Inner Circle Join the waitlist
Join the waitlistFree to join. Founding-member pricing.

Dozens of tasks a day. Most of them don’t need you.

From this: a desk buried in sticky notes, with more spilling onto the floor and a wide-eyed dog. To this: the notes go in the wastebasket, the desk is clean, Time To Pet is open on the laptop and the dog is asleep beside it.

A calm, tidy home office: a clean wooden desk with only a laptop showing today’s visits in Time To Pet, and a golden retriever asleep on its bed beside the desk.
From Chaos to Calm

The work still gets done. You just don’t do it.

The Inner Circle is a private community from NextLevel Pet Businesses, open to every pet care business. We build your automations together, live, one at a time, so you can toss the repetitive work. Save 20+ hours per week.

Join the waitlist

Launching the first week of December 2026. Waitlist members get founding-member pricing, and the price goes up at launch.

In a hurry? See the short version

Pet businesses could save up to:

hours back a week

That’s more than 3 full workdays. Every week.

hours back a year

That’s 177 eight-hour days.

workweeks a year

That’s about 8 months of full-time work.

Estimates from Robert’s DogCo Summit 2026 talk across 18 workflows, not promises.

What would you do with an extra 27 hours a week?

  • Build better relationships with clients
  • Grow closer to your team
  • More family time
  • Take a real vacation
  • Market your business
  • Build strong ties with your community
  • Get back out with the pets
  • Launch the service you keep putting off
  • Sleep in on a Sunday

Who is this right for?

Small business. Owner still in the field.

Leash in one hand. The whole business in the other.

  1. The messages never stop.Clients, sitters, leads and invoices all land on you, all day.
  2. The office opens when the pets go home.Reports, payroll and invoices start after your last visit.
  3. You are on the verge of burnout.There is no day off, because the business stops when you do.
  4. Now your phone is just the pets.The messages still get answered. You just aren’t the one answering.

Who is this right for?

Bigger business. A whole team in the field.

And every bit of it still runs through you.

  1. You are the bottleneck.Every question, every schedule change and every call-out waits on you.
  2. You hired help, and the work grew anyway.More sitters means more payroll, more applicants and more messages.
  3. You cannot step away.A day off costs you a week of catching up.

Now the only things that reach you are the ones that need you.

Who is this right for?

Not a tech person. Perfect.

If you can send a text, you can do this.

Join the waitlistJoining the waitlist is free.

What you get

In the Inner Circle, we build it together.
Live, one automation at a time.

What it is
Live Build With Me sessions, a weekly Fix-It Hour on Zoom, templates, recordings and a private community.
Who it’s for
Any pet care business, solo or with a team. No DogCo membership needed.
What you need
A Mac or a Windows computer and one AI subscription.
When it starts
The first week of December 2026.
What it costs
Founding-member pricing for the waitlist. Joining the waitlist is free.

This is what you get when you joinBuild With Me sessions are the heart of the Inner Circle.

Detailed builds, one automation at a time

  • Live Build With Me sessions, where you build alongside Robert
  • One automation at a time, built from start to finish
  • Step-by-step walkthroughs, click by click
  • Recordings of every build to rewatch at your own pace
  • Ready-made templates and setups you can copy to start from
  • Help with builds in your own account

Plus, as a member

Fix-It Hour on Zoom, every week

Bring your question, your screen or your half-built automation, and get it sorted live.

“Show me how to build it” demo sessions

Ask for a build and watch it come together on screen, start to finish.

A private community

Share ideas, swap what is working and ask questions between sessions.

Ask anytime

Send Robert a question whenever it comes up. He answers during business hours.

Template and prompt library

Copy-and-paste automations, prompts and step-by-step checklists built for pet businesses.

Replay library

Every build recorded, so you can catch up when your schedule allows.

Updates as the tools change

New builds and refreshed templates as tools like Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Zapier, HighLevel and Google Workspace change, so yours never go stale.

