This month marks the 8 year anniversary of Field Days Dog Walking and I'd have to say most of it has been great. The dogs are great. The clients are great. And most importantly, my employees are great. Without them, Field Days wouldn't be what it is today, and for that I am extremely thankful. 

COVID-19 has decimated the service industry: restaurants, coffee shops, boutiques, dry cleaners, household cleaners, and dog walkers. Instead of getting paid to work-from-home, they wait-at-home with the same expenses as usual, but with added financial instability and job uncertainty. Walks have decreased to 20% of normal and my heart breaks for my entire hard-working team. This truly has been the toughest week for me as a business owner. As a result of Illinois' shelter in place mandate beginning today, I have made the difficult decision to suspend services for all clients  in order to help #flattenthecurve. Healthcare workers are on the front lines and it is our responsibility to help our community by being part of the solution so we can get through this time sooner rather than later.

I am temporarily laying-off 10 employees in order to let them receive unemployment benefits during this difficult time. These hard-working employees deserve better and I wish I could do more to help.  This employee relief fund will go to the staff and I hope it helps ease some of their financial burden until we can get back to doing what we do best -- walking all the dogs!

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your support.

-- David