Business Expo: Doggy Doo gal glad to say that business is picking up
It wasn't a dark and stormy night, but it was a gray and chilly Wednesday morning that brightened considerably once you were inside the Abilene Convention Center.
Business Expo, back in March for a second year after two events were held in heat of August due to the pandemic, was bustling. The Expo is about networking and, for many, getting free stuff. If you leave empty handed, it likely is your own fault.
Pens and pins, popcorn, no-sugar or protein drinks, brochures, stress balls (shaped like a heart) and the ever-popular Fat Matt Roofing black buckets were going quickly.
And if you signed up, you got your name in a drawing for a free stay across the street at the DoubleTree by Hilton, which is projected to be open in three months. The general manager and food and beverage boss were at the Expo.
Some folks left Wednesday with a fresh haircut, courtesy of Curbside Cuts, an Abilene Chamber of Commerce member. The event is a presentation of chamber members.
The event had a run of more than five hours after its opening ceremony. Dozens of vendors offered information about their businesses to showcase what is offered in Abilene.
Russell Berry, who owns The Travel Factory, said business is picking up post-pandemic. He even had a hire help, he said.
He was not giving away free trips, nor was Ryan Beeson giving away free Iceland coolers.
Some businesses you expected to offer freebies, others you didn't.
For example, Doogy Doo.
Not a wasted opportunity
Doggy Doo will remove just that from your property in town or near Abilene.
And not just what happens when someone lets the dogs out. They clean up after horses, chicken, goats and rabbits, too, said Jessica Thibodeau, who operates the business started by Kirby Shadle of Tres Amigos Services, a general contractor.
"Any kind of animal," she said. "We don't discriminate."
Thibodeau also works for Shadle as office manager and bookkeeper. When he came up with the waste removal business, hearing about its success elsewhere, he asked her to take it on.
She was not at all offended.
"He gave it to me as my baby to run and take care of," she said. "I started doing it and it had good flow coming in (money, that is) and I was like, I need to promote it more.
"It's a good little side job."
A girl's gotta do what a dog's gotta doo.
It has gone well the past two years, she said. You could say she has built the business from the ground up.
It's a business
To answer your first question, yes, they offered free samples.
Not, Ewwwww!
Rather, dog treats by KT Kraft Shop. Their "doggy delight" is made of organic pumpkin and peanut butter, organic unbleached flour and egg.
Doggy Doo is in charge of what happens after a treat or maybe a product from nearby Primal Pet Group is consumed.
And if you don't have a high opinion of your job, consider what they do. They're just up front about it.
"Honestly, just going out there and doing something that has my name on it and and Kirby's name on it, it's like my baby," she said. "I don't look at it as picking up poop; I look at it as building a business.
"One day, I can make my own hours and make the American dream."
It's that time of year
"Now that spring and summer are coming up, people are going to want to go outside," Thibodeausaid. They don't want to have to watch where they step at a birthday party or barbecue.
"Even if it's a one-time call," she said. A Realtor may call after someone moves out "and they left all this mess," she said. "They end up calling me back because they see how much gets cleaned up.
"They need someone to do it, and I'm your girl."
What do you do with the doo?
It going in the trash, she said. The container in the alley.
However, she has one client who has a dog that digs. He said that if you fill the hole with poop, then cover it, the dog won't there again.
"So anytime his dogs digs a hole one, I put some fresh ones in there and cover it up," she said. "But any other person, unless they say they want it for fertilizer, I just dispose of it."
Her tools of the trade?
A rake and dustbin-like device.
"You can get a lot more than just the claw thing," she said.
You can't help but picture that.
"Some yards are so bad, you need a shovel and a wheelbarrow," she said.
That, you don't want to picture.
She uses a safe, biodegradable enzyme spray when she's done with a site.
"Especially in the summer, when the sun is beating down, you don't want that ... oh my God, it sinks to high heaven," she said.
A job that never ends
Cost? We have pay per view; is this pay per poop?
It depends on "how bad it is," how many dogs there and the size of the year, she said.
Thibodeau said dogs will hang out with her, often running to great her. And, sometimes, a dog wants to "help." That is, create more work.
"Sometimes, I get done with a spot and they will make a fresh one," she said. One culprit is Hollis.
"I'll go, 'Hollis, did you just do that?'" she said.
It's not like this is first time to address waste at a Business Expo. In previous years, the local business Can-Doo Budget Rentals has had a booth at the Expo.
In fact, at the north entrance to the Convention Center on Wednesday was an orange Can-Doo portable potty.
And if you were driving by the Back Porch of Texas on Monday, you may have seen the familiar upright cubicles being, uh, deposited for this weekend's Outlaws & Legends Music Festival.
When you've gotta go, you've gotta go. So you need to know where to go.
For doggy doo, it's Doggy Doo.
This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Business Expo: Doggy Doo gal happy to say that business is picking up
