Before there was a team, a facility, or 300 clients, there was a simple conversation around the kitchen table.
Crystal had reached a point in her career where she knew she wanted something different. After moving between jobs and management roles, she came home one evening and told her husband, Mike, that she wanted to start a small dog walking company. His response was simple: if they were going to do it, they were going to do it right.
That conversation in 2024 set something much bigger in motion.
Today, Mike and Crystal are the co-owners of The Paw Path in Pembrokeshire, Wales. Just two years later, the business has grown from a one-person dog walking operation into a team of nine, serving around 300 clients and offering dog walking, pet sitting, overnight stays, daycare, grooming, and pet taxi services. The business now operates from a 2,500-square-foot facility with an additional 1,000-square-foot outdoor area.
We sat down with Mike to hear how The Paw Path got its start, what fueled its rapid growth, and how he and Crystal have built the team and infrastructure needed to keep moving forward.
A Business Born from a Love of Dogs
Crystal has always been a dog lover. Together, she and Mike have three spaniels at home, so starting a pet care business felt like a natural next step. But they also wanted to offer something different from the dog walking and pet sitting services already available in their area.
Pembrokeshire is a popular holiday destination, and many families visit with their dogs but can't take them everywhere. The Paw Path saw an opportunity to fill that gap, giving pet parents peace of mind while their dogs were enjoying a vacation of their own.
From the beginning, Crystal set a standard that helped set The Paw Path apart: complete transparency. She sent GPS tracking, photos, and detailed reports after every dog walk.
Within six months, Crystal had more than 100 clients. But there was only one Crystal. Rather than turn people away, they hired three additional team members and expanded into pet sitting and overnight stays.
The demand kept growing. About a year in, they found a facility large enough for their next big idea: a doggy daycare operation. The 2,500-square-foot facility, with an additional 1,000-square-foot outdoor area, gave them room to build something bigger. They added dog grooming and a pet taxi service that picks dogs up, brings them to daycare, and takes them home again.
Today, The Paw Path runs a full dog walking and daycare operation with nine staff members. But even as the business has grown, the philosophy behind it has stayed the same:
Keeping Quality High as The Paw Path Grows
Growing a dog walking and daycare business means balancing quality with volume. Going from a handful of dogs to 40 or 50 on a busy day can quickly get hectic. But through it all, The Paw Path has stayed committed to the transparency that helped build its reputation. Every service still comes with a detailed report.
That level of communication takes time, especially on busy days when the team may have dozens of reports and photos to create. But customers notice, and that's what matters. Going the extra mile has helped The Paw Path build trust within its local community.
Pembrokeshire is a close-knit, rural area where reputation matters. People want to know that someone they trust has had a positive experience before choosing a service for their pets.
For The Paw Path, that trust has become one of the biggest drivers of its growth, helping the business build a loyal customer base largely through word of mouth.
When Growth Creates New Challenges
Of course, this type of growth has not come without its challenges.
Recruiting has been one of the hardest parts of building the business. The team is responsible for clients' precious pets, which means Mike and Crystal are extremely careful about who they bring on board. New employees go through training and shadowing, along with background checks, certifications, and insurance requirements.
There is another important consideration, too: making sure every member of the team understands the standard Crystal set from day one.
That challenge is a natural part of turning a personal passion into a growing company. The Paw Path's reputation was built around the high standards Crystal established from the beginning. As the team grew, Mike and Crystal had to find a way to carry those same standards into every client interaction.
Then there were the operational headaches. Pembrokeshire is rural, which means staff can spend anywhere from five to 30 minutes traveling between appointments. As the business grew, scheduling became increasingly difficult to manage.
Before finding Time To Pet, Mike was handling it manually, a process that took him a full day, sometimes a day and a half, every week.
He was using Google Calendar and spreadsheets to keep everything organized. But as the business continued to grow, it became clear that the tools they were relying on weren't built to handle the complexity of the operation they were becoming.
Finding the Right System for the Next Chapter
Time To Pet came into the picture when Mike and Crystal started looking for a way to simplify routing, scheduling, and managing multiple staff calendars. The ability to see and coordinate multiple team members in one place immediately stood out. As they explored the platform, they also discovered tools that could support other parts of the growing business.
Time To Pet was different from the tools they had been using, but once the team got comfortable with the new system, the impact was clear. They could add new clients without adding the same level of administrative work, while onboarding became more streamlined with welcome emails, sign-ups, agreements, and app access all in one place.
For a pet care business spread across a rural territory, having the right scheduling system makes a significant difference. Time To Pet freed up the time Mike had been spending on logistics, allowing the team to focus more on what actually matters: caring for the dogs and building relationships with their owners.
The goal was never to replace the personal connection that helped The Paw Path grow. It was to give the business the systems it needed to keep that connection strong as the number of clients, staff, and services continued to grow.
Building Toward an Even Bigger Dream
For many businesses, reaching 300 clients and a nine-person team might be the destination. For The Paw Path, it's just the beginning.
Doggy daycare is now the primary focus for the next stage of growth. The facility is currently licensed for 22 dogs, with plans to increase that to around 28. The immediate goal is to steadily grow daily attendance from an average of 12 to 14 dogs toward 23, 24, or 25.
They're also exploring the addition of a hydrotherapy center with underwater treadmills for dogs. Meanwhile, Mike is working on a side project called Paws Scapes by The Paw Path. While building their own daycare, he noticed a gap in the market for dog-specific playground and agility equipment. Now, he's building dog playgrounds from recycled plastic.
Underneath all of these plans lies Crystal's most ambitious goal.
When Passion and Dreams Align
The story of The Paw Path doesn't stop there. While growth has brought its share of challenges, particularly when it comes to recruitment and building a team, Mike and Crystal continue to move forward. Along the way, they've had to rethink their approach and build systems that can support the business they're becoming, not just the business they started.
When Mike is asked about advice for someone considering starting a pet care business, his answer comes with a laugh.
For Crystal, that reason is simple: a genuine love of animals. For both of them, it is also about doing things properly, with the right systems in place, building something they can be proud of, and continuing to raise the standard as the business grows.
That mindset has taken The Paw Path from a one-person dog walking company to a growing, multi-service pet care business in just two years. They've learned that sustainable growth takes the right systems and the right team. A love of dogs got them started, but building the right business, with the right tools in place, has given them the foundation to keep growing.
