The Story of Wagtown: Leading the Way in Creating Dog-Friendly Communities

Join us as we dive deep into the world of dog-friendly communities with Beth Miller, the founder of Wagtown Consulting. Discover how Wagtown is transforming neighborhoods and workplaces by promoting dog-friendly initiatives that benefit residents and their dogs.

Episode Highlights: Beth shares her journey and mission to create dog-friendly communities, discussing the benefits these initiatives bring to residents and pets, the importance of assessing community needs, and strategies for engaging leaders to ensure lasting change. Beth also provides guidance and resources for those eager to create dog-centric environments.

Takeaways:
- Creating dog-friendly communities has many benefits for residents and their pets.
- Collaboration and buy-in from community leaders are essential for creating lasting change.
- Assessing community needs and developing initiatives that promote dog friendliness is crucial.
- Wagtown provides guidance and resources to individuals and communities interested in creating dog-centric environments.

Don't miss this enlightening episode as Beth Miller shares her expertise and passion for building dog-friendly communities. Listen now and be part of the dog-friendly revolution!

To learn more about how Wagtown can help you create a more dog-centric community, visit their website at www.wagtown.org or contact Beth directly at Beth@Wagtown.org

 Big changes are coming soon to Starlight Pet Talk! 🚀 We’re excited to share that we're evolving to bring you even more engaging content and fresh perspectives. Stay tuned for new features and exciting updates that will enhance your listening experience. We can’t wait to reveal what’s next—keep an eye out for more details! 

Transcript

Amy Castro (00:17.186)
listening to Starlight Pet Talk, a podcast for pet parents who want the best pet care advice from cat experts, dog trainers, veterinarians, and other top pet professionals who will help you live your very best life with your pets.

Amy Castro (00:35.448)
Well, Beth, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show. thank you, Amy. This is going to be so much fun. So Beth, you know, the concept of Wagtown is pretty new to me. And so I'm just curious if you could share with us a little bit about your background and how you kind of came to start Wagtown. Thank you for asking this. I love to talk about where this all came from. My background is actually in advertising. I used to own an ad agency and I love marketing strategy.

And one of the things that I loved to lean into was culture shift with big concepts like water quality and reforestation, alternative transportation, and the ability to create shifts through persuasive marketing communications and connecting people in a network way where you have critical mass to start making changes in a way that you reach up to influencers and public policy makers so that dog friendliness as it evolves in businesses or through organizations,

or through communities, they begin to then recognize that, if we invested in, dog friendliness for our workforce, we would be able to more easily attract and retain better workforce, have better productivity, reduce the healthcare costs for that organization, increase the number of projects that you're allowed to take on with innovation because you're bringing in a whole new mindset of people. And that's just one company with one set of benefits.

Then you take that out and you say, well, what if that also affected a baseline understanding? So we created curriculum that was K through four. It's available free anywhere in the world. And it's a five week lesson plan with extension activities because we wanted to be able to take a message about breed discrimination for, for instance, and have that conversation, which can be uncomfortable.

start in the classroom with young learners and then move its way over to the family room. So classroom to family room, it gets you three generations if you have that multi -generational household. So when you start to put things into place like education, then you start to see that ripple effect, right? So if you plop a poodle into a town, it's not just those kids or that family or that person or that couple or whatever that is benefiting from that. Now you start to see this social glue start to happen, which

Amy Castro (02:56.083)
explodes out into sense of community, sense of belonging, increased health, people getting out and active, being outdoors and having the benefits of those things. And that's, like I said, that's just a little sliver, right? So when you start to take a look at those, was like, man, there are benefits all over the place here, but nobody's really looking at what if we pulled those pieces together and created an initiative where people wanted to say,

Let's take this from being a cute thing that we could put in a brochure to something that really defines where we're going economically. Are we able to attract and retain people who are transferring or relocating or expanding their headquarters? How can we have relationships with first responders? How can we create a more robust way of supporting humane organizations with more volunteerism, more transparency and creating

a resource driven community instead of one that reacts to issues that we have in the communities. And then you'll start to see that uptick in how do we create revenue streams? When it becomes a situation where money is coming in, that's where things change, right? Like we all wanted to be green, but there's a book called Green to Gold, and that's all about we will become green when we make it into gold, right? So now we're starting to see this pet industry boom happening

bigger and bigger. And what they're starting to see now is when you witness this slight decrease in the number of households that have pets, now all of a sudden there's a big impact for the marketplace, for new products to be developed, for new services to be available. So if you don't live in an area where you have access to different kinds of emergent care or veterinary care, if you don't have access to off -leash areas that are

that are built in a smart way instead of just whatever we have left over with no training, no understanding of what the infrastructure should be, the operations should be. There's just so much thinking of how hard can it be? Right? It's dogs. Let's let them come to the patio. Right. But it's, it's so big. And so you start to see individual businesses that will take things on that are really moving the needle.

