San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Watching pets for Astros mixes ‘two greatest loves’
Meredith Appling has loved the Astros her entire life. As a young girl, she went to games in the Astrodome. Now that Appling’s in-home petsitting company, Paws of Houston, has become the “unofficial petsitters of Major League Baseball,” she often tunes in from the players’ homes.
With the Astros competing in the World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies, Appling sees mostly four-legged fans these days — such as Alex and Reagan Bregman’s golden retriever, Hank, whom she visits daily.
“We love them; and Hank gets so excited when they come over, he cries,” Reagan Bregman said. “We trust them and are so happy to have them for the playoffs.”
During Game 4’s combined no-hitter on Wednesday night, Appling was at Ryan and Kat Pressly’s home when the Astros’ pitcher closed out the ninth inning.
“The Presslys have two dogs, Wrigley and Major,” she said. “The dogs were asleep, and I woke them up to watch their dad.”
Each year the team makes it to the World Series, she delivers dog treats from Layla’s Barkery or Three Dog Bakery to her team clients with their “dad’s” player number.
“My two greatest loves, baseball and dogs, are my job,” she said.
Appling grew up in a small Texas town with every imaginable farm animal. She showed horses and pigs, and kept hamsters and turtles, too. After studying journalism and public relations in college at Sam Houston State University, her first job was in marketing for a real estate management company. Petsetting was her side gig.
She decided that if the time commitment and pay ever equaled out, she would quit corporate life. When that day came, Appling was ready.
“I said, ‘Meredith, you have to do this. You’re committed, you have to make this work,’ ” she said. “So I hit the ground running with marketing Paws of Houston.”
Professional athletes have always been her niche. A few of her early clients were Houston Texans players.
Then she asked a friend: Who petsits for Astros players? And how might she go about landing that gig?
“It’s all the wives — they tell everyone as soon as new players come on,” Appling said.
Former Astros first baseman Tyler White and his wife, Alli, got her in the door. “Then, it got to the point when (players) got traded, they wanted to keep us. Now we pet-sit for 13 different teams.”
Today, Paws of Houston is a team of 13. They are nearly always booked solid.
She now flies Paws of Houston out for specific jobs, too.
Trust is key to Appling’s reputation and business. “I don’t want to hire people I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t want the stress and liability of not knowing who’s going into people’s homes.”
These days, she spends only two to five nights a month at her own home. Sometimes her dog Lexi, a 13-year-old Daschund, travels with her. “She’s why I started this. I wanted her to stay spoiled at home.”
The upside to petsitting for a talented team like the Astros is that Paws of Houston staffers get an extra month and half with the players’ fur babies. The downside is that Appling and her petsitters are basically on call for the entire month of October — or longer.
Scheduling stresses aside, the good far outweighs the bad. In the offseason, Paws of Houston offers free service to clients who adopt or foster animals.
“I really get to know entire families. All pet clients, not just the Astros’, are so sweet and check on us during pandemics, blizzards and hurricanes,” Appling said. “They know that I genuinely love and am obsessed with their pets. It’s not just a job to us.”