Pet care shortage in Boston vexes pandemic adopters
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Pet owners in the area are struggling to book care for their dogs and cats this holiday season, following a pandemic that transformed the local pet service industry.
Why it matters: A number of dog daycare centers, kennels and dog walkers cut back or went under in 2020 when pet owners could mostly stay home.
- Now, these businesses are facing demand they can't meet, and pet owners are scrambling to find care for Fidos.
What they're saying: "Christmas is our Super Bowl," Boston Pet Sitters' Jennifer North, who's been in the dog-walking business in the Back Bay and Beacon Hill for 33 years, told Axios.
Axios reached out to a number of local pet caregivers, most of whom said the holidays are their busiest time of year as more dogs need to be boarded overnight and more cats require in-home check-ins.
Yes, but: Now that some workers are back at the office, demand for pet care has spiked outside of the holiday rush too, but the local industry hasn't been able to scale up to meet the market.
- "I've never had such a hard time trying to hire people," North said, adding that the demand for services is back to where it was before the pandemic and in some cases even higher.
- Qualified staff, however, is much harder to come by in the post-pandemic economy.
The current crop of dogs adopted during the pandemic, (a new breed, if you will), have never known a life without their humans at home all day, haven't received as much training and aren't as socialized as they should be, according to several pet services workers who spoke to Axios.
- "This generation of dogs is messed up," said Kate Cipolletti, the owner of Emmy's Barking Lot with locations on the South Shore.
- "Basically, from COVID, everybody got a dog, everybody was home with their dogs and then everybody went back to work and no one knew how to transition back," Cipolletti said.
- Hard-to-handle dogs put more pressure on the staff, exacerbating the labor crunch.
Ted Teller's Above and Beyond Pet Services has 2,000 pet clients and 40 employees in Belmont and Arlington locations.
- "There's a limited number of people you can find that want to do this," Teller told Axios about his search for more qualified staff.
What's next: Some of the pet caregivers would like to scale up their operations to meet the increased demand, but without a stable labor pool of qualified workers, they say they're unlikely to risk it.
- Raising prices could be the path to recruiting more qualified workers, but most business owners are hesitant to ask their customers for more money.