Pawtomations for every part of the business

Clients, scheduling, marketing, hiring, payroll, visit reports, invoices, training and the rest.

At DogCo · office hours

A taste of what’s possible

Know me from DogCo office hours? That is one hour for the whole room: enough for a quick demo and the big picture, and never enough to build anything out. The Inner Circle is where we build it.

Not part of the Inner CircleOffice hours come with DogCo Launch, a separate coaching program for dog walking and pet sitting businesses. You don’t need DogCo to join here.

Yes! I want to start building!

Join the waitlist for founding-member pricing.

Just some things automations can do for your business.

Learn how to do these

0automations across 12 parts of your business

Yes, there are 107. And that’s just the ones that fit on this page.No, you don’t need to build them all in one week.

Pick a heading or search for a task. These are the kinds of builds we walk through together, step by step.

Plus, you’ll learn how to build your very own customized command center.

One screen for your numbers, your clients, your team, your marketing and your research. Click through this sample. Yours gets built around the way you run your business.

Home

Example screens

A sample for a made-up business. Every name and number here is invented, and sadly so are the dogs. Yours runs on your own data.

Robert Strickland speaking at a clear podium on the DogCo Summit stage, with his slide on the screen behind him.
On stage at the DogCo Summit.

I’ve made every automation mistake in the book. Wouldn’t you rather learn from that guy?

I’m Robert Strickland. I started my pet sitting and dog walking business in 2007 in South Carolina, and opened a second location in Utah in 2010. That is more than 18 years in pet care.

I have been at this for more than a decade, starting in corporate process work, where I designed workflows that took hundreds of hours of busywork off teams. I was building automations before they became cool, which means I was also breaking them before it was cool. The evidence is a little further down this page.

The automations I teach are the ones I use in my own pet sitting and dog walking business: the inquiries, the visit reports, the hiring and the payroll.

Somehow, they still let me on stage. I am DogCo’s 2027 AI, Tech & Automation Coach. I have spoken on the DogCo Summit stage two years in a row, and I hold office hours on AI and automations for DogCo Launch members. I also founded NextLevel Pet Businesses, a community of pet care professionals, and run its Facebook group.

  • 2007started pet sitting and dog walking in South Carolina
  • 2010opened a second location in Utah
  • 2025 & 2026DogCo Summit speaker
  • 2027DogCo’s AI, Tech & Automation Coach

Do I have to be a DogCo member to join?

No. You don’t need to be a DogCo member. If you run a pet care business, solo or with a team, you are welcome here.

Robert Strickland

A letter from RobertFounder, NextLevel Pet Businesses

Dear pet business owner,

I started my pet sitting and dog walking business in 2007 because I love animals. Nobody told me I was also signing up to be the scheduler, the bookkeeper, the recruiter, the marketing department and the person who answers texts at 10 at night.

You know the feeling. The last visit of the day is done, and the business is still waiting for you.

So I started handing the repetitive work to systems, one task at a time.

I got plenty of it wrong along the way. You get to learn from someone who made the mistakes and then learned how to fix them.

My goal is to help you create automations that give you back your time, and to show you how to build them safely: test with five people before you send to five hundred, keep a person in charge of anything that touches a client, and always know where the off switch is.

You don’t need to be good with technology. You need one task you are tired of doing, and someone to build the fix with you.

We’ll do it together, one automation at a time.

Robert StricklandFounder, NextLevel Pet Businesses

Mistakes I made so you don’t have to

I once texted more than 1,000 people the words Stale Lead: Value $3,000.

  • A tag clean-up switched on Do Not Disturb for people who never asked for it.Lesson learned
  • A workflow created duplicate leads. Twice the leads, none of the revenue.Lesson learned
  • A sync overwrote my new email template with the old version.Lesson learned
  • An automation fired in the middle of the night and texted clients at 3:30 a.m.Lesson learned
  • A payment reminder went to someone who had already paid.Lesson learned

Every one of these is now a check I build in from the start. You get the checks without the 3:30 a.m. wake-up call.

