When dog care grows, what's usually missing isn't heart — it's software.

Franziska Wutzke runs Weggefährten · DogWalks & Care in Gernsheim. She knows every dog by name, plans walks by character and heat index — and still, at some point, hit the wall where Excel, WhatsApp and a notebook stopped keeping up. We built two things for her in parallel: a new website that does her brand justice, and a custom dashboard that takes the paperwork off her plate.

The starting point

A textbook dog-care business: one car, one fixed route, four regular dog groups, a phone that never stops ringing. Franziska kept the calendar in her head — and that was exactly the bottleneck. Inquiries came through three channels: WhatsApp, phone, Instagram DM. Contracts were printed, signed, scanned, dropped in a folder. Invoices were written monthly in a spreadsheet that grew longer with every new customer.

On top of that, she wanted the business to be more visible. The old website was a 2018 page builder, barely usable on mobile, and effectively invisible on Google. Anyone searching for "dog care Gernsheim" only found her if they already knew the name.

So the goal was twofold: a new look that matched her brand — and a tool that takes work away, instead of adding more.

The website — warm, personal, mobile-first

The new site at weggefaehrten-hundebetreuung.de deliberately doesn't play the usual "professional corporate" game. With Franziska we developed a warm, nature-near visual language: muted greens, paw prints as a subtle pattern, an elegant serif (Cormorant Garamond) for headlines, a calm sans-serif for body text.

Four core pages:

• Home — clear answer to "what we do, for whom, in which region"
• Services — group walks, individual care, holiday boarding, dog hotel
• About — Franziska in person, her dogs, her background
• Inquiry — structured form that captures everything in one go (dog, age, character, package, available days)

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

The dashboard — the actual game-changer

The website is the business card. But the tool Franziska actually saves time with lives behind the login: a custom dashboard that maps her workflow — and nothing more.

Seven sections, each with a clear job:

What separates this from a generic CRM: every function is cut for dog care. The walk plan understands the concept of "dog group", invoicing understands "subscription" (3 days/week, 5 days/week, on demand), the inquiry form has the right fields (character, compatibility with other dogs, available days).

No greyed-out fields, no unused tabs, no 30-minute tutorials. When Franziska opens the dashboard in the morning, the first thing she sees: today's walks, weather, unread inquiries — the rest is one click away.

What changed

Three months after go-live we took stock together:

• Writing invoices: previously 3–4 hours end of month, now 12 minutes
• Inquiry response time: from ~18 hours average down to under 2 hours — all info shows up on first click
• Visibility: 6–9 qualified leads per month via organic Google search (before: 0–2)
• Accountant handoff: CSV export instead of monthly Excel patchwork

Tech stack

We deliberately did not start with a classic CRM (HubSpot, Pipedrive) or industry-specific software. Both would have forced Franziska to adapt her workflow to the software — we wanted to do it the other way around. Custom code sounds expensive upfront, but is cheaper long-term than a SaaS license that scales with every new dog.

Why we tell the story

Because it's a good example of a kind of project we love: small businesses, clear requirements, a bit of courage to go beyond standard tools. Dog care, naturopath, workshop, hair salon, bakery, tax advisor — anywhere a single person or small team does the operational work, software that mirrors their reality is worth more than a 200-feature generalist.

The nice thing: once the backbone is in place, it grows. Coming up next on Weggefährten's dashboard: SMS reminders for no-shows, a digital vaccination archive, a trial-walk calendar integration. Step by step, without rebuilding the whole thing.