CRAZY TAILS TAKES CARE OF ALL DOGS’ NEEDS
CRAZY TAILS
Growing up in Saskatoon, Meghan Oesch was determined to spend her career working as a veterinarian. Then she spent two years in a western Saskatchewan veterinary clinic.
“After that, I just couldn’t hack the blood and the guts and stuff,” Oesch said with a laugh. “Then I came back home … and I decided I was more interested in the behaviour aspect, actually, than the diagnostics.”
Oesch moved back to Saskatoon eight years ago and went to work at Paws N Train, a local business offering obedience classes for dogs and their owners. She also immersed herself in canine behaviour, and is today a certified dog behaviourist.
“I loved it,” she said. “I love knowing why dogs do what they do, and finding out the motivations behind it, and I like dealing specifically with aggressive dogs, dogs with separation anxiety.”
About four years ago, Oesch started a private dog-sitting side business called Crazy Tails. That led to two years of “living out of a suitcase” as she moved from one house to another, dog-sitting a dizzying array of animals.
Earlier this year, Oesch agreed to buy Paws N Train from its former owner and merge it with her dog-sitting side business under the name Crazy Tails. The business opened its doors — and laid out its dog beds — on 44th Street East last month.
“We do a puppy primer class (and) we do beginner obedience classes,” she said. “And we do boarding as well. We have a crate option and we’re also the only place in Saskatoon that offers hotel-style boarding, so we have our own suites.”
Oesch said Crazy Tails — which she recently spent about $40,000 improving — also offers a “doggie daycare” for people who need someone to look after their pet during the day. A fitness centre for dogs, complete with treadmills, is also in the works.
A longtime dog-owner, Oesch currently has four: two rescue mutts, a Sheltie and a Pomeranian. All of them accompany her to work at what she believes is the best job imaginable.
“I love taking care of people’s dogs, that was always something that I really liked,” Oesch said of her new business. “And I love doing training … and the doggie daycare. I mean, who doesn’t want to play with dogs all day?”
Crazy Tails Address: 518 44th Street East Phone: 306-955-5470 Web: Crazytailssaskatoon.com Hours: Monday to Sunday, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. T SQUARED SOCIAL
Tyler Babiy and Tyler Harder met through Saskatoon’s Nuit Blanche art festival two years ago and occasionally worked on social media and marketing projects together.
The Tylers, as they call themselves, didn’t consider going into business together until earlier this year, after Harder started work at the now-shuttered shoe store Babiy managed.
“Me and Tyler had a couple really interesting conversations and it just led to us thinking, ‘We really love what we’re doing, we love everything we’re doing but specifically working on strategies … on social media,’ ” Babiy said.
Last month, they launched T Squared Social out of the Two Twenty, a co-working space on 20th Street West. Babiy describes the business as a “social media management company” with a hyper-local focus.
Besides integrating photo and video — services most similar firms outsource — T Squared markets its services to small businesses and organizations in Saskatoon.
“The core of what we do, our mission, is to create that genuine experience and to drive people from social media and into physical locations, into businesses,” he said. “And we feel pretty passionately that the way to do that is connecting people with what’s actually there — the actual people and the actual products.”
Babiy said while there is plenty of competition in Saskatoon, T Squared’s biggest hurdle is convincing small businesses and community organizations that professional marketing is worth the price.
“It’s a relatively new service, and I think it’s mostly an education piece — getting people to understand the value of what we do, because there certainly is a value to it,” he said, adding that each campaign the company does generates more interest.
Since T Squared opened for business, it has conducted several successful social media campaigns, most recently one for the Bridge City Bicycle Co-op. Babiy said running a new small business is “equal parts exciting and terrifying.”
“You’re hopeful that things are successful, and you want to do things well … But I think both me and Tyler have always wanted to own our own thing, and I think we’re definitely built to be entrepreneurs.” T Squared Social Address: 220 20th Street West Phone: 306-880-9651 Web: Tsquaredsocial.ca Hours: By Appointment