Husband and wife team, Paula and Carl, to bring The Cat Butler’s premium cat sitting services to the areas of Dorchester, Poundbury and Weymouth.
Earlier this year, Paula and Carl Steffensen became the proud owners of The Cat Butler® Dorchester. The husband and wife team cover the areas of Dorchester, Poundbury, Weymouth, and the surrounding villages.
What did life look like before joining The Cat Butler®?
Paula: “We’d been living in South Africa for the last 13 years. We decided to move back to the UK in 2020. There were a number of reasons for this, but one of the main ones was to allow our daughter, Eva, to complete her education here.”
Carl: “We soon found ourselves in the middle of a national lockdown, so it was a bit of a strange start to life back in the UK. It did, however, give us time to really think about what we wanted to do next.”
Tell us about your feline family
Paula: “Carl and I have always had cats. While living in South Africa, we managed to ‘collect’ three cats – at different times and from different places – they came to us completely by fluke but became our treasured friends. Once we settled into our new home in Poundbury, we quickly welcomed a new feline member to the family. His name is Charlie, and he follows Carl everywhere – he likes a little shadow!”
What made you decide to become a Cat Butler franchisee?
Carl: When we were settled into our new home, we started thinking about setting up a pet care business. It’s something that we’ve both – Paula especially – wanted to do for a long time, and the stars were finally aligned for us. We’ve worked together before, so we knew we could do that. We also knew that we were living in an area where families had a genuine adoration for their pets, and we saw an opportunity.
We’ve always been cat lovers, and here in the UK, cats – and all other pets – truly are part of the family, and the booming cat care market is a testament to that.
Paula: We came across The Cat Butler® and loved the idea of somebody coming to look after cats in their own home. It wasn’t just somebody who popped in and put some food out, though – it was a tailored service, delivered by vetted, trained and professional staff. I hadn’t seen anything like it before, and certainly not in the local area.
We did some research and spoke at length to Sandra at The Cat Butler®. We knew there was a market for these services where we lived, and we were impressed with what Sandra and her team had built and the reputation the company had in other parts of the UK, where it was already serving thousands of cats.
As fate would have it, it turns out that Sandra and I actually crossed paths years ago when we were both living in Durban, South Africa, in our early twenties. It’s a small world, for sure, and this – along with how seamless the whole system was – told us that this was the right decision.
So, here we are as proud owners of The Cat Butler® Dorchester! We’ve not long started – the emails are already flying in, the phone never stops ringing, and we have bookings in the diary for well into 2022.
A word from The Cat Butler HQ
Sandra James, founder and managing director of The Cat Butler®: I am delighted to have Paula and Carl on the team. Like me, they share a real passion for cats and know that these gorgeous animals deserve nothing but the best. I’m very excited about what the future has in store for The Cat Butler® – Dorchester, and I know that this husband and wife team will be hugely successful.
*Paula and Carl were delighted to appear in a news article in their local press.
Sound like the purr-fect opportunity for you?
With the cat population soaring by 63% to 12.2 million in the last 12 months and bookings up by almost 70%, The Cat Butler is now expanding its team across the UK. If you are interested in becoming a Cat Butler franchisee, please visit https://www.thecatbutler.co.uk/franchise-opportunity.
