”
She said franchisees could develop the business idea.
“It’s their business and they are free to do whatever they want with it, within our parameters,” she said.“I don’t do dog boarding, but you could. If you wanted to do grooming, that would be OK as well.”
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