Animal Care

Like many New York City business owners, Tania Isenstein is waiting on the vaccine. And wondering how long she can hold on. "I can't even think about what will happen if there's another shutdown," says Isenstein, who runs Camp Canine, a doggie daycare, boarding and grooming facility on Manhattan's Upper West Side. "I believe that will break me." A former Wall Street lawyer, Isenstein purchased Camp Canine in 2012, and used her business acumen to make capital improvements, change workplace culture and grow revenue 400 percent. At the start of the year, she employed about 50 workers and was on track to make $2.5 million in sales. And then the pandemic hit. "We furloughed every single employee," she says, an "agonizing" decision considering many of her staff live paycheck-to-paycheck. She applied for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) loans, and ran campaigns on GoFundMe and Kiva. By May, she was able to re-open and hire back about half her staff. And now, she's bracing for a brutal winter. The signs are ominous: Covid-19 cases are spiking once again. Mayor Bill de Blasio recently closed the city's public school system, the largest in the nation, for in-person learning. Tough new restrictions seem imminent. "I've been working until 10 at night, racking my brain on how to get business," she says. The other evening, she admits, "I just sat here and cried." While her numbers had been steadily moving upward since her May re-opening, "this month it's not going this way," she says. "'Grim' is the word I've been using." Here's how she's coping: She's looking for pandemic-related opportunities In a happy twist of fate, dog adoptions and sales have soared since the shutdowns began in mid-March, as people turn to canine companions to fill the void. Breeders and rescue shelters have reported unusual amounts of interest. "I am looking at ways to reach those new puppy parents," Isenstein says, especially in her Upper West Side neighborhood, which she describes as "dog-rich." Recently, she teamed up with Andrea Arden, a pet expert who offers training tips on Animal Planet and the Today show, to host playgroups at Camp Canine for pre-vaccinated puppies (no humans are allowed). Arden invites her client's pups -- "she gets the business, and I get their contact information," Isenstein says. She follows up by offering discounted daycare once puppies get their shots. She's staying focused on today -- not tomorrow Isenstein previously worked at Goldman Sachs, and back then she used to take annual whitewater rafting trips with colleagues as a means to "get off the grid" and hit the reset button. (In fact, on one of those trips, she realized that dogs made her far happier than corporate work, and decided to quit her job and run a dog-related business.) "One of the many things I love about those trips is that you're pretty much always in the moment," she says. "There are things you have to do -- you have to not fall out of the boat, you have to paddle, you have to set up your tent before it gets dark." When you're focused on what immediately needs to be done, you can't get distracted by all the things that could go wrong. She's drawing on that right now to stay "in that moment and try not to go beyond that moment." She's recalling the support she's gotten since the pandemic hit In July, Isenstein ran a successful campaign on Kiva.org in just 48 hours to crowdsource a $15,000 loan to cover payroll costs -- and got an outpouring of emotional support from former Goldman colleagues, current clients and various friends and family. "People just wrote the most amazing things," she says, especially about how much Camp Canine means to their pets. She pledged then and there that "on the bad days, I will go back and re-read all of these comments to keep on fighting." She's spending time with dogs. "So during the pandemic, I'm sure I've changed," Isenstein says. "People say, 'Oh, we all have post-traumatic stress.' No, I have current-traumatic stress. My stress is ongoing. It has not resolved yet." It helps that she gets to surround herself with furry creatures. In fact, she admits to loving dogs more than people -- something she also says is Camp Canine's competitive advantage. "Every single person here is as crazy about dogs as I am, and you will not find that at some of my competitors," she says. "The dogs come before the human clients." She's shoring up cash Thanks to the loan programs, Isenstein still has funds in the bank, and she's also used personal savings to keep the business running. "I have other loan sources, but I don't want to go into a tremendous amount of debt," she says. So now, like many business owners, she waits. "We have a great, great place, when the world is back in order," she says. "We just need to make it till then."

Animal Care

How a NYC Business Owner (and Dog Lover) Is Coping

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Animal Care

How a NYC Business Owner (and Dog Lover) Is Coping

The Story Exchange

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