Nauset Kennels

Wow! Who would have thought that constructing a new building would cause us to change almost every aspect of our business? Silly, naive, girls we were! We just thought we would have a little bit more elbow room. Instead, we’ve spent the last year examining our business. Our construction turned into a business exercise that I think all business owners should go through even without the new building!

So what’s new you ask? Let’s start first with the most noticeable things. After 38 years, our wonderful logo, originally designed by Kirsten’s mother, is now more reflective of who we are as a business and the lighthouses that are the Cape. The new logo moves from the dog and cat with their suitcases going on vacation concept (see below) to a lighthouse totem pole of pets (see above), a shining beacon in the pet care industry.

We are also in the process of changing our name from Nauset Kennels to Nauset Pet Services. Similar to our logo, we are no longer “just a kennel.” We’ve always offered many of these services, but on a much smaller scale. We have always offered day care, but no one thought of it in terms of advertising. Seventeen years ago, Brewster was our one day care dog, hanging out in the grooming room with Nancy.

New logo, new name, what else? Well, as Kirsten likes to remind herself, we really aren’t the little mom and pop kennel that we used to be. Like so many of our colleagues, our industry has changed dramatically. Look at your own attitude towards your pets - like so many others, I bet your pet is far from just the family dog or “that cat” anymore. We are constantly re-educating, learning new things, trying to make each animal’s experience with us the best it can be. Just today I realized that even the food we feed in the kennel is vastly different from the food we fed when I first started so long ago.

In that effort to create the best experience for each animal, we started offering pet sitting knowing that not every animal is comfortable in a kennel environment. This idea, which used to seem contrary to the concept of the kennel, now compliments our services quite well. We love going to Jake and Cali’s house, feeding them, making sure they have been out, and sitting on the front stoop snuggling with them in the sun.

We now offer pick-up and delivery to more than just Provincetown and for more than just grooming. Katie used to climb in the Subaru wagon twice a week. We now have three vehicles of all different sizes going two different directions!

Perhaps some of the more difficult but important changes are in our policies. We require deposits on holiday and summer reservations. We won’t waiver on your vaccinations and have implemented more stringent requirements. Your pet’s paperwork needs to be in to us before your first visit.

What hasn’t changed though is our commitment to your pets. Yes, we are “bigger” now. Yes, we have a new name to reflect what we truly offer. And yes, we’ve added staff and changed some of our more relaxed policies to stricter policies. But all of these changes were made and implemented with you and your pet in mind. Our deposit requirement is to ensure that people don’t just make reservations on the off-chance that they might be going away for Thanksgiving and then decide not to show up (which happened with enough regularity that it became a nightmare having to turn away so many clients every summer weekend or holiday).

Along the way we’ve been having a ball. Not every change is easy to implement and not every customer gets it or agrees with it. Change is hard. But we are loving the challenge of continuing to provide the absolute best care that we can for your pet.

Over the course of the summer, we had quite the learning curve being in the new building. You see, while we had spent years (yes, years) researching and learning, and then what seemed like years securing the financing, working with the architect and then finally building the building, until we actually moved in, we never realized how much our business model would change just from moving into a new building. And while I would love to say that we had the foresight to plan for such change, we didn’t. Retrospect is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?

So, over the course of moving and settling in, we adjusted our business. Boy, did we hit the ground running! Some of the changes we were more than happy to make. The new building gave us an opportunity to correct and alter in a way that the old building couldn’t. There were those necessary changes that weren’t in our original plan, but were a must. Part of doing business though, and we know that we were able to improve upon an already solid product or service. And we were just thrilled to have an opportunity to take our business to a new level. All should be good, right?

Well, some of our two-legged customers are still adjusting to these changes. Since the early 1970’s we have basically run the day-to-day affairs as it related to the animals the same as always. Sure, we tweaked some things here and there, but for the most part, it was reliable. Now we’ve gone and changed what so many knew and expected.

I understand their frustration. Whenever I go to a favorite restaurant and find changes to a menu, I cringe, hoping I can find something similar to replace an old favorite. If I venture into a store and can’t find something they’ve always carried, it frustrates me. At the health club, my kids’ school, the doctor’s office, everywhere I go there is change. Honestly, I don’t always deal with such changes well, and often wonder what they’re thinking. I’ve even been heard to say, “I can’t be the only one who thinks this change is stupid!” Trust me, if you are frustrated, I get it.

More often than not, I end up eating those words and seeing the change as positive and usually necessary. Change in all aspects of our lives can be hard, but for businesses, it is inevitable and necessary to maintain a vital, thriving business. Yes, it is difficult to balance change with consistency. The consistency is found in the end product though. Is the customer (both two and four legged) leaving happy? Are we providing the absolute best service? Would we be happy as a customer here, even with the changes?

The answer to those questions is a resounding yes. We feel confident that our changes have helped us to up our already high level of care and provide more amenities and services. While we know that we will always look for ways to improve, and yes, change, we hope that all of you know that your pets are still the most important part of our day. And that will never change.

We finally took the plunge this past weekend. After many years (yes, years), of debate we decided to go for it started up the credit card processing machine and stuck the Visa/Mastercard sticker in our window.

Many of our customers will be surprised. Some, who are also fellow small business owners currently not accepting credit cards, often complimented our decision to remain free of credit cards. It was as if we were part of this small brotherhood of non-compliant business owners waging our own little battle against credit cards. Battle on my former brothers and sisters! I will keep you posted and let you know if you should wave the white flag with us.

Many of our customers will be thankful. Lots of us no longer carry our checkbooks with us; quite a few have resorted to carrying one or two worn at the fold checks in our wallets for those infrequent times we are informed, “Cash or check only.”

Our employees seem excited with the prospect of being able to swipe that card through and to be able to do away with the conversation about why we don’t take credit cards and yes, there is a bank just down the street and sure, we will wait for you to return. Sometimes the conversation would go like this:

Customer - You don’t take credit cards? Well, I don’t have my checkbook and we didn’t leave enough cash.

Employee - There is a bank and a cash machine just down the street.

Customer - My bank only lets me take out a certain amount of money at a time. I can’t cover the bill today.

Employee - Well, umm..

(I mean, come on, what are we supposed to say here? We will hold your dog until you come up with the money?! No! So what we usually end up saying is this)

Well. I suppose we can bill you and you can send us a check when you get home.

And that line is what finally pushed us into accepting credit cards. Too many people were not sending in those checks once they returned home. (There are lots of you who dropped off the check or put it in the mail that same day - much appreciated!). I would like to say it is a sign of the times; however, we have been to the post office too many times over the last few years to mail the certified letter containing the bill that never got paid.

So while I continue to rail against credit cards and how people have trouble managing their money with credit cards and not understanding why we as businesses don’t stand up to the system and tell them where they can put their transaction fees, I do finally raise the white flag, reluctantly.

Please share your thoughts with me on this.