As Kristi Pritchett and her family spent more weekends at their cabin retreat near Duck Creek in southern Utah, she knew it was time to hire a professional pet sitter. Family and friends are good in a pinch, but asking someone over every weekend or every other weekend can be a chore in itself.
“I’m a big fan of pet resorts and camp-style boarding done right,” says Kristi with a smile. “But our extended family is a little too large to accommodate. We have five dogs, two birds, two turtles, one rabbit, and a koi pond.”
Like many families, each of her pets has special needs: allergies, diets, medications, schedules, and play preferences. It’s not something Kristi thinks about regularly because it always feels second nature when she’s home with her husband and children. They all work together so no one thinks twice about what needs to be done.
“My husband takes care of the koi pond and manages any algae growth, which is probably why I’m the first to tell people taking care of a koi pond isn’t as hard as you think,” she said. “But then again, I don’t think about those daily challenges — like protecting the pond’s guppies from predatory birds — until I have to tell our pet sitter how. Then, everything is added to a master list.”
Kristi’s list typically runs five pages — sometimes with edits made in the margins, until she retypes it all once every few weeks. It’s not uncommon to invest a few hours on the list, all dependent on the current health and well-being of her pets.
“We were very fortunate to have found someone, especially because she even knows how to care for koi,” says Kristi. “She is licensed, insured, and even brought forms to fill out for anything she needed to know about our pets. But it didn’t make sense to fill those forms out every week or every other week so I stuck to my system.”
It wasn’t perfect, but she decided it worked well enough until the day someone finally invented a service that allowed her to press a button to update all records. Or, even better, maybe any changes could be made in real time — during a vet visit or upon any discovery by any family member — and everyone who had access to the data would know.
“I started talking to friends about my idea, and they loved it,” Kristi said. “My mom was especially supportive because her dog has diabetes and needs special care.”
Since her dad doesn’t like needles, he takes their pet to the vet to get his shots when his wife travels. But if he couldn’t be reached for some reason while she is away, no one else would know what to do. Sure, they might guess that the dog has diabetes, but they wouldn’t know the type, dose, or frequency.
“Eventually, it occurred to me that I didn’t have to wait for someone to invent a service because I was the person,” she said. “Now, all of my parents’ pet information is safely stored by All About Spot, including a legacy contact if my parents couldn’t be reached for any reason.”
Kristi’s parents aren’t the only ones taking advantage of the service. All of the Pritchett pets have their own Fetch Records data files. Their sitter has real-time access and reviews the files a few days before any Pritchett trip. If there are any questions, she calls Kristi for clarification. And if she notices anything while watching the Pritchett pets, she logs it in the Fetch Records for when they return or in real time.
Knowing all of this information is recorded and readily available provides the Pritchett family peace of mind. More than that, All About Spot will be adding proactive features like appointment reminders and prescription refill orders in the near future.
