TL;DR
Focus Answering Service will be at booth 105 at the 2026 Pet Boarding & Daycare Expo in Hershey, PA, during trade show hours on Thursday and Friday, November 5–6. Stop by to discuss your busiest call times and how a parallel safety net keeps your team with the pets instead of the phone. Can’t make it? Hear Focus’ own Barb Ireland on Episode 137 of the Pet Boarding & Daycare Podcast, or give us a call at 800-886-6696.
Focus Answering Service is heading back to Hershey, PA, for the 2026 Pet Boarding & Daycare Expo at the Hershey Lodge & Convention Center. If your days are a juggling act of reservations, staff schedules, and a phone that won’t stop ringing, this is one of the best weeks of the year to learn from your peers and compare notes. We’re looking forward to talking shop with the pros who keep the pet care industry running — and meeting a few of their four-legged clients, too.
About the Expo
Barkleigh Productions, the publisher of Pet Boarding & Daycare magazine, hosts this national conference for the professionals behind the nation’s best boarding facilities, daycares, and pet resorts. This year’s program includes more than 35 seminars and over 60 hours of education, with sessions beginning on Tuesday, November 3.
The trade show floor opens Thursday and Friday, November 5–6, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and more than 95 exhibitors will be on hand with tools, products, and services built for the industry.
Why We Keep Coming Back
Pet care is a business built on trust — and that trust begins on the very first call. A pet parent calling about a holiday boarding reservation wants a real person on the other end of the line. So does the one with a late-night question about how their pup is settling in.
The question we hear most from facility owners: who can field calls when the front desk is already on the phone or hands-deep in a playgroup? That’s where our team comes in. We work as a parallel safety net for your team, catching the next call during drop-off rushes, after hours, and holiday surges so your dedicated staff can stay with the pets in their care.
The expo also gives us something we value just as much: time with the people who do the work every day. We want to hear what keeps your phones ringing, where calls slip through the cracks, and what great customer service looks like in your world.
Stop By and Say Hello
We will be at booth 105 during trade show hours on Thursday and Friday. Come find us. We can’t wait to chat.
- Discuss your busiest call times and the places where coverage gaps tend to show up.
- Learn how we build a custom call-handling plan around your protocols, your booking process, and your pet parents.
- Meet the knowledgeable, experienced people behind Focus — a family-rooted answering service that has been answering phones for nearly 40 years, since 1987.
Hear More Before the Show
Don’t want to wait until November? Focus’ own Barb Ireland recently joined the Pet Boarding & Daycare Podcast for Episode 137 to talk about a challenge nearly every pet business knows all too well: the phone that rings while everyone’s hands are full.
Barb shared what a single missed call can really cost over the lifetime of a client, and explained why being a natural with dogs doesn’t always translate to being a natural on the phone. That’s the work we put in before the first call — learning your values and processes well enough that callers feel like they’ve reached your own front desk.
Before You Head to Hershey
- Decide who’s answering while you’re away. If you and your front desk lead are both at the expo, plan your call coverage before you leave, not after the first missed booking.
- Look at your missed calls first. Check when calls went unanswered over the past few weeks. Real numbers make conversations on the trade show floor far more productive.
- Ask your front desk what they’d fix. They know which calls get stuck, which questions come up most, and where pet parents get frustrated.
- Bring home one change to how you handle calls. A new greeting, a better after-hours plan, or an overflow backup can pay off right away.
We hope to see you there. And if you can’t make the expo this year, we’d still love to talk. Visit us online to learn how Focus supports pet boarding and daycare businesses, or give us a call at 800-886-6696.