Amy Castro (05:16.151)
taking on the Bonvoy suites of all those hotels like Marriott and things, that requires somebody bigger than me. Beth Miller can't topple the Marriott Corporation groups, right? But you could take the Mars Corporation's Better Cities for Pets. They have a collaboration with the US Conference of Mayors and they have a grant that we want in one of those for our children's book. And what that does is it allows them to go after the airline industry, right? Insurance industry.

And now what we're looking at is how can we take proof of concept built on someone, me, who has more research, face -to -face interviews with more than 800 people all over the world, talking about this culture shift that could happen and how it benefits every category of the dog's lives and the communities that we build that allow us to bring in all of those benefits and become more powerful from an economic development.

grant possibilities and eligibility for funding coming in. How does that affect your travel and tourism, your hospitality census? So many ways to do that. And as you can see with me, like, I can't talk about it enough. There's just so much excitement about it. And it's got this uptick of what I call the dogification of our communities. And when that becomes to this crescendo, that's when you start to see opportunity, money.

health increases and all of those things that allow us to get a bigger megaphone to make those bigger changes. Hmm. Yeah. You know, and as, as you're talking about this, I'm thinking about the fact that this is not, you know, when you say the dogification of, a community, it, know, it's not a kind of one and done thing. What you're describing to me is something that is going to be, whether it's in phases or how it happens. I'm not sure,

it's going to take years for this to kind of work its way into a community and kind of fan out. Or am I just reading that completely wrong? No, no, you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. One of the interesting things that I saw was one of the first off leash areas, dog parks that I saw was Lake George RV Park. It's a private RV park that's been one of the top places to visit in that category for decades. So I went to see their park and it

Amy Castro (07:37.325)
Unbelievable. One of my favorite off -leash area experiences and it's in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York. It's just beautiful. And that's just a very specific information set that gives services and facility to a specific group of users. Then you go over to the West coast and there's another place over there called Marymoor and Marymoor dog park is I think 42 acres along a slow moving stream with paddle borders going through and they have what's called

put ins, is like what you'd take your kayak into the river with, and take your dogs in. So there are five different areas. It's all natural. There's no built environment. There's a little bit of fencing, but not a whole lot. It's part of a bigger outdoor experience and there is nothing built about it. There's no PVC pipe play area. It's all just things that are built naturally and using the natural heritage of that area. If you would take that experience, which is very,

Pacific Northwest, right? It's very natural, very respectful of the watershed, water quality and the lifestyle that's lived there. That experience would not fly at the other location. And the other location, which also includes things like canine grass and built environment from, you know, pieces of equipment like Playcore, you put that in the Pacific Northwest and they're like, I don't think so. know, do the whole, you know, faux product thing. And so that's where it became clear to me

What you do in one community, you can provide off leash experiences for that, what they call the fifth freedom. The ability for dogs to express themselves as dogs. But you need it to be in a place where the humans feel comfortable, where they feel like there's been place making as far as bathrooms, access to water. One of those is specific to the users for private facility. And the other one is very for the general public.

Both of them have prioritization for funding and sustainable practices to make sure that they maintain an enriching experience. So how does that all work logistically? I see WagTown and the goals that you're trying to accomplish, the research that you've done, the examples that you've given of where little pockets of these things are happening. But is it a situation where, you know, Amy Castro is a leader in her town of Alvin, Texas, and she decides

Amy Castro (10:00.961)
we are going to turn this into a dog -centric town. Because like you mentioned, dog -friendly, it's gonna have different definitions. look at the town holistically and to change the culture. Am I reaching out to WagTown and basically you're giving me tools, information, resources, like how does that work? Or is it not individuals, is it mayors that are coming to you or city councils that are saying, hey,

You know, our people are, you know, are demanding that we're more dog friendly. How can you help us turn into a dog centered community? I'm trying to understand how, how that logistically could play out for an individual community. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great way to look at it because it is very similar to the way that I used to work with my clients in the ad agency land. If I'm going to work with you on a different project and a particular niche, then I need to understand how you tick like who's in charge, who's making the decision.

