Support our sleddog sports academy, education and adventures

Hi, my name is Joe, I am the ‘crazy dog lady’ behind Mynydd Sleddog Adventures, a fledgling micro business based in North Wales, UK.

I am writing this post out of sheer frustration and despair, following months of sleepless nights, tossing and turning with worry, constantly feeling sick in the pit of my stomach while trying to put on a brave face.

Please don’t read on thinking this is a ‘woe is me,’ ‘I’m so hard done by’ type of post because it’s not meant to be, I know there are people out there far worse than me, but at the moment, I’m at my whits end and don’t really know what else to do other than shout/scream from the roof tops in the hope that the universe hears.

For those of you who know me or follow our socials, you will always see the best side of the business; our wonderful dogs, how well cared for and loved they are and how much they love what they do.

You will see the fantastic young people and families who take part in our Sleddog Sports Junior Academy, their smiling faces covered in mud when they’ve been out training and racing with our dogs. The care and responsibility they are learning and showing to our super canine athletes and each other as a team.

You will see other young people, some are linked to CAMHS or have additional learning needs, fully engaging and learning on our sleddog assisted alternative education programmes. You will see posts about our joint successes with a local NHS occupational therapy team, in the secure mental health unit, where our fantastic sleddogs are supporting patients who suffer from substantial mental illness.

You will see our amazing visitors who have enjoyed the thrill and adrenaline of a sleddog ride through the beautiful Welsh forest, you will have seen the elation on their faces (and the dogs) and you will have read the positive reviews….

Sadly, despite all this positivity, the reality is Mynydd Sleddog Adventures IS REALLY STRUGGLING!! If I am 100% honest, I am not convinced we will be around next summer.

Whether it be through Adventure Tourism or Outdoor Education, from the outset, I wanted my business to engage and inspire people. I wanted it to thrive and grow, being the best it can be. I have done everything in my power to enable this to happen and more! I’ve bust my guts, put my heart and soul into it, for the last 5 years and taken nothing financially from it, except a warm fuzzy feeling that I’ve done something good for my dogs and for other people, but warm fuzzy feelings aren’t sustainable and don’t pay the bills.

Since opening in Jan 2020, we have been hit with continuous challenges and barriers. I won’t go into them all, because I wouldn’t want to bore you, but the pandemic put us in the negative before we’d even begun. I had to take out loans to get through and ‘bounce back’ the business, because we as a brand new business weren’t eligible for government financial support.

Following the pandemic, the cost of living crisis hit many people where it hurts! For us there has been a huge increase in the cost of dog food from approx. £700 per month to £1300! This year our insurance premium went up from £1500 to £3,500 per year; an extra £200 per month for us to find! Our Accountancy fees are just about to go up as well. This is just the tip of the iceberg! The costs of maintaining and ensuring our rigs are safe, is expensive, especially with many cycle companies closing down, parts are in short supply and more expensive.

Unlike most other sleddog businesses (abroad), we do not rehome or PTS our dogs if they have health issues, are no longer fit to work, or are retiring. They stay with us; they are our extended family. We care for them and cover the cost of their ongoing medical needs until they cross rainbow bridge. As you can imagine providing veterinary care at the best of times is expensive in itself.

In order to cover our ever increasing overheads, we reluctantly increased our prices for this year, but this seems to be having a detrimental effect on our bookings, which for this time of year are diabolical! We opened our bookings for Oct half term, so far, we have no bookings. We scheduled a Howl-o- Ween Husky Hike, so far we have 2 bookings (for which we are extremely grateful) but this doesn’t cover the cost of the ‘special permission’ we require from NRW to operate our business after dark, or the cost of creating an additional page on our website for the event, nor does it cover the cost of advertising the event!

One of the most difficult things is doing everything myself. Admittedly, I have a part time virtual assistant Charly, who is invaluable, but financially I can only pay her for 2 hours per week. If I am lucky I will have an international volunteer helping out, but everything else falls on me; dog care, training, cleaning kennels, vet appointments, admin, creating social media content, creating adverts & editorials for publication, liaising with local authorities, writing accredited programmes, session plans and assessor testimonials for young people on programmes the list is never ending.

One of my biggest frustrations is that there is no investment support for one person businesses. Most investors are only interested in companies that are going to make them lots of money! They will happily throw thousands of pounds at businesses that will be worth X amount in 5 years time. But Mynydd Sleddogs is never going to make a tonne of money because it all goes back into our dogs and programmes, so why would anyone want to invest? ‘Become a social enterprise or CIC’, I hear you say in response…. Yes this is something to consider, however this is not straight forward either so not an easy fix!

I’ve looked at grant funding, which in some cases could be great, but applications are horrendously arduous, some are retrospective (meaning you have to pay out first and get reimbursed). Other grants require match funding or have a minimum amount which is often over and above what is needed by a tiny business like ours.

It really feels like everything is stacked against us and I can no longer put on a brave face, this little business NEEDS HELP TO SURVIVE! I am hoping we can overcome the challenges with a little help from our friends and followers.

If you like Mynydd Sleddog Adventures, I’m asking for your support to help us continue, every little donation will help look after the ongoing vet bills for our older dogs or ones who are no longer able to work for health reasons. You will be supporting the maintenance of our equipment to enable our young people on the Academy or accessing alternative education to continue to learn and develop their skills safely. You will be supporting us with advertising our adventures which will help us maintain a flow of bookings which will help us get out of the negative and into the positive and hopefully move forwards.

Thank you for reading.