Creature Care in the Media

Family values put the care in petcare

For sisters Wendy Scammell and Jackie Osmond, starting a pet care service came naturally. They're pet lovers and, like many pet owners, they feel their pets are part of the family and want them to be treated that way.

By Aimee Igloliorte
Progresive Choices Atlantic
Fall/Winter '07

The idea originated at their parent's cottage during the Victoria Day long weekend in 2002. Scammell, with the end of her maternity leave fast approaching, was expressing her desire to do something different than her ffull-time job as a fundraising director for a charity. She wanted to start a business and have the flexibility of spending more time with her family.

Osmond suggested they start a pet care service together. "I used pet sitters [while living] in Ontario and there's no company that does pet sitting in St. John's, so I always thought it would be a great idea to start up a pet sitting company," says Osmond.

Scammell agreed and that weekend they began planning and dividing the tasks involved. "Our family members laughed at us except for our mother," says Osmond. "They said, 'this is something they've thought of in one weekend and it'll die out in two to three weeks.'"

But Scammell and Osmond stuck with their plan and after a year of researching, planning and preparing, they launched Creature Care - a pet sitting and dog walking service.

They took a professional approach from the start. "We got a graphic designer, had our logo trademarked and our company incorporated," says Osmond. "We even had some people ask if we were a franchise because they thought everything looked so professional. We figured if it was a company where people trust you to go into their home, then they want to know it's a company that knows how to run a business."

They spent countless hours, many of which were late ones as they were both working full time, strategising and planning the business in the first year. Although they had invested a lot of their time and focused on advertising, like many start-ups, they were faced with the challenge of slow growth. "It's only now that I get calls daily," says Scammell. "I would say that we average five bookings per week right now, whereas we were lucky to have five bookings per month two years ago. This week alone I took five or six new bookings and I'd say half were from new clients. The nice thing about this business is that once people get a taste of it and realize how great it is for their pets, they call us back. I would say we get repeat business 80 percent of the time."

They attribute their repeat business to the quality of the service they provide. They like to provide little extras such as journals of the pet's activity and behaviour. But they say it's also the pet sitters that make a big impact. "It's not only the little things, it's the fact that our sitters are hand-picked," explains Scammell. "We are very careful about who we hire."

"The client forms a relationship with that pet sitter and they get really close," adds Osmond. "We've had pet sitters invited to [client's] weddings because they've become part of the family."

Another challenge they continue to have is education and awareness. "At the very beginning we'd say to people not only are we a new business so we have the challenges that any new business has, we're a new kind of business in St. John's," says Scammell. "We not only have to establish our business and get our client base going, we have to explain to everybody who calls what we do and I still have to do that."

They decided to shift their marketing budget from advertisements to event sponsorships such as pet expos and dog shows. Having this captive audience has helped them reach valuable clients. "I think I've gotten smarter in terms of where we are putting our very meagre marketing budget," says Scammell.

The business owners also had to determine the best pricing strategy. They knew that St. John's couldn't tolerate the prices Osmond was paying in Ontario, so they set their prices low. They realized that this would mean it would take longer for them to break-even, but it would help them grow their business.

They say that being sisters is a benefit to working together. They've been able to identify and utilize each other's strengths. And Scammell is quick to compliment her sister.

"Jackie, at the very beginning, spent a lot of time developing procedures, processes and forms," explains Scammell. "Right from the start - and I tell people this because I'm really proud of it - we've never had a glitch with our services because it was so well thought out at the beginning. Our pet sitters are very well trained and they have everything they need to go and offer the service. The only suggestion we've ever had was we needed to market ourselves more because not enough people know about us."

"I did a lot of the marketing and sales and Jackie had the planning so between us it really worked well," says Scammell. "We're sisters, but our minds are different. Jackie has an analytical mind and mine is different." "And Wendy is creative," says Osmond. "So our skill sets complement each other really well," says Scammell. "And for the most part we get along," says Scammell and they both laugh.

