Nicole Wilson on the Evolution of Sits & Wiggles

Rich Bennett: I am sitting here today. I, I am joined by somebody that's been on the podcast before and has been a sponsor oh my God, several years. She a business called Your Pet au Pair. She still owns the business, however rebranded and it's now called Sits and Wiggles Pet Care.

Rich Bennett: So I gotta ask right off the bat why the rebranding? I just finally got used to saying your pet au pair and not your pet all pair.

Nicole: Yeah. Um. You know, I had a couple different reasons. Um, one of them was we stopped publicly offering dog sitting, and an au pair is a sitter. So. To me, it was like, okay, if I keep that in there, everybody's gonna be wanting us to dog [00:01:00] set. So that was one of the reasons. And then the other one was, I never really loved the name to begin with.

Nicole: Um, it was kind of a, uh. It wasn't supposed to be permanent. I was supposed to move to Ohio in 2022, so I was like, I'm just gonna repurpose this LLC and website I already own from a business that I started that didn't work out. And so. The old website was YPA and I was like, well, what can I do to reuse that?

Nicole: So your pet pair kind of fit? And I went with that 'cause I was like, eh, I already have the basics. It's less money starting a new business. And so that was kind of, it was both of those things together. I was like, if I'm gonna take au pair out, let's just use our tagline. I've always loved the tagline.

Rich Bennett: Yes. Well wait [00:02:00] a minute. I have to ask now. So since now the company's called Sits and Wiggles, what's the tagline?

Nicole: We don't have one.

Rich Bennett: Okay. Yet

Nicole: Yeah.

Rich Bennett: until you could come up with another one to trip me up.

Nicole: It. It's hard because everything kind of leans too cute, and I'm like, we're already cute. We already have this funny punny thing going on, so maybe I'll just leave it alone. I haven't decided, but for right now, we don't have one.

Rich Bennett: Okay, but you dropped the dog sitting? No. Yeah, dog

Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Rich Bennett: And why'd you decide to drop that?

Nicole: It's, it's been a struggle for the past couple of years to stay, um, staffed for those shifts. Um, and they require split shifts and there's only so many split shifts you can have people do before they get burnout and they don't wanna do it anymore. So, [00:03:00] um. We still offer it for our regular dog walking clients.

Nicole: And we have, I don't know, uh, a dozen or so regulars that travel super often that we kept, but otherwise we're not doing it and we're still doing overnights, but not as often as we were.

Rich Bennett: so what are the main services, or be better yet, go ahead and walk us through all the services you're offering now.

Nicole: So we, yeah.

Rich Bennett: restricted to certain areas. Right.

Nicole: Yeah, we don't do all of Hartford County. Um, so we're in Bel Air, Abingdon, forest Hill, Fallston, Jarrettsville, Churchville and Bell Camp. And we're doing, and our bread and butter is the dog walking. We,

Rich Bennett: Right.

Nicole: it's insane how many walks we do a week. Um, but that's our bread and butter. We do a lot of cat sitting.

Nicole: Um. I was [00:04:00] just reading an article the other day about, um, millennials and Gen Zs are getting cats at a rate so much higher than they are dogs.

Rich Bennett: Really?

Nicole: you know, they're more independent and they don't cost as much to maintain. And, um, so we we're constantly taking in cap clients and, um. That's really it.

Nicole: We do adventure walks where we pick up the dogs and take 'em for like an hour and a half or two hour long walk.

Rich Bennett: Wow.

Nicole: Yeah, it's nice. It gets them outta house and active and smelling new smells and

Rich Bennett: Good for you guys too. out there enjoying nature as well. Well, alright, so what do you do? Like when we had this crazy snow.

Nicole: The one, you know, in January, or you talk about this one that we just had [00:05:00] yesterday?

Rich Bennett: No, not yesterday. The one that stay, the one that it was the snow and then the freeze rain, and decided to stay with us for weeks because people were actually ice skating on their front lawns.

Nicole: Yeah, that was really rough. We actually had no walks on that Sunday that it snowed. We had no walks the following day and the fo the day after that, on that Tuesday, we had 12 walks. Yeah.

Rich Bennett: Wow.

Nicole: So, I mean, I was grateful to have not have to worry about the staff out driving in those conditions and stuff. So I, I was happy.

Nicole: I mean, from a revenue standpoint it was awful. But for their safety, it was, it was appreciated that everybody made other arrangements or they stayed home.

Rich Bennett: So something like that, and I don't know if this is true or not, 'cause I thought I saw something where like with, especially with dogs, you don't want them running [00:06:00] into snow because snow gets caught between their toes or whatever and can cause problems. Is that true?

Nicole: I mean, if

Rich Bennett: But

Nicole: anything can get caught,

Rich Bennett: clean 'em up.

