Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer Hoover.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
We started Ruff life in the summer of 2021. We wanted a place where our fur child could play with friends in a learning environment, as well as a fun vacation stay for him when we were unable to bring him with us. We looked for about two years for a physical location to start our dream. With no luck finding a location for sale where we could receive the appropriate permits for our dream, I started door knocking places that were already permitted for such a business. One day I stopped at Country Kennels and asked them if they were interested in selling. I took her by surprise, so after some thought we were both so excited to make it happen. We have been updating the facility since that first summer to make it into the resort we dream about.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No road is smooth, but with every dream it’s always worth the bumps and moments of character building. For example, we like to have a high number of staff to our furry kid ratio. This industry is known to be a stepping stone into other career paths; so we are often hiring and training new members as well as looking for incentives to get those awesome team members to stay. Incentives we have come up with are 401k, dental benefits, gym benefits, paid time off, and of course all the doggy time one could dream of. Because we have such awesome team members come and go we are able to learn and fine tune our operation to; one fulfill the needs and wants for career positions, and two find a great variety of passionate, caring, and dedicated dog enthusiasts.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
We are a training based facility where dogs can come in for daycare, boarding, or even in our home 5 day boarding & training program. Our favorite is watching the friends learn and grow in all sorts of ways. Friends who are nervous, anxious, socially awkward, or even antisocial can learn to play with friends and it’s so fun to watch that progress. We have also loved improving our facility to have splash pads, wading pools, k9 turf, large suites for the kids and just a total loving fun learning environment for kids to become their best selves.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
We hope to be able to offer more indoor play space at our current location. We are an outdoor facility which we LOVE. We splash and play in the splash pads during the warm months, and shovel the snow daily during the winter while the furry kids love to zoom around and play in the snow….it’s so fun to watch them and send the pictures to their owners with their daily pictures and updates. But having an indoor space to play, not just hang out, will be our next fun addition. We tour other boarding facilities across the U.S. twice a year to see how we compare and see what ways we can improve our services. We want to make sure we are doing all we can to provide the best service to your furry clients.
Pricing:
- $35 per dog for a full day playday
- $60/up for a dog for a 24 stay which includes a full day of playday plus boarding in our suite
Contact Info:
- Website: rufflifetraining.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rufflifetrainingandresort/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rufflifetrainingandresort
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/@rufflifetraining
