Monthly Newsletter
Welcome back to another installment of our monthly newsletter here at Happy Tails! We hope all our furry friends and their humans out there are ready for some warmer weather coming our way — Spring is right around the corner! We’ve got a new batch of spotlights this month to help you get to know our team, clients, and of course, their furry friends, with one of them featuring yours truly to celebrate 10 whole years in business as Happy Tails (I know, we can’t believe it either)!
Be sure to check back every month for the latest newsletter with timely tips and tricks to keep your fur babies happy and healthy all year long!
At Home With Tammy, Bob & Chloe
Tammy and Bob Schriever were on the search for a great sitter for their furry friend Chloe and they knew when they found the right one, they would stick with that sitter for life. Enter Happy Tails and the team, and now six years later, the Schrievers have never used any other sitters for Chloe.
The Schrievers utilize Happy Tails for regular walks for Chloe about three times a week, helping Chloe get a bit of extra exercise when her owners are busy. Additionally, Happy Tails has been trusted for staying with Chloe at home when Bob and Tammy take overnight vacations.
Tammy and Bob said they value the reliability and courtesy that all sitters from Happy Tails treat both Chloe and their home, leaving them confident that Chloe is in good hands. They said they especially love the frequent pictures and story of the day that the sitter provides when they are with Chloe.
Chloe, now 7 years old, was rescued by Tammy and Bob as a puppy and shows her sweet and intelligent side to those she trusts.
“Chloe is a people dog and loves to be petted, as long as you tell her what you are doing first, '' the Schrievers said.
Sitter Spotlight: Carly
Meet the Founder, CEO, President, Boss, OG DOG Sitter herself, Carly Johnson!
With Happy Tails entering its 10th year in business, we thought it was a good opportunity for customers new and old to get to know her a bit better. And while Happy Tails is going on 10 years, Carly’s informal pet sitting really started way back in 2002 when she was feeding her neighbor’s fishes and letting out their dogs (safe to say prices have gone up from $2 a fish).
Happy Tails allows Carly to combine her love of both people and animals into a business where she gets to connect with both and make families and their furry friends happy. “I love being able to give people peace of mind knowing their pets and home were taken care of by a trusted provider,” she said.
Word started to spread through her neighborhood and the Worthington community, and Carly knew a business was being born. She started being out of the house practically every weekend pet and house sitting and simply couldn’t keep up with the demand. From there, she brought on her sisters and a few other part-time sitters to help out before putting everything else on the backburner and committing all her time and energy to building out Happy Tails.
“Fast forward a few years, and we are happy to have a client list of over 800 homes and countless animals. I love being able to meet so many new people and pets and offer them a final stop in their pet care search,” Carly added.
Now that Happy Tails is up and running smoothly with a consistent clientele, Carly has expanded her efforts and runs a backpacking workshop and excursion company called Happy Trail Adventures and stays busy in her career as a REALTOR®.
For Carly, it’s not exactly about what she does, but WHY she does it. All of her businesses and interests share a common foundation of connection with people and being able to give value wherever she can.
Outside of work in the little free time she has Carly tends to her plants as a skilled botanist, dotes on her cats Gus and Ozzy, and enjoys living and hanging out in Clintonville.
Carly is also an avid backpacker who has completed the Pacific Crest Trail and Colorado Trail. Spending time hiking allows her to recharge and take her business ventures head on and full steam ahead. She has more than 4,000 trail miles and counting! Join us in congratulating Carly for all her accomplishments and providing top-notch care to furry friends for a decade now!
Have You Left Us A Review? Earn $20 OFF Your Next Service & Be Entered To Win A Handmade Cutting Board!
Small Business Appreciation
We’re thrilled to partner with a Happy Tails client, Marco Stack-Simone Woodshop for this month’s company collaboration and giveaway! MSS Woodshop is the brainchild of a local woodworker and designer based right here in Columbus. We love their cutting boards and know a lucky Happy Tails customer will too! Just like Happy Tails, MSS Woodshop started with a passion to be your own boss and take pride in your work. After years of creating custom work for himself, Marco began crafting woodworking projects for friends and family, which then led to him selling custom pieces and the formal creation of MSS Woodshop.
Follow the details above for a chance to win a custom, handmade cutting board from MSS, and be sure to pay their site a visit to support local!
March Birthdays
OWNING A DOG COULD BE KEY TO “SUCCESSFUL AGING”
Every dog owner knows the daily ritual of taking your pup out for a walk. But as it turns out, those strolls around the block with Fido may be the key to a healthy life, especially as we get older.
A study published in the journal PLOS ONE examines the relationship between pet ownership, disability, and death among seniors, providing new insights into the connection between dog ownership and successful aging.
The researchers discovered dog owners had a significantly reduced risk of becoming disabled compared to individuals who had never owned a dog. The study found that current dog owners “have approximately half the risk of disability” compared to those who never had a dog.
Why do dog owners have such a lower disability risk? It likely stems from the extra exercise that dog owners naturally take on as part of their daily routine, which reduces their risk of physical frailty, a precursor for disability.
“Dog walking is a moderate-intensity physical activity that appears to have a protective effect in reducing the risk of disability onset through decreased frailty risk,” Yu Taniguchi, lead author on the study and a senior researcher at Japan’s National Institute for Environmental Studies, tells Inverse.
Sadly, the researchers found no correlation between cat ownership and lowered disability risk, which makes sense, considering most feline owners typically don’t take their pets for regular outdoor exercise.
We’ve long known that moderate exercise among older populations can postpone the onset of disabilities. But now, we can also conclude the exercise associated with dog ownership may help with “successful aging” for senior citizens, according to the research.
As individuals grow older, a canine companion may be just the thing they need to live better.
“This prospective study indicates that the daily care, companionship, and exercise of a pet dog may be recommended as a component of health promotion policy and may have an important role to play in successful aging,” Taniguchi says.
While previous studies connected dog ownership to higher physical activity levels and fewer doctors’ visits, it’s been harder for researchers to investigate the relationship between dog ownership, disability, and mortality.
This study provides a rare look at a large group of seniors — a population at significant risk of disability — and examines how their pet ownership can improve their physical well-being.
In a previous study, researchers concluded dog ownership correlates with reduced physical frailty among Japanese seniors. But with all this robust data from a large study sample, researchers had a unique opportunity to go even deeper into the links between pet ownership, exercise, and physical well-being among older individuals.
But it’s important to note that seniors who do not regularly take their dogs for walks, perhaps because they employ a dog walker or own a pet that does not require as much physical exercise, may not see the same physical benefits.
“In this study, dog owners with no exercise habits showed a wide-ranged risk of disability,” Taniguchi says.