How it all began

Welcome to the first edition of The Bark Blueprint — the journey of a married couple breaking free from employment to build a life of self-employment and make decisions they truly believe in.

While our first few editions will focus on our journey and how we've got to where we are today, we also hope to use this blog to educate dog owners, share practical advice they can use themselves, offer insight into what we as groomers see day to day, and support aspiring groomers who need the confidence to make the leap.

So first, let's introduce ourselves and explain how this all began.

We're Josh (34) and Amy (33), a married couple who met in high school and have been married for nearly 11 years. Rather than bore you with our entire backstory, we'll jump straight to the day that changed everything.

It was the spring of 2018. Josh was working as a telephone engineer while also playing professional rugby, and I'd recently handed in my notice as a nursery nurse after seven years to start an office job in a world I knew absolutely nothing about.

After studying childcare at college and working my way up to a management position, I realised childcare simply wasn't for me. While I loved the children and had some fantastic memories, it wasn't something I felt truly passionate about.

My sister-in-law worked at a medium-sized property management company that was hiring, and she managed to put in a good word for me. This was it — I was changing career paths at 25.

Well... that chapter lasted around four hours.

I remember making it to lunch and calling Josh during my break to tell him this wasn't for me. To be fair, Josh's response was:

"It's been four hours. Get your arse back in there."

But when you know, you know.

"No. This is it. We're starting a business."

While this was one of the best decisions I've ever made, I do have to admit I felt pretty bad for letting my sister-in-law down after lasting only a few hours.

Josh got home that night in a panic.

"What's the plan? We've got a trip to Florida booked. We've only just upsized to a new house. What were you thinking?"

Over the next few days, we brainstormed constantly. What did we love? What were we passionate about?

Looking back now, some of the ideas were absolutely wild.

Then one night we looked at our two babies, Buttons the Puggle and Beau the Frenchie.

That's it.

Dog walking!

Within a few hours we'd created Buttons & Beau's Pet Care Services (a bit of a mouthful, we know), designed a logo, and launched our social media pages.

How could it fail?

Everyone loves dogs. Everyone works. Who's looking after their dogs?

Well, as much as we'd love to say it took off immediately, that couldn't have been further from the truth.

Weeks went by. We were out delivering flyers every day, posting on every Facebook page imaginable, and even walking our own dogs wearing branded T-shirts.

Nothing.

Then one day we had our first enquiry for a dog walk.

This was it. Our first customer!

Well, she was getting married and needed a single dog walk... in 11 months' time.

Don't get me wrong, we were still made up to have our first booking, but waiting nearly a year took away some of the excitement. (Not to mention she ghosted us the month before — haha!)

As we became more desperate, we expanded our catchment area to include three neighbouring towns, and slowly but surely the work started to come in.

The days were long, rushing from town to town, but eventually we reached a point where we knew things were starting to take off. We invested in a van — an 18-month-old Citroën Berlingo.

We had it sign-written, fitted out inside, and absolutely loved it.

By early 2019, we were fully booked.

I was walking dogs full-time, while both of us were carrying out home visits during evenings and weekends. I won't pretend it was all plain sailing — we'd worked our arses off to get there — but for the first time we could honestly say it had paid off.

We'd built a business from scratch, and it was paying the bills.

While we loved dog walking, we also knew it would become more difficult once we started a family. The plan had always been to expand eventually.

A few months into 2019, I made the decision to enrol on a dog grooming course.

While I focused on my training, Josh and my dad helped me build a small salon in our garden so I could begin my grooming journey.

I plan to share the costs and realities of setting up a salon in future editions, but for now, this story is about the journey.

Not long after finishing my training, I found out I was pregnant with Lennox, who is now six years old.

In some ways, it was perfect timing, as I would have struggled walking some of the larger dogs during pregnancy.

We'd always planned to keep the dog walking side of the business, so by the beginning of 2020 I was a fully-fledged dog groomer (albeit heavily pregnant), and we had two amazing girls working with us as dog walkers.

Everything seemed to be working perfectly.

I'd organise the daily schedules and groom throughout the day, while Josh handled payroll and managed the finances.

After just two years, we'd achieved what once felt impossible. We had a salon, a company van, and two members of staff working alongside us.

Life was good.

Because I was self-employed, I wasn't entitled to traditional maternity pay, but thanks to how well the business was doing, I was actually going to be able to take a decent amount of time off.

Then...

COVID.