What's happening in your community? Where is their product market fit for things that might work? But there needs to be some kind of buy -in at the top level. Most of the time, those people at the top level don't have a veterinary background. They don't have a behaviorist background. They don't have a retail background in many cases. So it needs to be this collaborative project. So what we do is we work with people to come in, evaluate things. You need to assess where you are. We can help people score out, know, here's where you stand.

This is where you're not so great. These are areas where this is exemplary and we could take this to use it as a proof of concept that this is possible in your community. But I also want to know what are the people like there? What do they value? You know, we're in Dayton, Ohio, so there's a huge history because the Wright brothers are here. That, you know, that's something that lot of people incorporate into that. So history is a big part of that. We had a huge flood here. So a lot of our messaging in this community is about water and water quality

outdoor recreation, but it's in a very different way than you would talk about outdoor recreation and say Chattanooga or Boulder or places like that. And so instead of saying we should be nature driven, it's like, what does nature driven look like to your community? Okay. So what does dog friendly look like to you? Do you have a really robust situation for your educational resources? Do you need help with that? If you have resources and teachers who are looking

Amy Castro (12:25.216)
new curriculum, new ways of teaching, and you maybe have some situations where there have been some dog safety issues that kids maybe don't understand how to behave around dogs, not necessarily just from a safety perspective, but what does it mean to be a better human being when it comes to animals? You need to cherry pick what would have the biggest impact, where you might have things that are already quote, in the box instead of just already going for outside the box. I guarantee you that every town

has a set of resources that they can employ to get this thing started. So for us, it's a lot of doing a little bit of research, communicating and interviewing people with the different teams of people who would want to be a part of that initiative, and then putting together an ad hoc committee to do a little research, public output, public input, and really getting a feel for what's gonna be the win here. What can we measure? What will bring in revenue? What will make this sustainable?

And it's going to be different for every community. You know, who are the users? Who are the, who are the people of impact? Where do we have some really big issues? One of the things that people are looking at is legislatively, right? Dogs on patios. Surprisingly, there are states in the, communities that don't allow that. In the state of Ohio, it used to be illegal to have your dog on a patio at a bar. So when you disallow the dogs on patios.

You're taking away the progress toward responsible dog ownership because people don't get to practice being responsible with their dogs at a patio. But you're also robbing fundraising for humane organizations to place to save to back down on euthanasia and whatever. And you're taking away a big revenue stream option for the businesses. So it's much bigger than just cute dogs on patios. But until people realize that it's much bigger than that, we're not going to get there.

Right. Yeah. mean, because everybody's coming from a different place, motivation wise, and it might be this one initiative and it's got a different, there's a different draw or a different buy -in level from different people, depending upon who they are, what their role is in that, in that process. You know, we're outside of Houston and in certain communities, it's going to be more of an issue like, you know, educating children on proper pet care

Amy Castro (14:43.412)
spay and neuter and why that's important and things like that would be a huge starting point. Whereas in other communities, whether it's around Houston or around the country, that's like a given, know, we of course we do that kind of thing. And you know, the focus might be on the, know, bringing pets to restaurants and things like that. So I like that idea that if somebody had this objective overall for their community,

that you would be there as a resource to say, hey, this is where it needs to start, or at least these are some of the initiatives that you would need if you wanna get here down the road, this is where you need to begin. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, there are so many different criteria to consider. And I think that's part of the issue is that we're inviting problems when we don't say, how about if we had some expertise on this? Because while people have said, I can tell you ideas for having a dog costume party.

