The Water Bowl is paws down the best monthly newsletter for pet professionals. We provide editorial on current events in the dog walking and pet sitting world, review gear and gather interesting information from around the web.

TLDR;

• New Year, New Business Goals
• Eat. Drink. Adopt.
• Why Women’s Shelters Should Be Pet-Friendly
• Fur-ternity Leave
• Dogs Saving Citrus Farms
• Koala-Sniffing Dogs in Australia

Resolutions. Business Goals for 2020

Well, it’s officially the middle of January 2020, which means if you’ve made New Year’s Resolutions, you’ve probably already broken at least two of them. Even if you think resolutions are kind of dumb, setting business goals at the beginning of each new year can be remarkably helpful, especially if you want to grow the business.

1. Determine Your Quantifiable Goals. Setting goals that are achievable start with clarity. Start the process of setting goals for your business by identifying exactly what you want to accomplish over the course of the year. Maybe that involves increasing brand awareness in your neighborhood, or increasing your revenue by a certain amount, or even expanding your staff or locations. No matter what your goals are, be clear about what you want to work towards this year and that there are concrete ways to measure your successes and failures for each.
2. Create Short-Term Objectives. Rome wasn’t built in a day, so give yourself the space to work towards your goals slowly over the course of the year. For example, if one of your 2020 goals is to increase your revenue, your short-term objective can be what that would look like on a quarterly basis. Or, if you are looking to increase your brand awareness, one of your short-term objectives can be adding followers and improving engagement on your social media channels. These short-term objectives will serve as steppingstones to help you achieve your larger goal for the year.
3. Measure Your Key Results. Once you’ve identified your goals and your objectives, you have to find ways to measure the results in order to adjust accordingly should things not be heading in a positive direction. If some of your efforts appear to be failing, then pivot and set a new short-term goal to try and right the ship.

No matter what your goals are for this year, we hope that 2020 is the most successful for you yet!

Have a Drink. The World’s First Dog Tap House

Some love beer, and some love dogs, so why not put them together in one establishment? Fido’s Tap House, in Portland, Oregon actually did just that; in addition to having beers on tap, they also serve as a foster home for rescue dogs.

The dogs live in a separate space from the bar, which is set up like a kennel with cages for up to eight dogs, along with toys, and food.

The goal is to get patrons from the bar to come play with the dogs and potentially adopt one. But don’t worry, Fido’s has a 3-day waiting period once someone has decided to adopt a pup to make sure that no one was making a drunken mistake. It might seem a little crazy, but it works. Since opening the bar in 2018, over 70 dogs have been adopted into loving homes.

Woman's Best Friend. Why More Shelters Should Be Dog Friendly

Here’s a shocking statistic: 1 in 4 women will experience domestic violence here in the United States. Even more shocking? Less than 10% of women’s shelters provide pet assistance, such as foster placement or nearby boarding, which can prevent women from leaving a violent situation.

According to the Washington Post “a widening body of research in the past two decades has found that abusers often threaten, injure and even kill victims’ animals, and surveys of women at shelters have found that about 20 percent to 50 percent say concerns about a pet’s fate delayed their decision to flee.”

There are over 100 shelters in the U.S. now that are pet-friendly, and there are now organizations across the country popping up to help support the cause, such as  Noah’s Animal House.

Blurbs. Curated Content from the Interwebs

• Fur-ternity leave is a new work perk. The American workforce has been slow to adopt policies that help to promote work/life balance, but a handful of cool companies are looking to change that. Some have introduced a whole new concept to their suite of employee benefits: fur-ternity leave. These progressive companies see the inherent value of bringing a new pet into your home and actually giving you both the time you need to adjust to the new situation.
• Dogs are helping protect citrus trees in Florida. The citrus industry in Florida has lost $9 billion due to a strain of bacteria that prevents the fruit from ripening. So, farmers are using dogs to sniff out diseased trees and they have a 99 percent success rat
• Koala-sniffing dogs are saving lives in Australia. With estimates of nearly 1 billion animals having perished in the Australian brush fires, searchers are desperate to find signs of animal life in the areas that have been affected by fires. Meet Bear, the koala detecting dog, who is helping Queensland Fire and Emergency Services – QFES, Queensland Koala Crusaders, and Wildcare Australia Inc. find koalas that may have been injured in the fires and are now in desperate need of assistance.