Join the waitlistWe’ll build your first one together.

Questions people ask

Joining

Do I have to be a DogCo member to join?

No. This is open to every pet care business, solo or with a team.

DogCo is one of the places I teach. You don’t need to belong to it, or to anything else, to join.

Can my office manager or a team member join with me?

Yes, they absolutely can. A second person does not cost extra.

When does it start?

We launch the first week of December 2026.

How much is it?

The price hasn’t been announced yet. Joining the waitlist is free and doesn’t commit you to anything.

Waitlist members get founding-member pricing, and you will see the price before you decide.

Can I cancel?

Yes. You can cancel at any time. No guilt trip, no sad-puppy email.

Tools and tech

What software do I need?

Less than you’d think. Everything we build runs on a Mac or a Windows computer, so if you have either one, you’re set.

The one thing to buy is an AI subscription. We recommend Claude Max (the $100 a month plan) or Claude Team, or ChatGPT Pro (the $100 a month plan) or ChatGPT Business.

Think about the value of your time: this is a very small investment to get it back. If you save just 2 hours a month, it has paid for itself.

The larger plan is most useful at the start, while we are building. Once your automations are up and running, you may be able to drop down to a less expensive plan if you want to.

Beyond that, bring the tools you already use: your scheduling software like Time To Pet, your email, your calendar, your CRM if you have one. We build around what you already have. You don’t need to switch anything to join.

Plan names and prices are set by Claude and ChatGPT and can change.

Do automations work with any booking software, like Time To Pet or Precise Petcare?

Yes. We build around the booking software you already use.

Do I need to be good with technology?

No. You need one task you are tired of doing, and someone to build the fix with you. You bring the task. I’ll bring the patience.

What if I break something?

You probably will. I have, many times.

That is why every build starts small, with a test group and an off switch, and why you are learning from someone who has already made the mistake you are about to make.

Time and support

How much time does it take each week?

As much time as you want. You could spend a couple hours a week, or you could spend 10. It’s totally up to you.

Because everything is recorded, you can go at your own pace, but the more time you invest up front, the more time you are going to save on the other side.

What if I can’t attend the live sessions?

Everything will be recorded so you can catch up. Pajamas welcome.

How do I get help between live sessions?

Send Robert a question whenever it comes up. He answers during business hours. You can also ask in the private community.

Safety and AI

Is my client data safe?

Your client data stays yours. You build inside your own accounts, and you decide what each automation is allowed to see.

Safety is part of every build: what never goes into an AI tool (door codes, alarm codes, card numbers, passwords), where the privacy settings are in the tools you use, and how to test before anything reaches a client.

No tool is risk-free, so you start small and always know where the off switch is.

Will an automation message my clients without me seeing it first?

No. You learn how to safely test every automation before you turn it on, so nothing reaches a client until you have seen it work and decided it is ready.

Isn’t AI bad for the environment?

It’s a fair question, and I’m not going to wave it away. AI uses real energy and water, and that use is growing fast. AI also isn’t going anywhere. So the choice we actually have is how we use it.

Here, that means using it responsibly and on purpose: for the work that is eating your evenings, not for novelty. The hours you get back go into building your business, and a growing pet care business means more jobs in your community.

And I promise not to show you how to create silly memes to paste on Facebook.

Still have a question? Ask me.

Send it over and I’ll answer it myself. A real person, on a page about automation. I see the irony.

You can also email me at info@nextlevelpetbiz.com.

More time for the human work.

Care. Judgment. Relationships. Join the waitlist and let systems take the rest. Founding members get special pricing, and the price goes up once we launch.

What it is
Live Build With Me sessions, a weekly Fix-It Hour on Zoom, templates, recordings and a private community.
Who it’s for
Any pet care business, solo or with a team. No DogCo membership needed.
What you need
A Mac or a Windows computer and one AI subscription.
When it starts
The first week of December 2026.
What it costs
Founding-member pricing for the waitlist. Joining the waitlist is free.

Have a question first? Ask Robert.