Clients without kids vs Clients with kids

You know how they say in business, you have one target client and that is who you serve. Well that's true, yes, but in the dog business world we can break that down even further into clients without kids (or self proclaimed dog moms and dog dads) and clients with human children who also happen to have dogs.

Example instructions from a client without kids:

-arrive at exactly 12 noon every day or my dog gets anxious (translation I get anxious for my dog)

-choose one of the 8 harnesses and matching collars I have for his walk. There are three rain coats, slippers if it snows and a fall sweater depending on weather. I like the blue one but he prefers the rust one because it's less itchy.

-Please describe in detail to me, the color and consistency and weight of his poop. I may have follow-up questions related to this.

-Please refill water bowl and only give filtered water from the fridge, followed by one homemade organic treat that I rotate weekly depending on the consistency of his poop. Then five minutes of tummy rubs.

-Please tell him I miss him when you see him

-Or you can just have him wave to me because I'm likely watching everything from the camera on my media console, or the one on top of the fridge, or the one by the back door where I watch him all day from work and we both anxiously await for your arrival.

Example instructions from a client with kids:

-it would be great if you arrived sometime between 10 and 4 so my dog doesn’t shit all over the house.

not an exaggeration. Which one are you?

And this isn’t a scientific study, simply what I’ve observed after years in business, but the dogs from households with kids tend to be a lot more easygoing. I think it’s because in busier households, the dogs blend in and are allowed to coexist and just be. Whereas, when they are the center of attention, the contrast of when they are left alone vs when their people are home is really really apparent and I this imbalance seems to cause anxiety.

There was an interesting article in the NYT a while back about how in Europe, dogs are part of the culture, but they are not the center of attention. People don’t ask other people to pet their dogs. People don’t go ballistic when they see a puppy. But dogs are everywhere coexisting. They aren’t experiencing these huge spikes in energy every time they see a new person or their person comes home from work. And the connection in the article was that behavioral problems due to anxiety are less of a problem there because life in general is just more even keeled for them.

Just some thoughts you didn’t ask for.

What do you think? Make sense or total bs?

Which one are you?