When a dog care business grows, what's usually missing isn't heart. It's the software.

Franziska Wutzke runs Weggefährten · DogWalks & Care in Gernsheim. She knows every dog by name and plans walks around each dog's character and the heat, and yet at some point she reached the stage where Excel, WhatsApp and a notebook could no longer keep up. We built two things for her at the same time: a new website that does justice to her brand, and a dashboard of her own that takes the paperwork off her hands.

The starting point

A classic dog care business: one car, a fixed route, four regular dog groups, and a phone that never stops ringing. Franziska kept her calendar in her head, and that was exactly what became the bottleneck. Inquiries came in through three channels: WhatsApp, phone and Instagram DMs. Contracts were printed, signed, scanned and filed in a folder. She wrote invoices every month in an Excel sheet that got longer with every new customer.

On top of that, she wanted to make the business more visible. The old website was built with a website builder in 2018, not really usable on mobile, and practically invisible on Google. Anyone searching for “Hundebetreuung Gernsheim” (dog care Gernsheim) only found her if they already knew the name.

So the goal was twofold: a new online presence that suits her, and a tool that takes work off her plate instead of creating more.

The website: warm, personal, mobile first

The new website at weggefaehrten-hundebetreuung.de deliberately avoids the usual “professional corporate” style. Together with Franziska, we developed a warm, nature-inspired visual language: muted greens, paw prints as a subtle pattern, an elegant serif font (Cormorant Garamond) for the headlines, and a calm sans serif for body text.

In terms of content, there are four core pages:

• Home: with a clear answer to the question “What we do, for whom, in which region”
• Services: group walks, one-on-one care, holiday care, dog hotel
• About us: Franziska herself, her dogs, her background
• Inquiry: a structured form that asks for all the necessary information at once (dog, age, character, desired package, available days)

Technically, the site is served statically (HTML/CSS/JS), runs on a German host, and comes with everything a modern website needs in 2026: SEO structure, Schema.org markup for local businesses, a GDPR-compliant cookie banner, an accessibility widget, and performance optimization (images as WebP, locally hosted fonts, Lighthouse 100/100/100/100).

The dashboard: the real game changer

The website is the business card. But the tool that really saves Franziska time runs behind the login: a custom dashboard that maps exactly her workflow, and nothing more.

Seven areas, each with a clear job:

What sets these tools apart from a standard CRM solution: every function is tailored to dog care. The walk plan knows the concept of a “dog group”, the invoicing logic knows “subscription” (3 days/week, 5 days/week, on demand), and the inquiry form knows the right fields (character, how well the dog gets along with other dogs, available days).

There are no grayed-out fields, no unused tabs, no 30 minute tutorials. When Franziska opens the dashboard in the morning, the first thing she sees is today's walks, the weather and unread inquiries. Everything else is one click away.

What has changed

Three months after going live, we took stock together:

• Writing invoices: previously 3 to 4 hours at the end of the month, now 12 minutes
• Response time to inquiries: from an average of 18 hours to under 2 hours, because all the information is there on the first click on the inquiry
• Visibility: organic Google search brings in 6 to 9 qualified inquiries per month (before: 0 to 2)
• Handover to bookkeeping: CSV export to the tax advisor instead of a monthly Excel patchwork

Tech stack

We deliberately did not start with a classic CRM (HubSpot, Pipedrive) or industry software. Both would have forced Franziska to adapt her workflow to the software, and we wanted it the other way around. Custom code sounds more expensive at first, but in the long run it's cheaper than a SaaS license that gets more expensive with every additional dog.

Why we're telling this story

Because it's a good example of a kind of project we enjoy: small businesses, clear requirements, and a bit of courage to go their own way instead of using standard tools. Dog care, naturopathic practice, auto repair shop, hair salon, bakery, tax advisor: wherever one person or a small team does the operational work, software that reflects exactly their reality is worth more than a generalist with 200 features.

And the best part: once the foundation is in place, it can be extended. The Weggefährten dashboard will soon get a text message reminder for no-shows, a digital vaccination record archive and a calendar integration for trial walks. Step by step, without having to rebuild the whole system.