Nicole: but there, there's different things you can do. Not that we have a ton of clients that leave out a whisk, but like you can whisk the ice chunks out of their tow beans. You can do that.

Rich Bennett: you

Nicole: Yeah. No, like a wire whisk, like a egg feeder wire whisk thing.

Rich Bennett: Wouldn't that hurt?

Nicole: No, they, I mean there's, they're flexible, but you can do that.

Nicole: But I. It's not, it's not that bad. It, it really isn't. The, what you have to worry about more is the salt.

Rich Bennett: Uh oh.

Nicole: Yeah,

Rich Bennett: didn't even think about that.

Nicole: yeah.

Rich Bennett: did you guys get through that? Because it was, I mean, the streets ended up being plowed, but sidewalks are still covered for a

Nicole: Yeah. For [00:07:00] a long while it was, it was pretty rough. I mean, we had several clients that we didn't see for a whole week because. Their neighborhood wasn't really clear. The sidewalks weren't clear. It wasn't safe to walk their dogs, so they canceled. Um, it was, it was a rough week.

Rich Bennett: Okay. Alright, so last time you were on, 'cause you mentioned you had even had some animals that were not cats or

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Rich Bennett: Um, is that still the case or are you specifically just cats and dogs

Nicole: Yeah, we have diff, we have some different animals. It's, it's 98% cats and dogs. We have some birds and some snakes. Uh, we have a lady that has sugar gliders. I have a woman that has a ferret. I have a client out in Churchville with alpacas, so

Rich Bennett: and you welcome.

Nicole: I don't walk 'em, I just take care of them. Just give [00:08:00] 'em their feet and their hay, make sure they have plenty of water.

Rich Bennett: I was gonna say, you don't wanna get too close to the alpacas and try to pet 'em, do you? they spit like

Nicole: I, you know, honestly, I don't know if they spit or not. This guy's alpacas are pretty skittish, so unless I have their feet in my hands, they don't want me to touch on. So.

Rich Bennett: Okay. And you don't want to get too close to find out if they do spit. Right.

Nicole: You know, they're adorable. They're so

Rich Bennett: are. I know.

Nicole: You.

Rich Bennett: I want one. I want one. I do. I, it's funny because you know certain animals you see, and I may have told you this before, 'cause what I would always love to have a fox, a pet fox. Unfortunately here in Maryland you're not allowed to. The same with a skunk, know, I would love to have a pet skunk, but you're not allowed to. You, you can have everything else, but I So 'cause you're also, you're taking care of [00:09:00] walking the animals and parts of the county where it's pretty secluded lately, and I'm sure you keep up to date with this, but when you're walking the pets, how I, I, I wanna say whew. What is the, I guess the, the, the agenda for you if, let's say you have a client in Darlington or whatever and they want you to go Walter their dog, but there was just a case of a rabbit raccoon. And some, some people allow their dogs or cat, especially cats, they seem let 'em outside all the time. Is there anything that you follow before you go to walk the pets because of cases like that?

Rich Bennett: And it seems like that's on a rise this year.

Nicole: Um, and we don't go to Darlington, but,

Rich Bennett: Alright, well you know what

Nicole: I know, I know.

Rich Bennett: on me.

Nicole: And [00:10:00] I feel like there's just, there's so many animals out there that could potentially have rabies and we just happen to know this one because it was found dead. Right,

Rich Bennett: Mm-hmm.

Nicole: they tested it. Um. Yeah, we just, we try to give everything out there a wide ber, you know, like if,

Rich Bennett: Okay.

Nicole: if we're walking down the street and there's another dog coming, we hightail it a different way.

Nicole: Even if there's a loose cat, it's like, we don't know how that dog's gonna react to that cat. Let's get out of there. People, same thing. We don't know we're gonna, we're out. Um, so we are gonna treat that the same way. Like if we see something we're moving, we're not gonna like, oh, look at that cute raccoon.

Nicole: Let me help it. No, thank you.

Rich Bennett: Paul Rich, he's dumb enough to do it. Wow. So with the Sits, sits and wiggles, you did change the

Nicole: Mm-hmm.[00:11:00] 

Rich Bennett: And the website is what just sits in wiggles.com.

Nicole: Yes.

Rich Bennett: Lot ND, not the,

Nicole: Yeah.

Rich Bennett: symbol.

Nicole: can't have an and symbol in your URLI know, but

Rich Bennett: still, I'm glad you pointed that out 'cause I did realize that you can't have the

Nicole: no, I looked and that's how I figured it out.

Rich Bennett: okay. Now have you changed all the social media

Nicole: Yes. Mm-hmm.

Rich Bennett: You

Nicole: Yeah,

Rich Bennett: Even X

Nicole: I'm not on that one.

Rich Bennett: You were,

Nicole: Yeah, I haven't been on it in a,

Rich Bennett: you all the time.

