Today we’d like to introduce you to Tayler Gaudette
Hi Tayler, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
The summer of 2014 was a difficult one. Management had changed at the dog daycare we (my sister and I) were working at, and most days were spent crying on the phone to our mom about how much we loved our job, but didn’t have the heart to leave the dogs in our care. The air conditioning was broken, and 2 people would be caring for 80 dogs, and even though we were only 20 and 24, we knew it wasn’t right. In June of that year we talked to our parents and realized that running our own daycare would solve all of our problems- we could tell the clients we loved we were leaving and still work while secretly planning our escape. Our LLC was created on June 30, 2014 and soon after we were let go from our jobs. The clients that wanted to come with us left immediately, and we started running a secret daycare out of our rental home while we searched for a building to turn into a new dog daycare. In September we signed a lease for our place on Forsyth, but we had lots of work to do. It was previously used as a small school, so the entire place needed a fresh coat of paint and carpets ripped out. Our budget was only $40,000, and we did what we could. When the building was almost complete and ready for inspection, we found out from the fire marshall that we needed sprinklers, which was news to us as we had never seen a daycare with them before. We had to go in front of city officials to plead our case to let us open, and they allowed us to as long as work on the sprinklers was started within 6 months. So here we were, with no money coming in, but now having to put another $40,000 into sprinklers. We were finally ready to welcome the dogs and opened Eastman’s Escape for Healthy Pets on January 5, 2015, and named our daycare after a family cabin we had in Pennsylvania, a sweet tribute to our grandfather that had passed away in 2006. We had 12 dogs our very first day. From there we grew and grew, where we finally needed staff, and here we are 10 years later, still loving what we do and caring for the animals like we always have.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
We didn’t know when we opened that this would be one of the most difficult things our family would ever do. From being told we couldn’t open due to no sprinklers, to having a flood, surviving COVID, being robbed, having squatters behind our building for months, being taken advantage of by employees, and finally making it through opening a second location that failed after 6 months, and losing every single dime we had left. We currently are dealing with the building we are in being up for sale, which means we could be kicked out at the end of our lease. We really aren’t sure what the future holds right now, unless someone buys our building and decides to let us stay. We’ve overcome so much in our 10 years, and we try and learn from everything that has happened, but sometimes the universe just has its own plans for you.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Eastman’s Escape is a dog daycare and boarding facility that also offers cat and small animal boarding, in home visits and dog walks, some grooming, and a taxi service. Our daycare is centered around health lifestyle for pets, which means lots of play time during the day, with a 2 hour break for rest, and also feeding and promoting the healthiest options we can find in our industry. I’m very proud of the fact that we also foster for two wonderful local rescues, free of charge to them. We started this business knowing we wanted to foster and also help our community. Not only do we foster, we also do service projects every year to help those in need locally, including collecting toys for XL 106.7’s Baby DJ program, collecting canned food for Second Harvest Food Bank, collecting school supplies to donate to our clients that are teachers, and buying Christmas gifts for families that are part of Harbor House of Central Florida. I feel like all these things set us apart from other daycares, while also doing monthly activity calendars for our dogs where we do art projects, snack days, holiday parties, special photos, and more. This industry is very over saturated now, with daycares on every corner, so we are always trying to think of things that other daycares wont spend the time to do. Social media has been great for us, people love to see their dogs up there and it makes them want to come more when we do fun projects. We have also decided to include all activities in our daycare price, so people aren’t paying extra and that no dog is ever left out.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
We have never been risk takers. We have always tried to stay within budget and do what we could, until 2023. Another local daycare owner, who we had met a pet event years ago said she wanted to sell her daycare so she could move on and start a family. The day I got the message I was 30 weeks pregnant, and was getting prepped for maternity leave. I really wasn’t sure at first, but after touring the place I thought it had great potential. Fast forward a few months to when my son was born and paperwork was started for us buying and fixing up our second location. Turns out we should have done more research before jumping in, because the place was a disaster. We invested everything we had into the place, and after 6 months we were in jeopardy of losing both locations. We cut ties with the second one, as our Forsyth location is our baby, we couldn’t risk it. So no, we will never risk takers again. Here we are a year later, still feeling the horrible after effects of a bad business deal. I think it was a risk in general to open back in 2015, but we had tons of clients that followed and that helped us all feel secure. Risk taking is such a gamble, either it will turn out like the success of Forsyth, or will take everything from you like our second location did. We have decided after that that we will never expand again. Our focus will be on our current building and don’t feel the need to risk anything else.
Pricing:
- Daycare- $38
- Overnight- $57
- Packages range from $180-$650
- Cat Overnight- %32
- Baths range $25-$50
Contact Info:
- Website: https://eastmansescape.com
- Instagram: eastmansescape
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EastmansEscape
Image Credits
Tayler Gaudette
Brittany Gau
Theresa Eastman
