Meet Pat Gallagher of Dog Dayz of California

Today we’d like to introduce you to Pat Gallagher.

Pat, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
After working in the corporate world with the same company for nearly 30 years, traveling as a national sales manager for one of their divisions, I was pretty burned out on all of the travel. I started to consider going into business for myself but I wanted to do something that I was more passionate about and served humanity in a more meaningful way. I was looking for personal fulfillment rather than raking in the money. As I was on, yet another delayed flight, I happened across and ad for a dog care franchise and thought to myself, “now that’s what I’m talking about”, I would be doing something that I love and making a difference in the lives of animals and their people. Having been a formally educated horse trainer in my youth, trying to follow my heart, I finally succumbed to the pressure of making a living rather than enjoying what I do. 30 years later with my son grown and off to college and myself as my only responsibility, I chose to jump off the bridge. I’ve never looked back and never had any regrets.

After planning, researching dog care facilities and returning to school to become a certified dog trainer, I chose to not go the franchise route as I felt this would be a more personal and localized business. I could do this, I was committed to succeeding. Now with Dog Dayz in its 7th year, the struggles have become less taxing and rewards keep getting better. I always feel that I could do better and that keeps driving me to improve and explore options available to push that growth.

We’ve built an amazing business and kept true to our mission statement “To enhance the lives of dogs and their people”. I’ve built an incredible staff to support our efforts, many of them have been with me since the beginning or close to it. They are compassionate, dedicated, intelligent and most of all, tremendous team players that have one focus and that is to treat each dog as if it were their own.

Dog Dayz of California is in Northeast Oceanside on the boarder of Vista. We have a 12,500 sq. ft. facility with another 3,000 sq. ft. of outdoor yard space. We offer many services for pet parents such as, luxury boarding, many training programs for all kinds of behavior issues (all based on positive reinforcement training methods), doggie daycare and full-service grooming. We even offer a monthly vet clinic in conjunction with a local veterinarian.

The plans for the near future are to open a new training and sports camp for dogs. The site search is still in the process, but this would be a property with acreage that I would live on and do exclusively board and train, and events pertaining to dog sports and activities. A much smaller business model with a much larger space.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It is rarely a smooth road when you start from scratch, but I’ve managed to overcome so many bumps and always emerge with more knowledge and understanding than I’ve ever imagined. Most of the struggles have been financial, “how am I going to make payroll this month, or where is the rent coming from?” but other struggles have been finding the right people to make up our wonderful team, dealing with a bad review (fortunately rare) or an unhappy pet parent or making that trip to the emergency vet with a sick or injured dog. While all of these things can seem insurmountable at the time, I find that my personal values, persistence and conviction to be as honest as I can be with people have definitely helped me to not only grow as a business AND as a person, but to thrive.

Dog Dayz of California – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
There is only one answer to all of these questions, most definitely the people, the staff. They make this business many steps above anything I could have imagined, above any competitor and they make me proud of what we’ve built every single day. Their passion for what they do, their dedication to customer service and going the extra mile for all of our pups and their pride of Dog Dayz of California.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Hearing customers’ complements about how we truly care for their dogs. Hearing customers complement our staff for how they and their dogs are treated and loved.

Contact Info:

• Address: 1995 Peacock Blvd.
  Oceanside, CA 92056
• Website: www.dogdayzofcalifornia.com
• Phone: (760) 631-3299
• Email: pat.dogdayz@gmail.com
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/DogDayzOfCalifornia
• Yelp: www.yelp.com/dog-dayz-of-california-oceanside

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