Have dog, will share
Part Time Pooch’s Vancouver website matches owners with potential sitters
Whenever Marian Cohen went away for a few days, she would leave Molly, a Shih Tzu, either with a family member or a friend. But when the friend got a cat and the cat attacked Molly, Cohen realized it was time to find something new.
Cohen described Molly as an affectionate, loving dog who always needs to be around people. As far as Cohen was concerned, leaving Molly in a kennel surrounded by other dogs wasn’t an option.
What the online service Part Time Pooch allowed Cohen to do was find someone to take care of Molly in a domestic setting. It’s been particularly helpful for Cohen, who lives in Kerrisdale, to find a family that lives close by near Queen Elizabeth Park. Cohen can leave Molly and know she’ll receive the kind of personal care she needs on weekends and for shorter periods of time.
“They’re not in a position to have a dog full time and they’re really happy as well with the arrangement,” Cohen said about the family taking care of Molly.
“Molly is so happy when she goes to visit them. She has now built up a relationship with people she can see on regular basis. For us it has been a perfect solution.”
Part Time Pooch was launched as a website a little more than a year ago by Gavin Flett. The West End resident got the idea when something didn’t happen: the person who was supposed to take care of a friend’s dog cancelled one weekend. So Flett started looking for a dog-sharing service online. When he didn’t find one in Metro Vancouver, he decided to start his own.
“They’re not in a position to have a dog fulltime and they’re really happy as well with the arrangement. MARIAN COHEN PART TIME POOCH CUSTOMER
What Part Time Pooch does is connect two groups of people through the Internet: those who have dogs who want to leave them somewhere other than a kennel and those who love dogs but can’t have one full-time.
As a youngster, Flett remembers what happened to the family dog when she was left in a kennel. “She scaled a 10-foot fence to get out of there to get home,” he said.
“We never put her back there again. Dogs like to be around people. They’re pack animals. Having them in a home environment is just better for the dog than being in a caged environment.”
The dog-sharing service costs dog owners $45 for three months to access all the hosts — as the people who care for the dogs are called. The hosts work on a volunteer basis.
“They don’t get paid to take care of the dog,” he said. “This is purely for the love of the dog — it’s not for money.”
Flett said it’s up to the two parties to draft a formal agreement that covers details such as the number of walks and feeding.
“I encourage the hosts and owners to meet first and make sure it’s all a good fit,” he said. “That’s a key crucial part of the service.”
Flett’s dog sharing service isn’t the first of its kind. In the U.K., a similar service is called Borrow-My Doggy. Another in the U.S. is the non-profit City Dog Share.
Part-Time Pooch has spread across the country from Vancouver to Calgary, Toronto and Montreal. The service has about 200 dog owners and 750 hosts. Liability, he said, is the responsibility of the person who has the dog.
“We definitely recommend all pet owners have pet insurance,” Flett said.
Part Time Pooch is expected to get a boost when Flett appears on CBC’s Dragon’s Den Wednesday at 8 p.m. to seek investors for his service. “It was an exciting and pretty intense experience,” he said about being on the popular TV program.
One dragon who wasn’t there on the day the episode was recorded was Kevin O’Leary, now a former dragon, who was known for his harsh remarks.
“I can’t say I was too upset by that,” Flett said.
Flett said his goal is to make Part Time Pooch the top dog sharing service in North America. “I wanted to make a business that works for the community and promotes inter-personal relationships,” he said about Part Time Pooch.
“I want to get people out of the house and meeting one another. It really benefits everyone — the dogs included.”