We had the good fortune of connecting with Ashly Azzurro and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ashly, what do you attribute your success to?
Aside from all of the moving pieces, I would say the most important asset to our business – are the people we work with. Our company is designed to provide pet care services by partnering with local independent contractors. These are regular people doing their own thing. In so many words, they don’t have to care about our company the way we do, but they do. Each one of our team members provides the exact same standard of care in each home, our clients notice that more than anything. I truly believe coming out of the pandemic and all of the workforce struggles; this is why we have been successful through our first year of business coming up in late March 2022. These feelings also extend to the local pet businesses we work with and the little community we have built.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
My background has mostly been in business administration up until the last four years. I worked in varying roles within the Metal Fabrication and Construction fields., as well as Banking. Although in some ways I really enjoy this kind of work I enjoy art, nature and animals more. I’ve worked as a clown painting faces for four years, an outdoor educator for children and now I am doing what I truly love. Helping people care for their pets.

Aside from some general life hardships, being young and inexperienced actually was a struggle that delayed my current success. I needed knowledge to make money and needed to make money to fund my goals. I was very lucky though, growing up in Las Vegas, to have met a lot of amazing people who took me under their wing and taught me how to be successful.

Being a kinesthetic learner I needed those safe spaces to learn. I tried going to college multiple times and have only now started over the last two years and been successful. A lot of that I think came from the confidence I built attending Nighthawk. This allowed me to also use my art with my love of animals and traditional crafts.

A lot of people ask me why I chose to start a dog walking and pet sitting business and not something else. Something “professional”. The answer is thst I love what I do. I get to be outside Year round watching the seasons change. I get to help people and provide a sense of comfort even if it is for something often under appreciated. I get to love animals day in and day out, see their weird personalities and build relationships with them that are so important in their lives. We walk some dogs multiple times a week or provide pet sitting/house sitting for multiple weeks while people are out doing what they need to. We also don’t always work with just dogs and cats. Sometimes it is fish sometimes it’s a sugar glider or all sorts of things in between.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Well I would encourage them to come during the early Spring for starts.

Our first day would be a little bit more relaxed since travel. We would head down to the Northwest neighborhood of Portland and walk around. There are a lot of historic houses and cute local shops to pop into. Dinner would be at Swagat Indian Cuisine. Not only are they iconic to Portland but they truly have some of the best, large portioned Indian food in town. Their Tikka Masala is my favorite. If we weren’t completely stuffed from there, we’d walk up to 23rd and get some of the unique ice cream at Salt & Straw. Their Lavender is to die for.

Our second day would begin with an early pastries and coffee at Sisters Coffee on Marshall. I don’t think you can go wrong with anything on their menu but I love their dirty iced chai and a almond croissant. I might even suggest grabbing a snack for lunch since the day involves going South of town to Silver Falls. Although they won’t be as luscious as they are in the mid winter the water falls are still gorgeous. Once we walked the 7.2 mile loop we would head over to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm and walk the fields of flowers. Maybe grab some wine too! After a long day of being out I like to order pizza from Virtuous pie and hang out at home catching up.

My best friend and I are super adventurous so at least 2 of our days would be spent backpacking. We would probably head out for our favorite spot on Tom Dick & Harry by Mt. Hood to hike in on our third day. With a stop to visit our two favorite baristas at Woodlawn Coffee on the way. It’s a short hike in so around 2 pm we would likely be able to set up camp: we would stay there and hike around to the stop of the trail through the fourth day and night.

On our fifth day, we would head down from the campsite early and get over to Trillium Lake. There are kayak rentals on a first come first serve basis. This way we could float around the water and enjoy the morning. On our way home we would stop a Kure Juice Bar and get the Extra mile (o get mine with banana – she doesn’t). Dinner would be spent at Sweet Hereafter for their Vegan Mac, full bar and cozy fire place on the patio.

Our last full day would be a day with friends we would go out to the Gorge and trail hop and invite anyone who wants to join. After hiking around through Angels Rest, Latourell Falls and some of the other iconic trails we’d head into town for a group dinner at the Madator for some delicious Mexican food and drinks.

On our way to the airport it’s our tradition to go watch sunrise by Pittock Mansion and then stop at Presso coffee for avacado toast and their chai latte. We usually sit on their patio and chat for a while before heading to PDX.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There are a lot of people I could shout out in compliments to my success. However, I will limit it to thanking my community of friends and family.I have had nothing but support on any adventure I have ever taken. Not only from my friends and family but people who were once my peers and eventually became like family.

Website: www.petpalspetsitting.com

Instagram: Petpals_pdx

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