Nicole: oh, I haven't been on that in years and years and years. So yeah,

Rich Bennett: so stop ta I was gonna say, 'cause I'm still tagging your pet pair, so just stop tagging you all,

Nicole: you can do whatever you want. I don't pay any attention to it.

Rich Bennett: Alright. So you mentioned in the beginning, and I hope it's not the case, but when you started your pet [00:12:00] pair, it wa you didn't think it would last as long 'cause you were planning on moving to Ohio. That's not the case anymore,

Nicole: No,

Rich Bennett: You're staying

Nicole: I'm staying here

Rich Bennett: All right, good. Okay. enough. Just wanted

Nicole: and ever.

Rich Bennett: Amen.

Nicole: That's it.

Rich Bennett: like a song. Uh, alright, so if people want to follow you besides the website, how do they follow you and get in touch with you

Nicole: Um.

Rich Bennett: and it, and tell the areas again?

Nicole: Okay, it's Bel Air, forest Till Fallston. Jarrettsville. Abingdon, Churchville and Bell Camp. Um, social media, uh, Facebook and Instagram are both sits and Wiggles, Petcare, and, uh, the websites just sits and wiggles.com.

Rich Bennett: That's wiggles Peck care dot coms wiggles.com.

Nicole: It's shorter. Shorter. There was [00:13:00] already a sits and wiggles on both Facebook and Instagram. So

Rich Bennett: Another pet care company.

Nicole: there's a training company called Sits and Wiggles.

Rich Bennett: but you're the only pet care company called that that you know of.

Nicole: There's a,

Rich Bennett: matter. You're the best

Nicole: yeah, there's one in like California or something like that, but there're sits and wiggles with an n.

Rich Bennett: Okay. It's. And they're, and they're still not as good as you

Nicole: Of course not.

Rich Bennett: staff you have now.

Nicole: Uh, I think 19.

Rich Bennett: Really?

Nicole: Yeah, it's hard to keep up, but I just hired a guy the other day and he's pretty awesome so far. But yeah, I think it's 19.

Rich Bennett: is Par still with you,

Nicole: No,

Rich Bennett: Okay.

Nicole: um. He was with me when COVID hit and then didn't come back after COVID.

Rich Bennett: It's focused on his photography. Probably [00:14:00] hell of a photographer.

Nicole: Yeah. He's a great guy.

Rich Bennett: is there anything you would like to add, Nicole?

Nicole: I don't know.

Rich Bennett: people, contact Nicole if you need pet care because is good. How long have you been doing this

Nicole: Seven years.

Rich Bennett: That's it.

Nicole: Yeah. Started 2019.

Rich Bennett: So you've been with me for seven years then, because you were a sponsor before

Nicole: Yeah,

Rich Bennett: Wow. Wow. And for those of you who don't know, she also sponsors our Pets of the week, so. So you can always find sits and wiggles. You know what, this kind of sucks because now I just, you need to come off a new tagline.

Nicole: I gotta figure it out,

Rich Bennett: Something to try to throw me off.

Nicole: Well, I'll figure it out and I'll let you know.

Rich Bennett: Okay. I I did love that. I mean, but I mean, I love the name change. It's good. It [00:15:00] is easier. And I didn't realize au pair met pet sitting

Nicole: Well, it's,

Rich Bennett: I

Nicole: I know a pair is actually like a,

Rich Bennett: or sitter.

Nicole: a, a babysitter that lives in with you. They're usually from, you know, Europe.

Rich Bennett: Yeah, and you didn't wanna move in with people,

Nicole: Certainly not.

Rich Bennett: Yeahs Wiggles definitely makes more sense. Nicole, I want to thank you so much.

Nicole: Thank you.

Rich Bennett: of luck. I love the name change. Keep it going. If there's anything else that I can help you with, anything I can help you with, let me know. And I

Nicole: Of course,

Rich Bennett: did get an invite for one of them cruises. I'm just saying.

Nicole: cruises.

Rich Bennett: Haven't you been going on cruises and

Nicole: I don't. I go on a lot of vacations. I don't go on cruises.

Rich Bennett: Vacations

Nicole: Yeah. I'll, I'll invite you next time. I'm going to the Galapagos next month with my daughter.

Rich Bennett: with the turtles?

Nicole: Yeah.

Rich Bennett: No,

Nicole: Yeah.

Rich Bennett: next

Nicole: [00:16:00] Mm-hmm.

Rich Bennett: Oh, that's April.

Nicole: Yeah,

Rich Bennett: I burn it. I, I'll be in Beaufort, Bo Bo, Bo Beaufort, Beaufort, North Carolina

Nicole: that doesn't sound nearly as fun.

Rich Bennett: I'm not talking to you anymore. Thanks, Nicole.

Nicole: rich.