Travel agents confronted by canine-captivated customers can benefit from a dog-sitting service being offered to the trade.
Barking Mad managing director Lee Southern set up her company in 2000 after discovering up to 25% of dog owners would not go on holiday if it meant leaving their pampered pooches in local kennels.
To address this doggy dilemma, she established a nationwide franchise for foster-owners’ that enables dogs to stay in another person’s house, where their every need is catered for while their owners are on holiday.
She said: “We’ll go and meet a customer and their dog in their own homes first so we can find out what their routine is and then cater for it.
“Some of our customers’ dogs like an early morning cup of tea and toast, while others like to curl up on the sofa and watch Coronation Street after a hard day. We even had one dog’s owner ask if we had room for its adult-sized bed, duvet and pillows.”
Southern said the Cumbria-based business is expanding rapidly. She now has 7,000 customers and 40 franchises and expects this to rise to 100 by 2008.
Barking Mad pays agents £5 commission for each successful referral but Southern said the true value for agents comes from the commission they make from a booking they would otherwise not have secured.
Southern added although Barking Mad refuses to deal with cats because of their tendency to ‘do a bunk’, she will organise lodgings for smaller animals, although this is rare.
“People tend to spend more money on their Labradors than they do on their guinea pigs,” she said.