a wee bit of clarification...

When I put together my business plan to start this dog business, I had to guess about how much business I would really have.

So I surveyed my friends with dogs: How often do you travel in a year? And for how long each time? Weekends? Day trips across the mountain?

And from there, I just guessed. Full on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Empty for Easter - everyone takes their dog for Eastering in the desert.

I was so right about Thanksgiving and Christmas, and wrong about Easter. There is a lot of Easter travel that doesn't include camping in the desert.

Here are all the other times I never thought of:

The whole family goes away together. My biggest competition is people with plenty of family to impose upon. But when the whole clan goes to Disney together, I can fill the entire kennel with cousin dogs. This also happens for out of town weddings and funerals.

Then there are the sport weekends, as I mentioned in the last post. There are many NASCAR fans in Carbon County and I think they all have dogs.

And hunting season, you can't take your dogs hunting during deer and elk season. It is also very popular to send your husband off to the mountains and then take your girlfriends off to Wendover, I know am much more aware of when the seasons start and end.

People coming to town with their dogs, but the dogs can't stay with them. Not a lot of the local hotels allow dogs and I know of at least one grandma that won't let the grand-dog in the house. (Now, in her defense, she did come out and thoroughly inspect me and my place before her grand-dog came to stay.)

I even had a dog come all the way from Minnesota. His owners had booked a river raft trip down the Colorado River. After that they were going swing back north and pick him up for the trip to Wyoming. That is a well traveled dog.

The owner of the old Red Collar Kennel, which closed years before I opened, told me that I would be full everyday of the week. Funny, I really didn't believe her.