May 1, 2017

Meet Carrie Ensign of Roscoe Recess in North side

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Carrie Ensign.

Carrie, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I was a zookeeper at the Lincoln Park Zoo for 10 years, working mainly with large carnivores (seals, lions, and bears), I absolutely loved my zoo career, however my husband and I wanted to start a family so I needed a more flexible schedule but wanted to continue working with animals. The business was incorporated in October of 2006 so we just hit 10 years this past fall. The first 5 months was just me walking dogs, but the business grew rapidly due to a good website and my background working with animals. Now we have 13 walkers and our area has expanded from Roscoe Village (hence Roscoe Recess) to several surrounding neighborhoods. The majority of our business has come from client referrals and all five star yelp reviews. I thoroughly screen all of the walkers and tend to focus on their positive interactions with dogs (my Labrador is usually at the interviews), their availability for a consistent walking schedule, and references stating reliability and trustworthiness. Our business has grown at its own pace, and has a great group of animal loving humans that work together to provide excellent care.

Has it been a smooth road?
I think the biggest struggle for me was finding a system for hiring. Our walkers have keys to your house, your alarm codes, and your babies so we want to make sure we hire extremely trustworthy sitters. After a few bad hires we were able to structure our wording for job posts to weed out unwanted applicants, and switched background check system as well. I would say that we currently have the best staff we’ve had in 10 years.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
Roscoe Recess offers daily dog walks at the client’s home, as well as out of town care for cats. The walks are all one-on-one, no pack walks unless there are multiple dogs in the home. We have a primary walker for each dog so the dogs can develop a great relationship with someone familiar to them. We do fun social media posts including pictures of our client’s dogs, and also host parties for dogs and their owners at a local dog training facility.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Yes! I love that my walkers are close to all of their clients, and a few walkers actually spend most of their day in one building. Parking during the times we walk (11-3) is typically easy and free, and traffic is light. We do not cover downtown Chicago so I’m not sure if that would make a difference but for the area we service on the north side it is great. The walkers also utilize the biking lanes and divvy bikes around the city too which helps tremendously during summer cubs games.

Pricing: