Save your sanity, take a vacation! How dog trainers can prevent burnout by creating a schedule that forces them to take time off.
Owning a successful dog training business is your ultimate dream!
Who wouldn’t want to play with dogs all day, work with awesome clients, and help make their lives with their dogs easier?! It seems like the best job ever!
For dog trainers who offer board and train programs, especially those who train in their own home, it sometimes feels like we just never get time to ourselves or time away without dogs.
We are Ashley and Liz Smentek, and we own and operate Gold Hill Canine, a premier dog rehabilitation program in Northern California. We can definitely say we’ve been there. We’ve been so busy with training dogs and helping people, that months have gone by without so much as a couple days off in a row. It’s not at all what we envisioned, when it came to owning our own business and creating the life we wanted, so something had to change.
Read on the see what we did to give ourselves regular breaks without affecting our overall income. >>
Dog training is a unique profession.
Unlike other service industries, where you can leave work, turn off your computer, or stop creating, dogs are living, breathing beings who need to be taken care of well past “closing time” if they’re staying with the trainer for a board and train program. Late night potties, barking and whining at all hours, and cleaning up accidents even after you’re done training for the day can wear on anyone. The money is great and all, but in order to continue to pay the bills, you have to continue to take dogs. You end up feeling stuck in this perpetual cycle of dogs coming and going. Every single week is filled with drop off sessions, go-homes, phone calls, emails, walking and pottying dogs, and maybe even private and puppy sessions. Next thing you know, you haven’t had a real day off or a vacation in over a year!!?
At Gold Hill Canine, we decided to be more proactive and started to schedule time off without dogs in our kennel.
That’s right. AN EMPTY KENNEL. Gasp!
In order to do so, we had to come up with a plan that allowed us to continue to stay busy, keep the finances where we’d like them, but also keep our sanity and avoid burning out!
We talk more in depth in our YouTube Live on this subject, which we’re incredibly passionate about. Seriously, it has changed everything.
Our goal was to have 3-5 dogs here in training for either 3 or 4 weeks, for two complete cycles, then take 4-10 days off completely.
Prior to this, we’d take dogs whenever we could, staying at that 3-5 dog limit as much as possible. This meant dogs were staggered; coming and going at different times, and at different stages in training than the other dogs around them. Some days, we’d have a dog drop off session, have to deal with the dog trying to eat us, crate train them, or address barking/howling/etc., and then have to quickly change gears for a go-home session with owners with a dog who is now fully trained. Add in the mix, our Every Where Pups™ and Every Where Dogs™ sessions, it just didn’t make sense, and we felt like we were all over the place and never in control of our day, week or month.
Here’s our plan now.
All dogs on one cycle are dropped off within 1-3 days of each other. This means you deal with all the early shenanigans all at once. Dogs settle in that week and start the early training phase, and are now all on a similar training trajectory. This makes it easy for you to keep track of where everyone is at in their program, and where they need to be prior to going home.
For us, we offer three go-home sessions for owners.
We schedule each dog’s sessions during the drop off, right there with the owner; avoiding back and forth emails and saving everyone some time!
We begin the first go home session 10-14 days into the dog’s program (out of a 3 week program). We only chat during this session, and the owners do not see their dogs, so we are totally okay doing this early on!
We schedule the second session, which is all hands on coaching and working with the dog, 14-20 days into their program (out of a 3 week program). This assures us the dog will be far enough along in training and should be able to “perform” tasks for their owner.
We bring dogs home for the final session, scheduled 18-22 days into the program. We do this for a couple reasons.
It gets us OUT OF THE HOUSE.
Our neighborhood contains a busy road and is not safe to walk clients on. This is what prompted us to change this session in the first place, but the other reasons ended up benefiting us and our program as well!
We get to see the dog in its own home and neighborhood. THIS IS SO CRUCIAL and we didn’t believe it until we started seeing it. Imagine being able to bring dogs home to the place where all the bad habits happened, to meet up with the people that all the bad habits happened with… and now imagine being able to address everything for the owners who maybe wouldn’t be able to without your help - correct fence fighting, doorbell barking, face their arch nemesis on the walk, etc. GAME. CHANGER. Trust us.
When we’re finished bringing the last dog home, guess what we return home to?
AN EMPTY KENNEL.
Do you know how amazing that feels? We have a successful (and exhausting) week of go home sessions with owners and then we get to come home and not worry about pottying any of them!
We might even schedule a weekend away on the coast after the last drop off, or stay for a fancy dinner somewhere to celebrate a great week.
We start the next “cycle” of dogs a couple days later, giving us a chance to clean the kennel and prepare ourselves physically and mentally for another round of dogs. We’ll repeat the same process all over again, and then TAKE A WEEK (or more) OFF.
That’s right. We schedule time off to do nothing or work around the house and catch up on life. Or we go on vacation and enjoy some time away, even from our own dogs.
The benefits to our “new” schedule
We don’t feel continuously bogged down by other people’s dogs.
We get to take a break and feel refreshed.
We get to schedule around holidays, family vacations, and our recent maternity leave.
We get to focus on other things in our life that may take a back seat when really busy, like house projects or spending a weekend mountain biking in Tahoe.
We can plan social media projects and batch content, which can be tough to do during busy training weeks.
We get time to enjoy each other.
We stopped resenting dogs.
We feel mentally and physically healthier because we’re not constantly working long hours with no days off in between.
Whether you’re a seasoned pro and have been running your business for several years, or you’re just starting out and are only training a dog or two at a time, this schedule IS easy to implement and you can START ENJOYING the benefits right away.
Give it a try and let us know how it feels or what you’ve been up to in your newfound free time!! Tag us in our adventures on Instagram if you want!!
-Ashley & Liz