So, is their family still laughing? No, the laughter has turned into support. "They've been extremely supportive once they realized that this was something we were serious about," says Osmond.

Even the two most skeptical brothers have volunteered to put Creature Care licence plated on their car. "Not to say that [our brothers] would ever not support us, but they've been the guys to laugh at us in the beginning and now they're just kind of getting caught up in what's happening for Creature Care and they're really excited for us," says Scammell.

Wendy Scammell | AGE 42 | Jackie Osmond | AGE 39 | St. John's, NL

Company: Creature Care
Industry: Pet Care
Years in Business: 5
Employees: 11

Wendy's Strategies for Success:

• Never give up. Believe in what you're doing.
• Be decisive. Once you've made a decision, follow through.
• Be organized. Chaos just adds to the stress. Learn to manage paper well.
• Build strong relationships with people who can help with your success.
• Get involved with the community. Join a service organization.

Jackie's Strategies for Success:

• Choose to be positive. I always try to remain positive when issues arise - if you focus on the negative, you will never resolve the issue.
• Understand your weaknesses. I knew that I did not have all the skills to start-up a company. When my sister showed interest, I knew we would make a great team. We brought different strengths to the table.
• Take advantage of your network of family/friends/acquaintances. We were able to get a lot of free professional advice this way!
• Think big. When planning, think about where you want to end up and then work your business plan from there.

A huge change

Wendy Scammell's decision to work from home was a risk worth taking

By Darcy MacRae
The Independent
January 15, 2006

For Wendy Scammell, the choice to work from home was about priorities. She had a successful career as director of fund raising for the Canadian Mental Health Association, a job she held for 13 years, but wanted to spend more time with her husband Brian and children Adam, 12, Andrew, 9, and Claire, 4.

So when her sister Jackie Osmond returned from Ontario and suggested the two start their own business, Scammell used the opportunity to combine career and family. In 2003, the sisters, who grew up in St. John's and reside there today, opened Creature Care – a stay-at-home pet care alternative for traveling pet owners in St. John's and Mount Pearl.

Creature Care will send a pet sitter to a home up to four times a day or overnight to take care of a dog, cat, guinea pig or hamster.

Scammell's new job allows her to work from the comfort of her home, meaning she can spend time with her kids.

"It's a huge change for me," Scammell tells The Independent. "It's amazing what a difference it's made for my family life – with my kids. It's wonderful, I would recommend starting your own business to anybody. It gives me lots of flexibility and gives me all the time I want with my kids.

"We do all of our payments with credit cards, so there's very little follow up in terms of receivables. I do it all from my family room."

Scammell says Creature Care is "doing well" these days, but admits there were times she wondered if she had made the right choice. "Oh yeah, but who doesn't? Walking away from something that I'd been at for so long wasn't easy," says Scammell. "And I had a lot of respect in the charitable community, but I guess I was ready for it."

While she enjoys spending more time with her family, Scammell also faced some major challenges in the early days. When asked which was toughest, she doesn't hesitate with her answer.

"Giving up my income," Scammell says with a laugh. "I was making a very good salary, so it was a huge decision for us. But we made adjustments to our life style and it's worked out really well."

And it's not as if Scammell's 13 years with the Canadian Mental Health Association were a waste. Scammell says her experience with budgets, dealing with people and multi-tasking are of great benefit.

"I haven't had to go back to school to learn what I needed to do to run my own business because running a charity is very similar to running a business," she says. "that's where I learned everything I needed to know."

Looking back at her childhood in St. John's, Scammell says it is little wonder she and her sister now own a company that specializes in pet care. After all, as children they loved animals, and according to Scammell, still do today.

"We were the two in the family who always had the pets," Scammell says. "We always had cats, and several dogs as well.

"I still have a cat and three gold fish."

Scammell is happy to report she sees a lot of the compassion she and her sister shared for animals in Adam, Andrew and Claire.

