Thanks to TIVO I was able to watch Oprah Winfrey’s segment on puppy mills over the weekend. It was a combination piece on puppy mills, overpopulated shelters and euthanasia, and spay and neutering programs. Oprah herself vowed “to never buy a dog again,” and was visibly moved by the footage that was shown. Her crack reporter, Lisa Ling, went around to several Pennsylvania puppy mills to expose the horrible treatment and cruelty shown towards these dogs - many of whom have never walked on solid ground.

The puppy mills were bad enough, but the waterworks really started flowing during their segment on euthanization. A sweet looking hound mix was taken to be euthanized - and he wagged his tail the whole way! This was not a sick or injured animal, nor was he aggressive or “unadoptable,” just unwanted. What a tragedy - and all too common - 4 million dogs are euthanized every year waiting to be adopted.

To end on a more positive note, I would like to draw your attention to a few of our favorite guys and gals. Most Dogtopia locations foster dogs at no cost to rescue groups - here are a few that are currently in our care:

Tomi & Trudy at Dogtopia of Houston, TX -

Sarge at Dogtopia of White Flint, MD (HQ)

Please consider adopting your next best friend! One of the best websites for pet adoption is Petfinder. They can help you find virtually any breed (or combination!) all across the United States.

Have you run out in traffic after her? Have you spent thousands on surgery when he ate your sock?

Me? I started a company! Dogtopia was created because I felt guilty leaving my dog, Griffin, home by himself all day. I would get home exhausted from another 12 hour day, and he would be ready to play. When I would have to board him, I would get the cold shoulder for days after bringing him home. What was a guilty Dog Mom to do? Open a business where he could play all day instead of be alone!

How ironic then that a few months after we opened Griffin was “dismissed.” Turns out he is not the best daycare dog - he would get in all the other dogs faces and annoy them. He thought it was his own private daycare and wanted the other dogs to know it! He quickly became an “office dog,” but at least he got to come to work with me.

So how about you? I want to hear what you have done for your dog - the crazier the better! (next week - craziest thing you have bought for your dog…)

I feel the need to vent here a little bit as I have noticed a disturbing trend.  People “returning” their dog because he or she is “not what they expected” and then going and either buying or adopting another.  (younger, smaller, cuter, who knows…)

We happily foster dogs at several Dogtopia locations and because the dogs are in daycare all day and have a pretty good life, it seems as though that makes it easier for people to return them when the dog is either (fill in the blank - bigger, louder, more challenging…)  than anticipated.  So frustrating! Now I know this is nothing new, and shelters and rescue groups have been dealing with this for years, but the other day I had to come back to my office to cool-off after I witnessed someone “returning” her dog to us because she was “a lot of work and not completely potty trained.” Mind you, we are not a shelter, but because we foster dogs here, this person thought they would simply bring the dog back to us and that would be the end of it. I wanted to give them a piece of my mind and make them feel bad, but I just smiled and said we would call Oldies But Goodies Rescue and speak with them about it. Good news for this particular cutie, she found a great new home only a few weeks later.

God bless all of you who manage and volunteer with animal rescues and shelters - I could not do what you do. I am just too judgmental and would not let them off so easy!  (I will add, however, that we have successfully kept many behaviorally challenged dogs in their homes due to them getting exercise and socialization at Dogtopia).  Bottom line, dogs are a commitment and should be permanent members of our families - not something that can be returned when it becomes inconvenient.

Busy, that’s where. We are growing like weeds over here at Dogtopia and having a blast doing it! We now have Dogtopia franchisees in 14 states! As excited as we are to have that many, we are even more excited that five of our locations are about to open in the next two months - Manassas, VA, San Marcos, CA, Dulles, VA, Danvers, MA, and Waco, TX! Quite a diverse offering isn’t it?

Each of our dog daycare centers range in size, but of the ones that are about to open, the average size is about 7,000 square feet. Our franchisees are diverse as well, most are husband and wife teams, but of the above three are single women. You go girls!

