Meet Katherine Wade | Certified Dog Trainer, Owner of BarkParkPhilly LLC

We had the good fortune of connecting with Katherine Wade and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Katherine, how do you define success?
I define success as being able to live a life without constant dread and worry. When I was working for other people I would sometimes wake up sick to my stomach, just stressing about the day. Would I mess up today? Will i disappoint my boss or my team? Sure, I was making steady money but the anxiety of not being in control of my time had a negative impact on my life. To me success is being able to wake up each day and choose what that day would hold, for myself. Breaking away from the monotony of life has always brought me peace, now I can decide where I want to place my energy for the day. While it may be known that being an entrepreneur takes grit, to me the end goal is always to find time to relax and simply enjoy the life I’ve created for myself. This is not something I have been able to truly feel when I worked for other people.

What should our readers know about your business?
BarkPark! is an urban pet care company in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. We offer our clients dog training, dog daycare, in-home cat care, pet boarding, pet grooming, and tons of enrichment activities for our dogs and their clients. The vision for BarkPark! is to revolutionize urban pet ownership by making safe and enriching pet-care easier and more obtainable. Our clients love that whether their dogs are with us for the day or boarding with us for a week they are able to keep tabs on them without calling or emailing in. We take pride in our ability to understand dogs and why they do the things they do, but also being able to pass that knowledge onto our clients too!

Getting to where our company is today was no easy feat. My business partner and I worked 24/7 365 days a year. We went out of our way to serve many clients in a pinch to earn a reputation we could be proud of, which resulted in pretty quick growth. Many people do not realize that working with animals requires you to be available at all times of the day, there really are no “off” times, we worked non-stop for about two years before we began hiring more staff members to take over some of our duties. I think letting go of some of those responsibilities and trusting someone new with them might have been the hardest part! Learning to manage people without professional pet care experience is a lot more difficult than it sounds.

I’ve learned so many lessons along the way, I think the most important being that nothing in business should be looked at as “forever”. It is true that all things come to an end and that is true for various aspects of a business. The hard times won’t last forever, but neither do the celebratory moments you yearn for when creating a new business. All-in-all entrepreneurship has been a series of ups and downs, but learning to ride the waves has been vital throughout it all. You just can not give up!

I want anyone that looks into my company for any reason to see the passion and care we all put into it. At BarkPark your pet becomes a part of our family and with that love our clients can trust that their best friend is in good hands.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Well, first we would stop at our favorite Brewery on West Passyunk Ave, Brewery ARS for a beer and some grub from one of their guest food trucks. We may take a bike ride into Center City to catch a live show or grab a cheesesteak from Campos. Before the sun sets we’d take an elevator to the roof of the Bok building to watch the sky colors change over the city.

Before the end of their trip we would definitely check out some of the amazing museums in the area including the Art Museum, the Franklin Institute, The Liberty Bell, and of course the Barnes Foundation. There’s just so much to do here in Philadelphia!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I have no doubt in my mind that my story would have been written differently if I have not found such an awesome team to grow with. My management team is the backbone of our business and they work tirelessly each day to ensure our vision for this company is executed each day. I simply cannot be in three places at a single time so having a reliable, trustworthy, and compassionate team has made it that much easier to grow the business. Because of my team, we’ve gone from 100 clients to 3,000 clients in just a few years, and we are steadily growing!

Website: www.BarkParkPhilly.com

Instagram: instagram.com/barkparkphilly

Twitter: twitter.com/barkparkphilly

Facebook: facebook.com/barkparkphilly

Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/barkpark-south-philadelphia-philadelphia?osq=barkpark