"They love pets, they always have," Scammell says. "They'd love to have more, but it's a busy house."

NLOWE (Newfoundland and Labrador Organization of Women Entrepreneurs) newsletter

November 18, 2005

In 2002, Wendy Scammell and business partner (and sister), Jackie Osmond, recognized a need for a professional pet-sitting, dog-walking and house-sitting service and formed Creature Care Incorporated.

"From the beginning," Wendy says, "our philosophy has been a commitment to provide the highest-quality service possible to Creature Care's clients and their pets."

Creature Care's team of 5 carefully-selected Professional Pet Sitters/Dog Walkers provide loving, one-on-one attention for clients' pets including fresh food, water, litter change, grooming, playtime, aquarium/cage tending and exercise. We also water indoor plants, take in mail and newspapers, turn lights on and off...anything required to give a home a lived-in look. Creature Care and its pet-sitters are bonded and insured.

The biggest challenge for Creature Care has been in educating the public about its unique service. Although pet-sitting is an established industry in the US and other parts of Canada, no other professional pet-sitting service existed in St. John's in 2002. Wendy and Jackie's efforts have certainly paid off though. Creature Care is now recognized not only by pet owners, but also by others in the pet industry, and by industry-related organizations, as the premier St. John's pet-sitting and dog-walking service.

Feedback from Creature Care's clients has been overwhelmingly positive with 100% indicating that they would recommend Creature Care's services to other pet owners. One pet parent comments, "My pets were calm when I returned. Our pet-sitter seemed to really love our beasts. I will be relaxed next time I go on holiday."

Creature Care was trademarked in 2004; achieved bronze accreditation through the All Canadian Pet Services Network (ACPSN) in April 2005 www.acpsn.com; and became Pet First Aid Certified through ACPSN in April 2005. For more information visit www.creaturecare.ca or contact Wendy at 709-576-2200 or scammell@creaturecare.ca.

Creature comforts

St. John's pet-sitting company will take Rover for a walk or watch him overnight

By Claire-Marie Gosse
The Independent
June 19, 2005

Busy dog owners needn't sit at work, worrying about what heinous damage their bored pup is inflicting on their furniture because they're running late and haven't been home in nine hours.

Creature Care pet sitting and dog walking service is ready to help out. The St. John's company will send a pet sitter to either hang out with Rover in the house and keep him occupied, or work off his energy by taking him for a walk.

"When we first started we thought the pet sitting was going to be our business," says Wendy Scammell, co-president of Creature Care, "it turned out the dog walking is every bit as big as the pet sitting."

Scammell sits on a couch in her front room and talks about the business venture she and her sister, Jackie Osmond, embarked on back in 2002.

Creature Care is currently the only pet sitting and dog-walking company of its kind in Atlantic Canada and offers pet owners an alternative to using expensive and – for some animals – stressful doggy day-care or kennels when they can't be around to mind their animals.

HORSES TOO

"We look after anything, reptiles, snakes, we've done ferrets, you know, guinea pigs, rabbits, you name it," says Scammell, adding some of her staff are trained to handle particular animals.

"In fact, we've talked about whether we would do horses. We do have a pet sitter who has experience with horses, so if the demand is there, then we do everything we can to accommodate clients' requests."

The requests are steadily mounting. Scammell says Creature Care had originally planned to service the St. John's/Mount Pearl areas only, but they've expanded to include Conception Bay South, Torbay to Pouch Cove, and are expecting to branch out to Portugal Cove-St. Phillips.

She says the six staff she currently employs will probably rise to around eight or nine by summer's end.

They don't hire just anyone. Not only does Creature Care mind people's furry prized possessions, but they also have to enter into people's homes when they're not there, sometimes for overnight visits. Scammell says clients need to feel they're getting a secure service.

"People we have as pet sitters, it's obvious, as soon as you meet them, they're just overflowing with enthusiasm about cats and dogs." She adds both the client and sitter have the right to refuse service if they don't feel comfortable.

