Advice: Former Client Texts Regularly for Small Hourly Stays with No Notice, What Should I Do?

Hi All,

Wondering if you might have any advice for me. We keep our hourly rate low so that we can attract longer term boarding requests, which is the bulk of our business easily and we fill up our calendar with them pretty regularly. I had a client who we had a very nice experience with and we loved her dog while he stayed with us for a week. Now she texts me (very) regularly asking if she can drop him off for a few hours here and there while she runs out of the house. With very little notice we almost always have to say no because we either have another dog (we only take one at a time plus our own) or various other scheduling conflicts with our own work and school. I don't want to lose her as a client because we really liked her and her dog but these short hourly stays are not really the focus of our business, even with some notice given. With our nightly rate so low I'm not even sure how I could prorate it any lower for it to still be worth it, plus it blocks off the whole day for another potential client who would need that day included in a longer term boarding period, so it makes me hesitant to commit to her request either way.

I have also suggested making an exception for her and having more than one dog at a time since hers was so well behaved and easy, but she won't agree unless she can do a meet and greet with the other dog before hand as well, which isn't always doable. If anything this experience has taught me that I need to be more upfront with future clients that we really are focusing on being a dog boarding service, and not necessarily a go-to every day spur of the moment sitter. But I don't know the right way to approach this with her without it sounding like we don't want to work with her, because we do!

Advice? Thoughts? Thank you! :)