ABOUT 1st Rate Services:

  We are One company with many services. Pet Services, Cleaning Services, & Essential Oils. We do what we can to keep you, your pets &  the environment healthy!

  1st Rate Services is a full time service business, we are not a pet sitter or a person cleaning someones house to making extra money, this is a serious business and treated as such. 1st Rate Services is the only eco friendly pet service that offers Dog Poop Pickup, Complete Kitty Litter Cleaning, Pet Sitting, Dog Walking, Pet Taxi, & Septic System Installation and much more. Our Cleaning Services are based off of earth, pet, & human friendly products.

  We strive to make our company & our lives 100% eco friendly, right now we are not 100% because we still need to install solar panels and get away from the energy company and we are working on our garden for producing our own food.  We may never be 100% but we do everything we can to keep Florida as beautiful as possible. As our slogan states "Keeping you, your pets, & the environment healthy!", we are dedicated to that purpose and that is why we recycle as much as we can including the pet waste we collect (see the video).  One of our best services is our Complete Kitty litter cleaning services where we pickup, empty, sanitize, and refill your cat box without leaving your yard or entering your house.  We supply 100% compost-able pine cat litter, so you'll never even have to purchase Kitty Litter again!  When we do a pet sitting service, a pooper scooper service is included, providing the yard was cleaned prior to the pet sitting service and instructions on how you would like the waste disposed of.

  As a company that likes to be transparent and honest to the clients we serve, you can find anything and everything about us by looking around our website. Two key areas that are over looked are our Policies and our Philosophy pages  

Photo by Alan Youngblood/Star-Banner

Read the article from the 4th of July that the Ocala Star-Banner wrote about our new business in Florida:

  When you are on vacation, you don't want to have to worry about your pet, and that is where our pet sitting services come in. It is much less stressful for the pet to be left at home than to be taken to a kennel, and we will set up a custom schedule with you that will assure that your pets are getting the attention and love they need and deserve while you are away.

  1st Rate Pet Services is a full time pet service company we are not just a pet sitter or someone trying to make some extra money. We are dedicated to providing the best services possible and building a great reputation and growing into a larger company that can support a team of hard working employees with the same goal set for providing services that help our clients, thier pets, & the environment stay healthy for generations to come

Don Richardson
Partnership owner of 1st Rate Pet Services with Julie Spaur

  Hello everyone on two legs & four legs and everyone in between. I am one of the founders of 1st Rate Pet Services, website developer/maintainer, and blog post writer for the company. My bio is way to long so I will write the short version of why I helped start the company in the middle of Florida. I moved to Ocala Florida in March of 2012 & a few weeks later Julie joined me. We came from Des Moines, Iowa (where I was born & raised) and have not looked back, not really worth it to tell the truth.

  Well, anyway, back to the story. When Julie came down here, I mentioned that we should finally do what we love to do and that was taking care of animals. I let her know that I have been researching and learning what it takes to run a successful pet sitting service and I had everything to do it put together 2 years ago when I was looking into starting a pet business. But I decided with all my prior experience that I will take it a step further and start a company that offers every service possible for pets, well, every service we have the ability to do at this time anyway which is pretty much all but training, grooming, boarding, & veterinary services. These services are planned for our future expansion when we can build a facility on our property

Certifications:
Pet First Aid & CPR Certified through 

Julie Spaur
Partnership owner of 1st Rate Pet Services with Don Richardson

  I am the co founder of 1st Rate Services LLC and am thrilled to be able to say that this is the life I dreamed of but never thought I'd be able to live. Until a few years ago, my plan for the future was to stay at my job in Iowa until I could retire and then we'd move to Florida. Plans began to change after my son graduated from high school and suddenly the thought of continuing working in a cubicle and living in Iowa for the next 20 years was not appealing at all. I asked Don if he wanted to move to Florida, and much to my surprise, without blinking twice, he said “when do we leave?” 

   Within 3 months we'd put our plan to move here into motion. We got here in April 2012 and started 1st Rate Pet Services on May 1, 2012. Don has always been the entrepreneurial spirit of the two of us, which is one of the things I most admire about him. I've always loved all sorts of animals and dreamed of being able to work with them someday, so it was natural to choose this type of business. We make a great team and both love what we do! We have a lot of ideas for the business to be able to offer additional services in the future, such as grooming, training and boarding at our own facility. I love what I do every day and am very excited about the future of 1st Rate Pet Services.

Certifications:
Pet First Aid & CPR Certified through 

Kendra Duffy
Pet Services Specialist

   My name is Kendra. I started pet sitting when I was 16 and I've taken care of dozens of dogs, cats, birds, fish, chickens, donkeys and horses in the 13 years since. I started with 1st Rate in July of 2016 and I have gotten to meet so many wonderful animals and people. I'm thrilled to be working with other animal lovers who care so much about the comfort of the animals they take care of. 

   I have 4 cats and 2 cockatiels of my own and I've fostered a few animals, most recently a red nose pit puppy and a stray kitten. I have a particular soft spot for rescues and timid pets. I care for every animal as if it were my own.

Sherri Cruz
Pet Services Specialist

   Leaving behind a journalism career in California and fresh out of coding boot camp, I moved to Ocala to take care of my mom a couple of years ago. Now, I’m taking care of people’s loved ones - their pets! 

   I’ve been with 1st Rate Pet Services since July of 2016 and it’s been one of the most rewarding jobs I’ve had. Caring for people’s pets looks easy, but it’s challenging. Each pet is different and each has different needs. But they all need love! Dogs, cats, birds… they all need to know that someone will take good care of them, even if it’s just a walk around the block. 

   I share my home with my West Coast cat, Beezer, and my Floridian, Olly - we met at the Humane Society of Marion County.