Knowing that a dog might become lonely when its owner was absent and was liable to develop behavior problems, Elaine Beal sometimes recommended the acquisition of a "companion pet" As Paul remarked, Having two dogs is not twice the trouble, it halves the problem
However, to maximize profitability, franchisees also had tooperate as efficiently as possible, minimizing time spent in nonrevenue-producing activities such as travel, set up, and socializing. As business grew, some franchisees employed additional operators to handle the excess woekload, so that the trailer might be in service extended hours, seven days a week. Eventually , a busy territory might be split, with a portion sold off to a new franchisee.
APM encouraged this practice. The company had found that franchisees reached a comfort zone at about 80 dogs a week and then their business stoped growing because they could not physically wash any more dogs. Franchisees could set their own price when selling all or part of a territory and APM helped them to coordinate the sale.When a teritory was split, a franchisee usually was motivated to rebuild the remaining half to its maximum potencial.