Guide · Getting clients

How to Get Your First 10 Dog Boarding Clients (No Rover, No Marketplace Fees)

By Dave Waggins, 6-year home boarder, founder of Houndtrust

Updated July 2026 · ~7 min read

Most advice on getting dog boarding clients is the same recycled list: post on social media, be reliable, make a website. None of it is wrong and none of it tells you where the clients actually come from. My wife and I have boarded dogs out of our home in Salt Lake City for six years, most nights eight to ten dogs, and I can tell you the first ten clients almost never arrive through an ad. They arrive through people. Here is the exact order I’d work if I were starting over today.

This is one operator’s playbook, not a guarantee. What produces clients varies by market and season, and nothing here is a promise of income.

Where boarding clients actually come from

Here is the thing marketplaces train you to forget: home boarding is a trust business, and trust travels through people, not algorithms. An owner is about to hand you a member of their family and their house key. They are not going to pick you off a list of strangers the way they pick a restaurant. They are going to pick the person their vet, their neighbor, or their friend told them about.

That is good news, because it means your first clients don’t depend on an ad budget or a five-star profile you don’t have yet. They depend on you telling the right people, plainly, what you do, and then making the first stay so good it refers itself. Work the channels below roughly in this order, top to bottom, because that is roughly the order they pay off.

The channels that produce, in order

1. 1

   Your own street and your own people, first

   The fastest first client is someone who already trusts you. Neighbors who have seen your dogs in the yard, friends with dogs, coworkers, your kid’s soccer parents. Tell them plainly what you do: “I board dogs out of my home, a few at a time, if you ever need someone.” No pitch, just availability. What converts here is specificity, a real person they can picture handing their dog to, not a business name. This one channel usually produces the first two or three stays by itself.

2. 2

   Vets and groomers, the referral engine nobody works

   Every dog owner in town already has a vet and a groomer, and those people get asked “do you know a good sitter?” constantly. Introduce yourself in person, bring a small stack of simple cards, and make their job easy: one line about what you do, your booking link, and the promise that you will make them look good for referring you. What converts is being the person they can hand off to without worry, so lead with how you keep owners informed and how you handle an emergency, not with price.

3. 3

   Local Facebook and neighborhood groups, done right

   The local “[Your Town] Dog Owners” and neighborhood groups are where owners ask for sitters in real time. The wrong way is to drop an ad; most groups delete it and it reads as spam. The right way is to be genuinely useful for a few weeks, answer boarding and dog questions from real experience, and when someone asks for a sitter, reply like a neighbor: “I board a few dogs out of my home, happy to help, here’s my link.” Helpful presence converts; broadcasting does not.

4. 4

   Yard signs and NextDoor, cheap and local

   A simple yard sign and an honest NextDoor post reach the people physically closest to you, which for home boarding is exactly who you want, drop-off is a short drive. Keep both plain and specific: what you do, that it is your own home, and a way to reach you. NextDoor rewards a real neighbor over a business, so post as yourself. This channel is low volume but high intent, the people who respond are nearby and ready.

5. 5

   The referral ask, after every good stay

   This is the one most sitters skip and the one that actually compounds. At the end of a stay that went well, when the owner is relieved and grateful, ask: “If you know anyone who needs a sitter, I’d love the introduction.” That is the moment your reputation is highest. A great stay plus a direct ask turns one client into two, and the owners you already delighted are a warmer source than any stranger you could advertise to. Make the ask every single time.

6. 6

   The one-intake-link close

   All of the above produces interest. What turns interest into a booking is not making the owner work. When someone says yes, send one linkthat takes the dates, signs your waiver and emergency-vet authorization, and drops the stay into your calendar, instead of a string of texts. A clean close makes you look like a real business and removes the friction where casual interest usually leaks away. Have this ready before you start outreach, so the first “yes” has somewhere to land.

Where marketplaces honestly fit

I’m not going to tell you to boycott Rover on day one. When you have zero roster, a marketplace is genuinely good at one thing: putting your name in front of strangers who are actively looking. For a few seed clients, that’s a real service, and it can be worth it early.

What you have to do is go in with the fee math in front of you, not behind you. Rover’s 2026 pilot charges up to 30% on a new client’s first bookings, stepping down to 15% then 10% as history builds, so the platform keeps taking a cut for the life of a relationship it introduced once. Run your own rate and volume through the Rover fees calculator so you know exactly what a marketplace client costs you, and read the tiered-fees breakdown before you lean on it. Seed with it if you like. Then move the clients who become genuinely yours onto your own book, the right way, which is its own playbook for leaving Rover without losing your clients.

What wastes your time

A few things feel like getting clients and mostly aren’t, at least not at the start. Building a polished website before you have a single client is procrastination with good production values, put up one link and start talking to people. Buying followers or running paid ads to a cold audience burns money on strangers who have no reason to trust you yet. And chasing every platform at once spreads you so thin that none of them get the consistent presence that actually converts. Pick the two or three channels above that fit your town, and work them like you mean it.

The unglamorous truth is that the first ten clients are a grind of small, direct conversations, and then it stops being a grind, because a good roster refers itself. If you want the whole business case behind this, from pricing to keeping clients, my free Solo Boarder’s Playbook course walks it end to end, and the companion guide on how much to charge for dog boarding makes sure you’re not underpricing the clients you work so hard to land.

Common questions

Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Rover. “Rover” is used only for factual reference. This is one operator’s experience, not business or legal advice.