Setting Up A Cattery
How did we get here?
In 2006, as a family, we were living in a small terraced house on a busy road with 2 young children and a third on the way. We both worked full time in demanding jobs working with children in inner city Manchester and the thought of handing yet another child over to full time childcare was making us unhappy. Giving up work was not an option but our challenging jobs didn’t qualify make for good working from home etc. After looking at dream houses on the web in a rural area nearby I stumbled across a house I’d viewed a couple of years before. It was a house with an old cattery building in the garden. I was shocked to see that the same house was up for sale again so soon! I thought who ever bought it would stay there forever. I was on the phone to the agent quicker than Jack Rabbit. The rest is history.
Running the cattery gave us many options:
- We didn’t have to move far so our older children could stay at the same school..
- I could earn a full time wage but save on child care by doing the school run and being home for any poorly children.
- I could attend Sharing Assemblies and look after the children in the school holidays.
- We would live in the countryside with a massive garden and a traditional pub opposite to make new friends.
- I could concentrate on my passion – writing.
It doesn’t get much better than this!
However, if you’ve not had much experience of working with or caring for animals then there’s not much that can prepare you for the level of commitment needed to run a boarding kennels or cattery. In peak times the hours are grueling, looking after poorly residents is stressful and working from home can be an isolating experience.
But I wouldn’t swap it for the world.
I wish, however, that I’d had someone to talk to about the cattery. Someone to give me pragmatic advice about materials needed for the new build, someone to moan to when my booking sheets let me down and, above all, someone to insist that I had time off the 24/7 work load.
This is the inspiration for offering the Setting Up a Cattery Consultancy.