That's different from when we evaluate and recognize different events, whether they be small to huge events. There are pieces of that pie that ought to be in place or at least considered and assigned to someone who can be held accountable for those things. So that when you do those things, the reaction is, well, that went well. Nothing went bad. Nothing went wrong. you know, but if you have an event and you say, you know, what if we had a trainer and we brought them in as a volunteer or paid them to

read dog body language and get ahead of issues. You know, not just the dog's body language, but the people. So yeah, I encourage people, whether it be me or someone else to take a step back and make a decision from my leadership perspective. But you do have to have grassroots people who understand dogs, who can, you know, promote a better life for them and kind of, I don't want to say bring people up to speed, but I think particularly if you don't have a

It's sometimes difficult for people to look at your cocker spaniel and say, did you just say they're your soulmate? You know, really? It's a dog, right? It licks its butt, right? That's not a soulmate, right? But then, you know, I have friends who are stricken with cancer and their battle through chemo and keeping their head up and getting outside and continuing to be social. That dog in many ways saved their lives.

Amy Castro (17:05.026)
I know several people like that. And it's just something that transforms the community, whether or not you have the dog. So it's incredibly impactful. And so my goal is to help people, you know, get infected by this idea, to say, this is not good enough. I'm looking for an enriching, wonderful life journey for me. And part of that is to have an enriching life journey for my dog. I consider them to be family.

I consider my behavior around them to be a reflection of where I live and the values for the community that I live in. And so that's, if we can really go there and instead of saying, let's call it something else, let's not call it dog friendliness anymore because it doesn't mean anything. What if we said, quit calling it dog friendly unless it is dog friendly? Yeah. So what would be the first steps?

You know, if there was a person in the community, whether it's somebody that's in leadership or just, you know, Amy Castro runs an animal rescue and decides that we need to make this community more dog centric, what would be kind of like the timeline? So I contact you and then this would happen, that would happen. If you could just give us an idea of how it would kick off and what you would have to offer a community or a person that reaches out to

And also, is there a fee? am I paying thing out of pocket? Because obviously you've got a lot of people involved in your process and a lot of time and effort that goes into it. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate you saying that. Wagtown is a nonprofit organization. We're a 501C3. And for me, it's mission then money, but you can't do mission without money. So I've built is enough expertise that there is no one else out there that does what I do with the knowledge that I have and the background that I bring to the table.

So what I encourage people to do is to get a feel for your community. There are materials that I can provide to people that allow them to sort of assess things on a top level. And then to some extent, it's kind of passing it back to you and saying, let's reconnect after you've had some time to evaluate what you do have in your box, what's in your toolbox and decide realistically, you you might look at and say, we're not going to be able to even touch the education system because we have this whatever going on

Amy Castro (19:21.1)
now, but we are doing some major overhaul to city planning. We're creating more walkable cities. We're focusing on quality of life and livability. We're focusing on travel and tourism, public art. Those are all areas where we have worked with communities, whether it be collaborative projects or curriculum development. All of those things can be custom tuned to whatever that community needs. So if someone is interested in pursuing

You know, please reach out to me if they can go to wagtown .org to get general information on there and then reach out to me. It's beth at wagtown .org and we can certainly dive into that. I'm happy to have a no cost conversation, to have a quick chat about, you know, where they stand, what their goals are so that we can see if I would be a good fit. And if they're in a position financially and operationally and from a leadership perspective to triage this so that it

something that's going to be not tabled at every commissioner's meeting. We have an event coming up on October 9th and 10th and it's free, it's virtual and it's presentations. There's a library of resources. Everyone who's speaking or providing content is required to have a free downloadable, immediately actionable tool for people so that they could say, this sounds like something that I want to pursue. Download this material. I can connect you with them.

I need these products and services in order to create this in a better way. All of those things are available in addition to panel discussions where attendees can ask me anything, right? Throw questions out there, connect with people. Because when I did my research, it was sort of like, like dog parks, for instance. Number one problem, obviously, where are we going to stick it? Number two problem, how are we going to pay for it? But the number three problem, and this is what always stymies them and gets them to stop doing the process is we don't know what we're doing.

