Marketing by Walking Around

by WAYNE CAVANAUGH

When age caught up with the last of our show dogs, my wife Cheryl and I entered new territory. We knew our lifetime of loading and unloading crates was behind us but we couldn’t imagine life without dogs. It was time to move on, time to enter the world of “just pets.”

It took a while, but we ended up with a wonderful, unlikely pair of hounds: Killian, a handsome Irish wolfhound with a bite designed by Picasso after chugging a Vin Mariani; and Hazel, a bright and engaging beagle with a kinked tail. It happens. Cheryl and Hazel bonded immediately and the big man, Killian, quickly became my shadow. The “just pets” journey was about to begin.

Killian and Hazel dragged us kicking and screaming into a world where dogs are expected to sit for a cookie instead of NOT sit for a cookie. During these occasionally embarrassing trials and tribulations, we learned a lot. Over time, the learning became larger than the everyday. We found a new respect for people letting dogs be dogs. We also gained unexpected insights into the public’s perception of dogs and the profound challenges AKC faces in attempting to market purebred dogs in today’s world.

Like most of us with a lifetime in the sport, I saw the world of dogs through the lens of purebreds and dog shows. Admittedly, especially while working in AKC’s New York offices, I viewed the pet world the way East Coast and West Coast natives are portrayed to see the Midwest: they know it’s there, it just seems far away, a bit insignificant, and smaller than it actually is. Living in the Midwest for twenty years now, my coastal perceptions have sure changed. Let’s just say the view of the dog world from the middle of a dog park in Michigan is nothing like the view from a Best in Show ring in NYC. Total immersion in the pet world provided us a peak behind the wizard’s curtain that you cannot experience from a board room in NYC.

Short URL: https://caninechronicle.com/?p=156366

Posted by Alex on Aug 16 2020. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.