Mobile Pet Care Business Targets Corporate Clients

Fetch! Pet Care

Owner: Sheri Jensen

Address: 224 Christy Lane, Farmington

Phone: 479-799-9970

E-mail: [email protected]

Hours: 7 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Sunday

Web site: www.fetchpetcare.com

Startup date: May 2009

People love their pets, and so does Sheri Jensen.

Jensen, who spent 15 years working in the legal field, now owns and operates Arkansas’ only extension of Fetch! Pet Care, a national franchise born seven years ago in Berkeley, Calif. Jensen and four employees handle all aspects of pet care, from feeding and walking to taxi service and boarding for what she said is a swelling base of “stuck-at-work” clients.

“The phone has been ringing pretty much non-stop,” said Jensen, who purchased the franchise rights for $5,000.

Average in-home visits and/or walks last from 30 to 45 minutes and cost $17. Corporate discounts are available for employees of Wal-Mart Stores, Tyson Foods, J.B. Hunt Transport Services and others, and an endorsement deal recently was struck with Petco.

Jensen and her crew service all of Benton and Washington counties, and she said the in-home care has been an appealing option for many customers.

“The main thing is the animals are able to stay in their own environments,” said Jensen, a self-professed lifelong animal lover. “The best part of the job is when I go to pick up a dog and they come running up with their tail wagging.”

Jensen said the majority of the pets she cares for are dogs and cats, but she’s open to practically any species. Jensen crinkled her nose while explaining how she’s fed snakes, and said she once helped take care of a baby newt.

Bentonville Resident

Lands NY Times Gig

Barbara Taylor earned an undergraduate degree in English before getting her MBA.

Until late last month, however, Taylor never had been paid to write. That changed when she agreed to become a regular contributor to a New York Times blog dedicated to small business.

“I do love to write and I love small business, so this is a great way for me to marry those two things,” said Taylor, who along with her husband, Chris, co-founded Synergy Business Services in Bentonville.

Synergy is a full-service business brokerage firm offering exit planning, transaction advisory and intermediary services to privately held companies. It also assists buyers with targeted acquisition searches.

Barbara Taylor said she’s a longtime reader of the Times, and became a frequent commenter when it began its “You’re the Boss” blog in June. In August, an editor contacted Taylor and asked if she’d ever considered authoring a blog.

Taylor told the editor she’d actually been thinking of starting a blog on her company’s Web site.

“He said, ‘No, you don’t understand,'” Taylor recalled with a laugh. “Then he asked me if I’d be interested in writing for the Times. I just about fell out of my chair.”

Taylor’s debut piece appeared on Oct. 28, and another on Nov. 4. “Transaction” is the title of Taylor’s blog, and she has committed to write one entry a week in addition to some other how-to articles.