And it is scary because there are so many things that can go wrong and there are so many ways that it is not regulated. aren't standards. So we're creating all of that. So I'm not saying that all dog parks should be the same. I'm instead saying that there are some similarities in terms of safety and management and operations, but it really does need to be custom to the user base, to the community, the resources and creating equity. Because when you take a look

Amy Castro (21:38.732)
what's available to pet owners and to the infrastructure and the value and the economic proposition of the community, it's not the same for everyone. It just isn't. We don't provide the right amount of resources across the board. So if you're saying that this is healthier for you, that you have a better social experience, that you'll have a higher income over the course of your lifespan, your property values will increase, that should apply to everyone in that community, not just the people who have the means

to get to those resources, because we're shortchanging the very people who need those resources the most. So we really need to take an all ships rise perspective. Realistically, start with areas where you're gonna have the resources, whether it be money or people to get started, but really keeping an eye on is this something that is truly going to be a benefit for all of us? Yeah, just even from the concept of early success,

is always really helpful to kind of get things going and to be able to provide that social proof that this is a good thing. And if you don't do it right and it fails, then of course, all the people that sat back and didn't get involved are going to be the first ones jumping in and saying, I knew that wasn't going to work or look how what a disaster that turned out to be. dog people are very passionate as are people who are not in favor of dog friendliness and they have good reasons to not be and they have good reason to be.

And so, we have things like the Wagtown Dog Trail, which was a pop -up two -mile trail. It boosts the businesses around that area. It's a tour of different areas in the community to see. It's brought together people and created sort of a dog walking community. It connected people with public health and public safety. We had Eagle Scout candidate groups that came in and helped with the project. And that's just one thing. You know, then we have the book on breed discrimination that is available.

And again, all of that money goes back into sending more books to do that. We work with Red Roof Inn and they do their outreach. They provide these books for young learners and it helps kind of create that conversation and extend their brand promise of we value the lives of all dogs and their journey through life, whether it be when they're traveling or when they're not. So there are a bazillion different ways that we can approach this. And with my background in marketing, communication,

Amy Castro (24:01.09)
When people work with me to do something, part of the benefit of working with me is you take that sort of, you know, I'm the trademark dog friendly expert. Part of that benefit is, you know, not to be whatever, but I'm very good at marketing. I'm very good at strategy. And so my fondest wish is let me help you find a great solution that's perfect for your community and market the bejesus out of this so that when I Google dog friendly city, you come

And it's for the right reasons. Yeah. From a rescue perspective, one of the big things that, and sometimes it's just an excuse. You know, people will say, I'm moving to a place and I can't take my dog. But I know in the Houston area, although there are dog friendly apartment, you know, and rental homes, like you had mentioned before with the hotels, the restrictions, and then the extra fees and the monthly deposits and whatever else can make

quite cost prohibitive. And I think the whole, especially the breed restrictions, it's like, I get where it's coming from, but some of it also is just kind of random, you know, or weight restrictions, like, as if a dog that weighs 30 to 40 pounds is going to destroy an apartment more than a dog that weighs 15 pounds kind of thing. Do you get a lot of people reaching out to you specifically to address the housing issue in a community or even like I could see if I lived in a certain

certain apartment complex, let's say, and I wanted to motivate my management to be a little bit more open -minded that you might have some great resources for us there. Yeah. Well, I will say overall, they're coming for them, right? Yeah. There are some states that it is no longer legal to deny insurance coverage based on the breed of your dog, that there are areas, there's a company called Bark Buildings that's being supported by

and they're going after apartment complexes and they're not saying we're going to force you to accept them and you can't charge. Instead, it's a totally different mindset of, know, instead of putting in XYZ amenity, most of your people are looking for stuff for their dogs. So why are you supporting this when no one actually uses it, even though that's considered, you know, table stakes for having an apartment area?

Amy Castro (26:17.43)
Instead saying, if there was a dog wash? What if there were hitching posts? What if there was a service that would come in and do walks? What if there were much better off leash experiences for those areas? What if there was a way for those people that live in that complex or that multifamily housing or whatever their housing situation is, how do they feel welcome? How do they feel connected to each other? Because then those people, when they meet each other and they have this connected common language and there's this ultimate social lubricant of dogs,

Now you've got somebody watching out for your property. You have somebody that knows that that was your dog if they're loose. You have people that say, I'm picking up poop because XYZ, it increases my property value. XYZ, this is this reason. We even have apartment complexes that are collecting poop from you before you move in. And if they find poop, they send it in and they get the results and they know it your dog. So we become so abrasive about those conversations.

Instead of saying, like, I always carry an extra bag with me when I go. And then instead of saying, you're supposed to pick it up, then I'll just say something like, my gosh, I got double deuce the other day. I always carry a second one. Here you go. And so it's not like you're a terrible person. It's not like you should have brought a bag, but I don't know about you guys, yeah, I've always, know, everyone has that experience of I only have one bag and right. Do I mark it with leaves and come back? Right. See if I can find it later. Right.

