After this winter, Karen Munro is calling the stretch of road where the Bowen Island Dog Ranch sits “Adams Pass,” as the region has proved itself to be the island’s snow belt.
“I had snow halfway up the chairs in my garden for almost 11 weeks,” she says. “I had to get people to snow plow just so we could function. Our training centre, which was a giant tent where I had all my agility equipment set up, collapsed. We went out one day in mid-December to get the snow off knowing there was another load coming that night, and the next morning it had completely imploded.”
Now that it’s all melted, staff at the Dog Ranch are working hard to fix up all the damage to the five-acre property, and make it better than ever.
This spring, the business is celebrating its 10-year anniversary.
Munro says that in the past few years, she’s managed to outsource a majority of the hands-on work, including administrative work, required to keep the business functioning day to day. The staff now numbers 15, up from two employees in the early years.
“The right people have come along,” says Munro. “We have a lot of part-timers, we have some full-time including four seniors. They, including Steve Levia who is my general manager, and myself are the mainstays of the business. Thankfully I’m in a place right now where everyone who works for me lives on-island.”
She says that for the last few years, she has struggled with how to hold on to her part-time staff, many of whom did not live on Bowen.
“I’d have to house them in my trailer two nights a week just to keep them here, but it’s not a permanent thing,” says Munro.
“I’m not in a financial position to build tiny houses, but it’s something that’s crossed my mind. If I had the money, I would build a few and put them on the back corner of the property.”
There is currently one gap in Munro’s staffing: she lost her dog trainer four months ago.
“It’s not that she couldn’t afford a place here, it’s that she couldn’t find a place that was appropriate for her,” say Munro. “Because she’s one person, making a fairly good income. She would’ve liked to have had her own place or a roommate in a decent house, but a decent house on Bowen costs between $2,500 and $3,000 per month. That’s just unaffordable. This leaves me with a gap in the services the Dog Ranch can offer.”
Recently, Munro said she tried to hire a new trainer but the person chose a job in Mission instead.
“Basically, I’ve seen the housing situation here get worse and worse over the past few years,” she says. “If I wanted to expand the business, I couldn’t, I literally couldn’t. So in the next few years my only plan is to stabilize.”
