05 Jan Where it all started….
Ever since I was a kid I have been fascinated with dogs. Everything about them became completely captivating to me, and all I ever wanted to spend my time doing was just hanging out with them. We got our first dog when I was just a year old, a spunky Jack Russell Terrier named Moe. Here is a photo of us taking a nap together, something my parents have many photos of. Moments like these remind me that dogs are not just my passion, they’re my calling, I’ve had a natural ability to communicate with them and coexist with them – I hate using this word – almost LITERALLY since birth. One memory I can recall happened when we moved to Nebraska and were touring homes to buy. One home had a dog penned up in a kennel in the basement, my brother walked up to the kennel to say hi to the dog and it growled at him, 6 year old me wasn’t fazed by this, as my brother backed away I walked up to the same dog, stuck my hand up to the chain link to let him sniff, he wagged his tail at me then licked my hand…that is my relationship with dogs in a nut shell, it’s always been “different”.
In 3rd grade I got the “Encyclopedia of Dogs” from Barnes & Noble, and I brought it to school with me every single day. I learned all about the hundreds of breeds out there and characteristics that make them unique. As an 8-year-old I’m sure my brain was just bursting at the seams, but I kept reading it over and over, constantly learning.
FUN FACT! IN 3RD GRADE I ALSO MADE A BET WITH MY MOM AT MY BROTHER'S BASKETBALL GAME. IF HIS TEAM WON THEN WE COULD GO TO THE HUMANE SOCIETY AND JUST "LOOK AROUND” AT THE DOGS THERE.
IT'S NO SURPRISE THAT WE ALL FELL IN LOVE WITH A LITTER OF HUSKY/BORDER COLLIE PUPPIES & THAT’S HOW WE ENDED UP WITH OUR SECOND DOG BLU. (PICTURED ON THE RIGHT)
Everyone that knows me knows my extreme love for dogs, I even became a young entrepreneur using this love and became the go to dog sitter for friends & neighbors. Getting paid to play with the thing I love most? HELL YEA! I walked them, trained them, fed them, cared for them, the whole 9 yards. It was at this age that I decided one day I wanted to be a veterinarian, I wanted to help as many dogs and animals as I could when I got older. Little did I know, my interest in being a vet would eventually fade away as I grew up, I learned about the real ins & outs of the vet industry, the sad details kids don’t know about when they’re so young, mainly the idea of having to euthanize animals often. I couldn’t do it, the thought of having to do that on almost a daily basis made me want to cry, so I decided to go to college for something else. (Luckily I got to take Blu with me)
Fast forward 5 ½ years, I now have a Bachelor’s Degree in fashion merchandising and an MBA from Oklahoma State University. I’m working at my first “real job” for a major company (hint: they own the blue box of mac n cheese you probably have in your pantry). It was an incredible opportunity for someone fresh out of college and the money was good, but I was so unhappy. Blu passed away about 1 week after I started working there, which was now the first time in my life that I wasn’t a dog owner, the hardest thing I’ve had to deal with. I was selling a product that I wasn’t the slightest bit passionate about, I felt like I wasn’t fulfilling my purpose in life and I was living alone in Arkansas, in a long distance relationship no less – it sucked. Unfortunately, I was stuck in this position for a little over 2 years, when I realized I hated this job I started looking for a new one, but it took me over a year to find one. The only upside to being stuck in that situation is I ended up adopting my Dutch Shepherd Roman during that time (future story time on that because it’s a good one!)
Once I found a new job I was thrilled to be back in Oklahoma, in a town where I actually had friends and my boyfriend. Things were looking up! Until about 1 year later when the same cycle happened with my job – I liked it initially, I soon grew bored, slowly started to hate it, then realized I still wasn’t fulfilling my purpose in life. I was lost. I started yet another hunt for a new job when I asked myself “what are you doing? No matter what job you find you’re not going to be happy, you’re just wasting your time.” I was right, I was tired of working for someone else, tired of making their dreams come true while sacrificing my own time and putting mine to the side. I knew I wanted to work for myself.
I juggled so many ideas for a new career that it felt like I was living on a Plinko board. I genuinely tried a lot of those ideas for a while
- Run an Etsy store selling my art – art became less fun when it was something I HAD to do (and is very time consuming)
- Become a real estate agent – failed the exam
- Become a real estate investor – too afraid to lose that much money
- Start a blog – have too many hobbies and couldn’t decide on a specific niche
- Start investing in stock market – felt like I was reading another language I didn’t understand
The list goes on.
The problem was I kept thinking of ideas that had nothing to do with my #1 passion – dogs. To be honest, I think I was afraid of starting a business in the dog industry because I was afraid of failing, and if I failed with dogs then I ultimately failed at my true calling.
Then one day I said “SCREW IT! What do I have to lose?” I knew I had to work with dogs in order to be truly happy, but being a vet was out of the question. I had been training dogs for almost my entire life and I just KNEW I would be able to help so many people that were struggling, so becoming a dog trainer was the answer. I don’t know why it took me so long to come to this realization, but in 2020 I decided to give it a shot and in September of that year I got my first paid client! For $20 a lesson I definitely lost money on the whole gig, but I didn’t care, someone actually paid ME to help them train their dog, not just pet sit! This is where the spark came from, so I started finding more clients.
I was working a full time job + training in the evenings and on the weekends, putting in some seriously long work hours between the two. I wasn’t expecting to grow so fast but the clients just kept coming, I thought it was a dream that was too good to be true. In less than one year of working with that first client I was able to quit my full time job and start training dogs full time – HOW INSANE!!!! I thought moving to Oklahoma for college was the scariest thing I had ever done, but quitting my cushy job definitely takes the cake on that now.
So here’s little ol’ me, still working my butt of in Tulsa Oklahoma training dogs for a living, never in my wildest dreams did I think this could be a career that was even possible let alone that I could make a decent living from it. God gave me an indescribable passion for dogs, and that passion hasn’t slowed down a bit for my entire existence. From 3 years old to 28 years old today, every time I see a dog I say “a puppy!”, every single time. Although my career path is different than what I thought it would be at age 6, my mission is still the same. Save as many dogs as I possibly can.
I hope to share more about that mission in many blog posts to come.
“Making dogs great in the 918”
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