So I do see things like that. When I did my research in Park Slope in Brooklyn in New York, the realtors that I talked to it there, they said, if you have an apartment to let or anything that's up for rental, it's going to sit there. If you don't offer a dog to be welcome, it's not moving. And so we're starting to see that in other areas. When you talk about breed discrimination, Boulder had a thing where they did discriminate by breed that you couldn't have pit

So they had an article like, you know, it's in the news. They're dog friendly now. They're getting rid of this breed discrimination legislation and policies. So I called out there and I'm like, Hey, you know, I'm thinking about moving. But my friend told me that I may not be able to live there because of my dog. And then we'll ask what kind of dog do you have? And I said, you know, this is like begging the question. said, I have a husky, I have a Rottweiler and I have a Shih Tzu. And I'm like, okay, one is barky potentially.

Amy Castro (28:42.1)
One is very vocal, right, the husky, and one is Rottweiler, which is notoriously targeted as this evil dog, right? No issues with any of them. And I was like, this is amazing. I said, well, maybe it was because she has a pit bull. And she goes, well, that's a different story. So how is that not breed discrimination? So she says, well, they don't force you to put down the dog anymore. I'm like, well, that's good, right? Thanks.

But what you have to do is you're required to do a 45 minute exam, $75, and it says right in the materials that it is based solely on the appearance of the dog. No behavior evaluation, nothing. They just look at your dog. And if they think maybe it looks like it could have some pit, staffy, whatever they want to call it in there, you have to register it as potentially vicious. To me,

They're using the idea of being welcoming and the idea of not being discriminatory in a way that kills dogs as a marketing tool. And that's why I got into this. I love marketing. I understand the power of it, but we have to stop using it in a way that's killing dogs and destroying our communities. Yeah. Well, and gosh, you know, the whole visual identification has been proven over and over again to be so flawed

You know, people can't identify visually what this is or that is in so many instances. Is there a particular success story that you're proud of where Wagtown really helped have a major impact on a particular community? Yeah, actually, there's an active project we're working on in Las Cruces, actually. And that is with a woman named Kathy Tiorchione. And she's just this phenomenal person who's developed this Golden Life Community

And it's virtual right now and they're in the process of doing the land development planning. And it's a really nice walkable community that is specifically for women over 55 who love dogs. And so they're by themselves. So it's, it's very much built from an ADA perspective to support each other, to create sort of passion project rooms, integration with activities in the community. But part of that is it's kind of like if you had a dog park that had a community in it.

Amy Castro (31:02.156)
because they're using the connectivity between the positive impact of dogs on our lives, particularly with seniors and loneliness and being up and active, creating spaces for quiet and using that as sort of this gel that brings all of that together. So there's storytelling and poetry and volunteerism and the kind of shops that they would need, veterinary care. So they're staying away from what I would call either a breed discrimination

refugee facility where you know, they can't live there because of rules that are antiquated or that they're bringing people in to sort of Maximize all of the benefits that we know about having dogs in our lives and plugging them into retail into policy into advocacy into Education in a way that they're taking this top -down level now with that one you're starting from scratch, right? So you're overcoming culture when you take a look at in the Dayton

You know, we've had issues with our animal resource center, a horrific history with things there. And, you know, being able to kind of bring them along in this curve, they're still struggling with, even though they had a team shelter evaluation and they had steps that they were supposed to take, we still have horrible issues with the way that people not only are treating dogs on both sides of that equation, but also the animosity between all the different user groups is horrible.

What I've seen in some communities is you really need, know, Amy needs to call Beth and say, you know, our groups have not always gotten along, but we all like dogs, right? So couldn't we sit down for lunch and figure out how to share resources, how to quit infighting, how to quit saying, well, if you're going to be at this event, then I'm not coming, right? If we're all there to adopt dogs and educate the public, couldn't we figure out a way to work together? Right.

So how do you kind of bring those things together? Well, we built that dog trail so that we could have people meet each other, have people encourage each other, have people say, oh, I want to get involved in that, have people say, you know what? There was a woman that goes to this new venue for music that we have in the downtown area. And I reached out to Lisa Wagner, who is this genius behind the development of that program. And I was like, hey, I checked into the 11 pavilions around the country.