I just got back last week from the International Franchise Association Conference and it was a great experience. This year over 3,000 people attended the event in Orlando, FL. Colin Powell was the keynote speaker and he was fantastic - very motivating and encouraging. The annual conference is an amazing educational opportunity and not only do I always come home “smarter” than before, I also come back with many new friends!

At the Leadership Conference prior to the IFA sessions we had the pleasure of sitting with a fellow DC area franchisor - Virginia Barbeque founder Rick Ivey. Turns out us “youngins” in the franchise world experience a lot of the same challenges regardless of the type of business!

I have been back over a week now and I am still processing everything I learned - more to come!

So part of the reason I started to blog was to help move Dogtopia forward in the web 2.0 revolution. I have many ideas for how I would like to further develop our site, and along with our very popular webcams, I have created this blog. We also plan to add a customer interface where clients can IM us with questions about our services or the franchise. I would be happy to entertain other ideas, so please leave a comment if you have any.

Another avenue we have taken is to post video not only on our site, but also on youtube. We have had a good time with this, so I thought I would share the links to some of our best “material.”

Kitty & Kennedy’s Day At Daycare

Ranger the Macaw in “Everybody Wants To Be A Dog.”

“Happy” the (dancing) Dogtopia mascot

Dogtopia Sing-Along (very funny)

Pug & Pointer Chasing Contest

K9 Support on the CBS Early Show (more on K9 Support to come - Christmas care packages go out this week!)

Doggy Birthday Party with FOX 5 DC (Yes, that is me, and yes, I did in fact bake that dog birthday cake!)

Pool Time at Dogtopia (it may be cold out now, but the dogs had a blast back in August!)

I hope you enjoy them!

Peace.

I love sports. I truly do. I have been trying to not love them quite as much as my husband, but you can only spend so much time around his enthusiasm for football (and soccer, and baseball, and hockey…) without getting hooked.

While I am not a fan of the brutality that is often involved with football, I really like the strategy. I found myself explaining some of it to our three year old last Sunday. “The Quarterback makes most of the decisions on the field so they need to be very smart and focused (and have a great arm natch). The Wide Receiver needs to be very fast to catch the ball that the Quarterback throws, and the defense men are usually really big, strong guys to keep the receivers from getting the ball.” My son decided that he would like to be the Quarterback, because he likes to “be in charge.” Anyone who has had a three year old knows that to be fairly common.

So how does this relate to business, and more particularly, my business? Well, I have a great team. Like a football team, we each have our own roles and specialties, but we also play as a unit. Win or lose, we are all in it together. That is what I truly enjoyed about playing on a sports team. Whether it was field hockey, soccer or softball, we each had our “position” but we all had to work together to win.

I am very proud of my Management Team here at Dogtopia. Not only are we all passionate about dogs, but we are passionate about business - growing ours and our franchisees’. We are holding a Discovery Day here today, and although they require quite a bit of preparation and planning, they always leave us more pumped-up and excited than ever to get back to work and grow this company!

Cheers!

When I first opened Dogtopia, there were many times that I was tempted to compare dogs to children. In many ways they are similar, and Labrador Retrievers in particular have often been called “permanent two year olds.” But, I didn’t have any children at the time, so I kept my thoughts to myself.

I am now the proud Mom of two boys - one is almost four and the other is seven months. I have earned the right to make these comparisons and let me tell you - dogs and children are similar in more ways than I even imagined. Here are a couple of the similarities that I have found:

1. Consistency. If you want your children or your dogs to behave appropriately you have to be consistent. The one time I allowed my three year old to go out on the deck in his pajamas still haunts me as it is no longer a “decree,” but another rule that Mommy and Daddy made, but “I could probably get away with if I whine about it.” The same goes for dogs - if you let him sleep on the bed with you when your husband is out of town, he will remind you of it repeatedly by crying when he has to sleep on his bed by himself! These examples make light of it, but I often have to counsel dog owners on this when they are having behavioral issues at home. Potty training is common issue. “Do you let him out at the same time everyday? Are the times less than six hours apart if an adult dog?” (Quick tip - puppies can “hold it” for one hour for every month they are old - 4 months old, they can hold it 4 hours) We also train our daycare staff on this. If a dog is displaying an inappropriate behavior such as barking repeatedly at another dog, it needs to be corrected every time. If it isn’t corrected every single time the dog doesn’t see it as a definitive rule, more a “suggestion.” Again, kids are the exact same way - see pajamas above.

