Ben and Sam were brainstorming on how to help their old friends, the handler Jim Heath and his helper Booty Blevins, with their problem, brought on by old age. Jim was seventy, Booty seventy-two.
The Curmudgeons had considerable experience, much of it first-hand, with problems brought on by old age. But they had been fortunate to avoid Jim and Booty’s problem, LOF (lack of funds). Jim and Booty still had the will to work, indeed loved to work. Problem was, age had robbed them of an asset essential to their craft, eyesight. Jim had macular degeneration, Booty glaucoma. What could they do with their skill sets to make a buck, that was the question the Curmudgeons were pondering as they slowly sipped end-of-day-end-of-week drams of The Macallan 12 in Ben’s library-conference room.
Ben and Sam weighed the skills of Jim and Booty. Both were good training a dog (pointing, flushing, retrieving, scent trailing, even occasionally house). Good too at boarding dogs of all sorts. Jim had on his forty acres outside Thomasville a good set of kennel runs, sufficient to board or train or both forty canines.
They were equally good at schooling or caring for ponies, horses or mules of every sort, and the walk-in sheds and paddocks on Jim’s ancestral forty acres could graze a few horses, ponies or mules, but better yet there was adjoining more available-for-rent-cheap equine pasture on which sheds could be erected pretty cheap.
Finally, the curmudgeons recalled Jim and Booty had worked wonders with troubled adolescents Ben and Sam had coaxed them to take North in the summer for prairie dog-training work. Almost all their troubled adolescent charges had benefitted from their time on the prairies and come home better citizens if not saints.
From this reflection, the curmudgeons came up with this business plan for Jim and Booty, then enlisted their grandchildren to design on-line advertising for the venture. Here was the proposed opening ad, to be posted on Facebook:
Announcing the Opening of:
Jim and Booty’s Retirement Home for Show, Flat Race, Draft, Trail Riding, Field Trialing, Fox Hunting, Harness Racing, and Other Equines (We Can Ease Your Conscience) Boarding Kennel (aka Doggy Day Care)
For Canines of All Species and Uses
Short or Long Term
Animal Care Therapy Center for Autistic
And Otherwise Challenged Youth
TrainIng Center for Owners of
Canines and Equines of All Sorts
WE ENSURE THE FIVE FREEDOMS FOR YOUR ANIMALS
The plan conceived, Ben and Sam went to work driving business to Jim and Booty through veterinarians and animal welfare organizations like WOAH, SPCA, Animal League and Canter.
Jim had trained war dogs in the Army for Vietnam, Booty had for a time driven for a large animal veterinarian who made regular rounds to the Yankee Quail Plantations of Thomas County to care for their myriad equines, from the Tennessee Walking Horses used for quail hunts, the mules that pulled their hunting wagons, the show ponies that carried their grandchildren, and the Thoroughbreds that jumped fences on fox and coyote hunts or jumped show ring obstacles at horse shows. Jim and Booty knew the South Georgia horsey set top to bottom.
Three months into the venture Jim and Booty had not gained the revenue hoped for by Ben and Sam. Feeling the need for a consultant with showman flair, they decided to call on Pete-Bob Dix, now selling real estate but still pin hooking horses on the side.
In Ben’s library-conference room on a Friday late afternoon as Pete-Bob sipped Crown Royal and Ben and Sam The Macallan 12, Ben asked, “What will make the rich folks spend money with Jim and Booty?”
Pete-Bob scratched his chin.
“That’s easy, Mr. Ben, Dr. Sam. What that set wants these days is to be able to take their little dogs on board the airplane with them when they fly down from Boston or Philly or Cleveland. What that takes is a certified service dog and a letter from a Doctor that the owner is disabled and cannot fly without the pooch. If Jim and Booty can get them English Cockers — they’re the rage — certified as service dogs, they can charge anything.”
And so Ben and Sam had the grandchildren add to Jim and Booty’s Facebook Business Page: “We Can Make Your English Cocker a Service Dog,” and their revenue soared.