Thank you for your replies .
Laura, unfortunately I'm in South east London but I hope you find someone to mind Tess soon.
Ruthi, I hadn't thought of a franchise before, and its certainly something to consider although ideally I would like to start out on my own as my first choice. Strangely enough I think marketing would be the easiest thing for me as I'm known as the dog lady in my area already and I'm not looking to take a lot of dogs on.
I'm already CRB checked for my current job (although I will need to renew this shortly) so thats fine. The main thing I am worrying about is insurance, ie. whos the best, how much is it per year etc and also how to pay tax - would I need to set up a limited company or is there another way (fingers crossed) around this. I guess after that it would be calculating whether I would be able to cover my costs and still make some money to pay my bills