Fees range from between $15 (a 30-minute visit/walk) to $65 (an overnight stay with two separate daily visits/walks).

Clients and their pets have a free half-hour interview with the sitter before being assigned. Sitters also write a journal about the animal's experience or leave a phone message, water plants and make sure security is taken care of in terms of taking in mail and switching lights on and off.

Scammell says they use color-coded keys and make sure they don't dress in the usual dog-walker vests when visiting homes for security purposes.

Scammell, who is a wife and mother of three, worked in fundraising for the Canadian Mental Health Foundation before taking maternity leave in 2002.

Just as that was coming to an end, her sister returned from living in Toronto and pitched the idea for Creature Care, based on a pet-sitting company there.

"She said we should start a business. I said I've always wanted to, I've just been looking for the right idea.

"Both of us were always the animals owners and pet lovers in our family and it just clicked with us. Yes, this makes so much sense. And everybody around us went, 'What? You're going to do what?'"

As a busy mother, Scammell can work from home, in a business that has minimal overhead and is steadily gaining in popularity. She says the main challenge, so far, has been educating the general public to the concept of pet sitting. But word of mouth is spreading.

The clients also seem happy.

What often ends up happening is one particular sitter tends to do the same pets on a regular basis.

"You get pet sitters and animals that bond and I actually just got an e-mail from one of our clients in Torbay, it almost brought me to tears," says Scammell.

"She was talking about how wonderful the pet sitter was with her dog and how it really makes her feel good leaving her house, knowing that she has this person that loves her dog as much as she does."

No more home alone

Pet-sitting company will take care of your pets while you are away

By Moira Baird
The Telegram
Saturday, November 15, 2003

A new St. John's pet-sitting company wants you to leave Fido or Fluffy at home the next time you go on vacation.

Wendy Scammell has started a company called Creature Care that specializes in taking care of other people's pets while they're out of town.

The company also provides a dog-walking service.

"This is a well-established industry across Canada and right down through the United States," said Scammell.

Most pet owners get a friend or relative to keep an eye on their pet, but it's not always an option.

"Professional people are having to travel more. It's not as easy as it used to be."

Alternative to kennel

Scammell says her service is also an alternative to a kennel.

"For dogs that find kennels stressful, it provides them a chance to stay at home in their own environment. The pet sitter will spend a half-hour to 45 minutes per visit, depending on what the pet owner wants," she said.

"I've heard from some people who are in the industry that it (a kennel) is not a good place for dogs that get stressed easily. Some dogs are social animals and they love it, for others that get intimidated it doesn't work."

Visits home daily

For a fee, a Creature Care pet sitter will visit your home each day to feed your pet, walk the dog or change the cat litter.

Pet sitters will also bring in the mail, turn lights off and on, or water house plants for pet owners.

Fees start at $15 per half-hour visit and increase with the length of the visit.

Her company will look after just about any animal, including cats, dogs, fish, hamsters, tarantulas, rabbits or cockatiels, and will match sitters with pets.

To do this, Creature Care arranges a half-hour interview between the pet owner and would-be pet sitter.

"They get to know each other and see if the chemistry is right."

If a dog is aggressive, pet sitters can refuse service, and a pet owner can refuse a sitter if they're not comfortable with the person.

"We've contracted with independent pet sitters to do the pet sitting."

Each has specific qualifications – one is an experienced pet sitter, one is certified to handle reptiles, another has completed a veterinary assistance course.

"They have to be animal lovers, primarily," said Scammell. "The person we're sending has to be someone that people can trust."

Scammell said her pet sitters are bonded and the company is insured.

The company is also keeping home security in mind by color coding house keys provided to pet sitters, rather than labeling the keys with addresses.

"Most pet-sitting businesses are one person doing their neighbourhood," said Scammell. "But I wanted to do it in a more professional manner so people would identify this company as the best pet-sitting service in St. John's and Mount Pearl."