We are often asked ‘how did you get into the world of sighthounds?’ Well, here’s how it all began.

Having worked in the social care sector and then in further education, Maria was looking for a fresh challenge. She had been volunteering at Bleakholt Animal Sanctuary and Lancashire Wildlife Trust and really wanted to work outdoors and with animals. During a conversation with her Mum she was struggling to decide how she could make this happen. Knowing how much she loved to spend time with our own dogs Mum suggested that she should start her own dog walking business.

With Pete’s support she took a leap of faith and started Your Fairy Dogmother Pet Services on 1st July 2015. We offered dog walking and pet visits and quickly built a client base within the Hyndburn area.

Her experience working with older people in Social Care settings has benefited us greatly as she has easily transferred the skills she learnt into caring for dogs and other animals. Whilst working at Bury College Maria also taught infection control which has been a real benefit during the global pandemic as she fully understands how to minimise the spread of infections and viruses and how to maintain a clean, safe and hygienic environment for both humans and animals.

Your Fairy Dogmother became a resounding success.

Because the dog owners trusted Maria to walk their dogs, they were also requesting that she looked after them whilst they were on holiday so, in 2018, we applied for our home boarding licence and the boarding side of the business was born.

Maria has always loved animals having owned ponies and rabbits when she was young and then, at the age of 22, she got her first dog, Jake the Staffy and then Leo and Sweetpea the Lurchers. We are now “owned” by our rescued Greyhound “Cielo” and we also have 2 rescued Ferrets (yes, we know, proper Lancashire!)

Pete spent 20 years working in the Education Sector, having worked 15 years with Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council managing capital investment in school and education buildings. Then a further 5 years with a local Academy Trust carrying out a similar role. His skills were put to great use when we built the extension to our property, enabling us to ensure that our facilities were designed specifically around the needs of our four-legged customers.

We decided that the time was right for Pete to join the business in March 2020, yes that’s right, just before the emergence of Covid19, which meant that just weeks after finishing his job we had to close the business and cancel any bookings we had.

Thankfully, we were able to adapt our services to ensure that we could keep the company afloat during the numerous lockdowns we have suffered and we know we are fortunate to come out the other side relatively unscathed.

Until Pete met Maria he had never had dogs in his life, although he has always loved animals and had been a keen bird watcher from a very early age. That very quickly changed when he moved in with Maria, Leo and Sweetpea. Since then he has worked hard to gain qualifications and the experience needed to ensure that our client dogs are cared for to the highest standard.

Towards the end of 2021 we decided that the time was right to niche down our business to sighthounds only and we transformed Your Fairy Dogmother into The Sighthound Savoy.

We do still host a very small, very exclusive number of none sighthound that have been customers of ours for years. These are all extremley well socialised dogs who are used to being around sighthounds.