How Woburn's Muddy Paws Dog Walking Is Surviving: Wine Delivery

WOBURN, MA — What do you do if you're a professional dog walker and suddenly your customers are home all day, walking their own dogs? If you're Jena Howard, you offer to bring them wine instead.

Muddy Paws, a Woburn-based dog walking and pet sitting company owned by Howard, has been around for 13 years. They work in 20 communities around Woburn. Unfortunately, the new coronavirus is making business challenging.

"We are considered an essential business, which is great," Howard said. "However, most of our clients have canceled for now and we are operating at just 45% of our normal business."

When Gov. Charlie Baker forced non-essential businesses to close their doors, many Massachusetts residents either lost their jobs or found themselves working from home, and thus no longer in need of a dog walker. Howard wanted to partially fill that void in her business.

"I reached out to our customers to let them know that we would not only keep dog walking services going, but we would also be offering a few other services such as Total Wine deliveries and take out deliveries from specific restaurants on certain days so that we could help them gain business," she said.

It's been a hit.

"The response was overwhelmingly positive," Howard said. "We have extremely amazing customers, I've cried so many times after reading their emails which were all about supporting our business."

They have delivered restaurant takeout orders, groceries and pet supplies. The alcohol deliveries have been particularly popular.

"Total Wine deliveries have been a hit," Howard said. "We have done a bunch of these deliveries and the feedback has been great. There is a reason why liquor stores are considered essential businesses and that's because in times like these, people need to drink."

Customers place orders through Total Wine, but list Muddy Paws as their pick-up person. They use Howard's email for their order confirmation, so she knows when it's ready. A dog walker delivers the order to the customer's front door.

"Our dog walking app is amazing anyway and it allows us to send pictures and email/text customers when we are finished with the walks," Howard said. "Everything is sent in real time. We use the technology the same way in letting the customers know that their order has arrived along with a picture of it at their doorstep."

This means they can social distance — no one even has to ring the doorbell.

"I'm looking forward to returning to a more normal business routine, but for now, we are holding strong," Howard said. "Deliveries is way out of the norm for us, but it's going okay."

Muddy Paws is also on track to receive a Payroll Protection Program loan, Howard said, though the details are still unknown.

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Christopher Huffaker can be reached at 412-265-8353 or chris.huffaker@patch.com.