2. Colds & Flu

Kids pick up the darndest things! We have been passing around the same cold in my house since October. They both go to a wonderful daycare, but we accept the fact that there is a good chance that one of them (our seven month old in particular) will pick-up some kind of virus.

At Dogtopia, it is a similar scenario. The large majority of the dogs here are very healthy, but occassionally a dog will visit for daycare or boarding and bring with him some extra “baggage.” The baggage being a virus of some sort. Just as children should receive the flu shot, the same goes for dogs and the Bordatella vaccine. In both cases the vaccination contains a very small dose of the actual virus. The body’s immune system then builds-up an immunity to it, and they are likely to have a better recovery rate should they become exposed to that particular virus. Also like the flu shot, Bordatella only vaccinates for the most common strain that year - there can be over 30 strains at any given time out among the dog population.

One final comparison - just as with children, there is no real treatment for a “cold.” A cold can be called a number of things when applied to a dog - canine cough, kennel cough, etc. They all mean the same thing - the dog has a cold. The best medicine is rest and plenty of fluids. Doctors and veterinarians often do not recommend antibiotics as antibiotics are completely ineffective when it comes to treating viruses. Antibiotics only help if it is a bacterial infection. Overuse of antibiotics also leads to immunity being built-up and will therefore be less effective when they are really needed. (I will discuss Canine Influenza in an upcoming post)

3. Joy

Children bring joy to our lives. It has been stated that children laugh 40 times more than adults in any given day. I can say that both my boys are natural comedians and I have found new humor in seemingly mundane household events. Dinnertime can be quite a hoot at our house!

Dogs are the embodiment of joy. Everything from grasshoppers to taking a walk down the street represents a new adventure and a new reason to be happy. I have said many times that “you can’t take anything too seriously when you get to see puppies everyday.” When I have lost my way, I visit the playrooms and I come right back to why I opened this business in the first place.

Happy Holidays everyone - here is hoping you have an abundance of joy in your home this holiday season!

We had a great time on Halloween at Dogtopia! Not only did we get great entries to this year’s costume contest, but we gave out treats to some very happy customers!

My personal favorite in the costume contest: Barry as “Mary Kate Olsen.” Too funny!

A short flight later, and we are now in Los Angeles! The West Coast Franchise Show is held at the LA Convention Center. It is downtown LA, and we are staying nearby at the Wilshire Grand. The whole gang from the Findley Group is here with us to handle sales, and we are to here “represent.” (that is what Alex and I say anyway…)

The convention center is huge, and the Franchise Show is taking-up a large hall on the east side. Some very interesting franchise concepts here, and there seems to be a battle for who can have the most scantily clad women in their booth… so far the tanning companies are winning… There are over 100 concepts here, and the Findley Group has 4, including us. Justix, a new concept to the Findley Group is next to us, and FaceLogic and Nannie Poppins are also here. The whole crew is fun and keeping things light - a must with these long hours!

We met some great Dogtopia potentials, and caught-up with our many friends in franchising. Overall, a great trip - next stop, Miami, for Franchise Expo South in January!

Alex, our Marketing Manager, and I ventured to Sacramento, CA for the ABKA Convention and Pet Services Expo! We were vendors at the Expo and spoke to a lot of people about Dogtopia and what it means to be a franchisee.

I have wanted to travel to this event in the past, but we never had the time - so glad we did! We met a lot of great people and even saw some familiar faces from Virginia! We were finally able to put a face to the name of several companies we work with: Blake from Online Doggy, Kevin from Kennel Connection, and visit with an old friend, Robin Bennett from All About Dogs.

Tomorrow we head down to Los Angeles for the West Coast Franchise Show - more to come…