Amy Castro (33:27.07)
And they're pretty much dog friendly. we going to be? And it was like, we do want to do that. And so it's like, okay, let me show you how to have your team facilitate that being a good experience. So we're there and we're kind of talking with people on the lawn and different seating areas and saying, how's it going? And I meet this woman who used to work at a company that they allowed them to bring their dogs. She started bringing her dog to these concerts because when she had to switch jobs and couldn't take her dog anymore.

It became inward and reactive and afraid to go out. So it's this experience within the public where people better understand what it's like to be around dogs. They can read the body language of that dog and say, they're not super comfortable with me being that close. So maybe I won't go and try and hug it or get a selfie, take it right. Because people understand what that means. So you create this sort of, geo fenced area for lack of a better word, where people can engage.

try out their dog friendliness, engage with people who are in leadership positions so they can see nothing bad happened, that I did see opportunities for learning, for engagement, for first responders to interact with people. And it just becomes this melting pot of ideas and possibilities that have these great outcomes for us and for the dogs. Yeah.

And it just takes one person to get that ball rolling. So, you for everybody that's listening to this now, at first it seems exciting and then it seems like it could become overwhelming, but somebody's got to get it started and it's got to start somewhere. And so why not you, you know, and why not reaching out to WagTown to see, you know, what their suggestions are? Yeah, I want to be that nugget. I want to be that thing that I drop in and it's this catalyst for, what if.

Right? that kind of spreads like wildfire and you start to identify like the people, right? And the opportunities. And so that's my big goal is reach out to me, give me an opportunity to help you start that process. It doesn't need to be massive. It really needs to start with just a little pebble thrown in there to create that ripple effect. That's great. That's great.

Amy Castro (35:44.034)
Well, Beth, anything else that you want to share with us before we wrap things up? I know we're going to share links so that people can get to the WagTown website and get some more information. But any final thoughts that you want to share? Yeah, I mean, to your point, if they can get to wagtown .org, if they go into slash news, there are all kinds of different project focus that they can take a look at. Read through some of the materials. Take a look at those videos. Follow us on social.

But if you really want to get a dive into this, reach out to me and we can certainly talk through your community. If you want to take a little more wait and see approach, I encourage it. you go to dogfriendlysummit .com, that is an area where you can pop your name in there that we'll be sending you when we get the speakers to announce, we've got a lot of exciting things happening there. That'll allow you to kind of take bite -sized chunks into what you might be getting yourself into, so to speak.

a really exciting place for people to connect and get excited about something like that. So I can't wait for you to share that because not only do I want to help, but this is only as successful as me getting more input from people in communities all over the place. Yeah, yeah. mean, the more data, the more you've got to go from and the more options that you can give people, I think that is such an important point that you made about just the...

The fact of what's gonna fly here is not gonna fly there. People might be at this level or a community might be at this level, a community might be at this level, and you've gotta really meet people where they're at and start from there. And I have to look into moving to Las Cruces, because that sounds like the kind of community for me. I'm just amazed when I see what she's been able to do. So yeah, I would encourage you to take a look at that. But yeah, in the meantime, just tell your dog I said hi and keep wagging.

All right, awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here and sharing all this information. And I know that this is gonna be one of those episodes I think I'm gonna have to listen to twice because there was so much information in there and it just really kind of gets your mind to start exploding with all the possibilities on so many different levels. So thank you so much for sharing your experience and your expertise, Beth. We really appreciate it. Thank you. I'm so glad that we connected. So it's always fun to talk to someone who's as passionate about projects as I

Amy Castro (38:05.356)
Definitely. And we'll have to stay in touch and maybe do another episode, some update episodes down the road. Definitely. All right. Awesome. And thank you again to everybody for listening to another episode of Starlight Pet Talk, and we will see you next week. Thanks for listening to Starlight Pet Talk. Be sure to visit our website at www .starlightpettalk .com for more resources and be sure to follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app so you'll never miss a

If you enjoyed and found value in today's episode, we'd appreciate a rating on Apple. Or if you'd simply tell a friend about the show, that would be great too. Don't forget to tune in next week and every week for a brand new episode of Starlight Pet Talk. And if you don't do anything else this week, give your pets a big hug from us.