What if some of the dogs causing the biggest problems in your daycare aren’t actually difficult dogs at all?
What if they’re simply in the wrong programme?
And what if changing the way you deliver daycare could reduce staff burnout, lower labour pressure, improve the experience for the dogs AND create entirely new revenue streams for your business?
In this week’s episode of the Pet Boarding & Daycare Podcast, Dom is joined by Kristen Perrus from the award-winning Scouts Honour Pet Retreat to talk about how their approach to daycare has evolved, why they moved away from relying entirely on all-day group play, and how their hybrid model has helped reduce staff burnout, manage labour costs and provide a better experience for dogs who simply don’t thrive in traditional daycare.
Kristen also takes Dom behind the scenes of Scouts Honour’s rapidly growing training department and explains how their Play & Train programme has developed from Kristen training dogs by herself into a team of six trainers and a department that now accounts for around 20% of the business.
By focusing on puppies and family dogs, solving the everyday problems owners actually care about and combining practical training with play and enrichment, they’ve achieved an incredible 85% continued training rate and created an entirely new profit centre alongside daycare and boarding.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
- Why Every Dog Isn’t a Daycare Dog – How trying to say yes to everyone can increase labour costs, create staff burnout and lead to a worse experience for the dogs.
- The Hybrid Daycare Model – How Scouts Honour combines group play with one-to-one enrichment to better serve dogs that don’t thrive in all-day play.
- How to Sell Change to Your Clients – Why education helped owners understand that different doesn’t mean worse, and how showing them the benefits created buy-in.
- The Play & Train Opportunity – How combining training, play and enrichment developed into one of Scouts Honour’s most successful services.
- Why Niching Made Training More Profitable – How focusing on puppies and family dogs rather than severe behavioural cases helped Scouts Honour create a more sustainable training department.
- The Secret Behind 85% Client Retention – Why selling a better life and relationship with their dog keeps training clients coming back for more.
Huge thanks to our sponsor, Focus Answering Service. Remember, every missed call is a missed revenue opportunity; protect your reputation and scale your business with 24/7 live call support: focustele.com
Remember, registration is now open for the biggest Pet Boarding and Daycare Expo on the planet, which is happening at the famous Hershey Lodge. Click here to grab your ticket now!
Huge thanks to Kristen Perrus and Allison Jacobs from Scouts Honor Bloomington, Indianna. Find out more about Scouts Honor by clicking here now
Want to work with the World Leading Pet Business Coach? Add your name to the waitlist for Dom’s Exclusive coaching program The Dog Daycare Success Academy now by clicking here.
Episode Highlights
[00:51] – Dom introduces Kristen Paris and the story behind Scouts Honour’s move from all-day group play towards a hybrid daycare model.
[04:52] – Kristen shares how her own reactive dog inspired her to become a trainer and eventually create a different kind of training programme.
[07:19] – The lesson Scouts Honour learned the hard way: not every dog is a good candidate for daycare, and that’s okay.
[11:14] – Why Scouts Honour created Hybrid Camp to combine socialisation, group play and individual enrichment.
[12:11] – How educating clients about dog behaviour helped Scouts Honour successfully introduce a completely different daycare experience.
[16:17] – Kristen explains how the Play & Train programme grew from one trainer into a rapidly expanding departmen[19:33] – Allison Jacobs joins the conversation and explains why identifying their ideal training client helped the programme finally take off.
[22:23] – Why Scouts Honour focuses on creating the “perfect family dog” instead of teaching impressive but impractical obedience skills.
[29:36] – The incredible 85% continued training rate and why repeat clients have allowed Scouts Honour to grow the department so quickly.
[34:04] – Six trainers, multiple services and approximately 20% of the entire business: how big the training department has become.