Gila Kurtz, founder, and co-owner of Dog Is Good, joins Tonya Dawn Recla to share a bit about her journey and pet entrepreneur ideas. She is a serial entrepreneur who found her deepest passion for working with dogs and their people. In addition to that, she is the best-selling author of Fur Covered Wisdom: A Dog Can Change the Way You See the World. She is a master of “Bliss-ipline” and loves her active lifestyle. Gila makes supporting animal welfare organizations a part of what differentiates her company amongst the competitors. As a professional trainer, Gila naturally said yes to the opportunity as it was not only a chance to sponsor a dog but also raise and train her to become a leader dog. Listen in as she talks about pet entrepreneur ideas.
Hello everyone, this is Tonya Dawn Recla, your Super Power Expert, and I have such a fun treat for you all today, Gila Kurtz, who is the founder and co-owner of Dog Is Good. Which, first of all, you gotta love somebody who comes up with a brand like that, because it really speaks to so much about what we stand for here at Super Power Experts, which is the idea that you can do things however you want to do them, and do the things that you’re passionate about and really follow your own example, as opposed to thinking things have to be done in a particular way. So I love the fact that she has this passion and this love for dogs and created a successful, seven-figure a year business in the dog space. That’s huge.
And so for all of you out there that are sitting there thinking that your hobby, or the thing that you love, or the thing that you’re most interested in wouldn’t make a good business, I’m here to tell you that’s not true, and I love the fact that Gila represents that. And she can share with you a bit about her journey and how she got to that place. So without further ado, we’ll be talking with Gila today about pet entrepreneur ideas, very exciting stuff. Please join me in welcoming her to the show. Welcome Gila, we’re so excited to have you here.
Thank you so much, Tonya, I’m excited to be here.
Very cool. So we’re gonna jump in and ask, what are your superpowers?
My number one super power is discipline.
Superpowers, oh my gosh. I think without a doubt that my number one superpower is discipline. I think I developed that at quite an early age, and it has carried me through in so many scenarios. I would have to say if I had one key superpower, that would be it.
I love it, plain and simple. And it lends itself so nicely to both the dog space, as well as the business space. We talk a lot here about self-dominion, and that discipline piece is so incredibly crucial. As we’re going through personal growth or spiritual growth, or whatever the case may be, sometimes we forget about that little piece. We move into that surrender, trusting phase and we forget that there really is an action that has to be taken. I was interviewing somebody earlier and they were talking about how surrender isn’t a passive activity. So whether you’ve had that experience or not, the idea of incorporating discipline into what you’re doing, I think speaks volumes. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that perhaps that is how you were able to develop a successful seven-figure business. Is that an accurate connection to make there?
I think so. I think that discipline falls into so many arenas in one’s life. It goes to the desire to improve oneself. So you just mentioned, personal development, or spiritual development, there’s first that idea of something that one wants to achieve or experience. And then there are those steps that one needs to take in order to make that happen. And certainly, along the way, it’s never a direct line from a concept in one’s head to achieving the goal. It’s always a combination of a roller coaster and correction turns along the way to get there. And having the discipline to discover what needs to be done, but to be able to take action on that every single day. Even when you get knocked down, the discipline to get yourself back up, the discipline to keep pursuing your own personal enhancement along the way to become not only the best version of yourself but more importantly, to create things that ultimately make a big difference in the world around you. It takes discipline to make that happen.
I love that.
Thank you.
Talk to me a little bit about how you got into the dog space. How did this all come about?
It came about as a result of other businesses that I had started along the way. I am married to a now retired Navy Captain, he is also my partner in the business. Prior to that, as a military spouse, you’re moving every couple of years and it’s kind of a challenge to create something that you can take with you wherever you go, and continue to build. That presented me with the opportunity to start a number of different businesses, depending on where we were at. All of which, I gained great learning opportunity.
But it was when we were living in Washington D.C. area, Northern Virginia, that I started a gourmet coffee vending business. On my route, I always took my Dalmatian/Lab mix along with me, and at the end of the route we would always end up at the dog park.
It was there that I discovered the first opportunity that one could have in the pet space, for me, and that was the idea of becoming a professional dog walker. There was this man that walked into the dog park with six dogs. I had never seen somebody with so many dogs, and I had never even heard … This was already 20 years, well it is 20 years ago … and I not even heard of the idea that one could get paid to just play with and walk dogs. How cool would that be? And this guy was making a lot of money doing it.
So I figured that the next move would take me to a place where I would launch that as a business. But our next move took us to a rural area in Florida and people did not need dog walkers or pet sitters. They pretty much either let their dogs run free on the land, or had them chained up out back, which certainly is a no-no in my book. But what it did open the door to was the opportunity of coming full circle back to my original goals in life of becoming a teacher.
So rather than be a dog walker, I pursued a career as a dog trainer and managed to grow a successful dog training business in ensuing duty stations that we were at. Florida, and then Pennsylvania, and then in the state of Washington.
I impacted the lives of the people I was helping.
It was in the state of Washington that my passion for dogs was growing on a much deeper level. Not just the work that I was doing, but more importantly how they were beginning to impact who I was becoming as a person, and how they were impacting the lives of the families that I was helping.
At one continuing education conference, there was a vendor booth there that was selling some T-shirts. They were very simple white T-shirts, each one was with a dog breed on it, and each one said the same thing, “I love my …” and then whatever the dog breed was. I remember standing there thinking, “Yeah, I do love my dalmatian, no doubt about that. I love my hound mix as well. But there’s something more than just this feeling of love that’s going on.” I wanted the ability to be able to express that in a more poignant way, but also in a way that was stylish and kind of hip, and that showcased who I was as a dog lover.
That’s where Jon and I came up with the idea to launch this business, which is Dog Is Good. For the past 10 years that is what I have been most focused on.
Wow, such a great story. In retrospect, it always makes sense. Right? It’s like this led to this, led to this. And I would imagine in the middle it didn’t always make so much sense. But it’s really the ability to take this concept, and really just having the courage to put one foot in front of the other, I think is huge. It goes back to that discipline piece.
But also, real courage. I’m very familiar with the military spaces, and I wouldn’t say that the entrepreneur thing is deeply embedded in the military spouse culture. I think that it exists, but I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily an inherent part of that. And so, that takes courage to step forward and say, “What am I going to do here? And how do I want to do it?” Especially because it would be so easy to relax into the idea that you’re moving around all the time, how difficult it must be to build anything, or sustain something or whatever. So I really honor the fact that you stepped into that space and kept asking, “How am I gonna do this?” Given the circumstances of your life situation, how you wanted to build a business around that, versus throwing your hands up in the air. Or thinking it had to be in a specific box that didn’t work for you.
We’re all presented with the opportunity to choose a different perception.
Right. That’s a really great observation, and I think one of the elements that became part of my ability to step into new ideas. Because there were a couple of different things that I had done along the way in the past 20 years before we started Dog Is Good, and maybe this isn’t a superpower, but it is the ability to look at possibilities, versus the reality of what’s fully in front of you. It’s very easy to see a situation and see it for exactly what it is. And then we’re all presented with the opportunity to choose a different perception. So for me, it was always about, “Okay cook, I get to reinvent myself again because nobody knows who I am”, or whatever. And so there’s just all this possibility.
The key for me in all of those locations, because we lived places only for two years, maybe at the most, there was a couple time maybe three years. But in a two year period, if you’re gonna do something man, you gotta dive in quick and make it happen. That’s where the discipline part comes in. It’s almost like, “Oh, I only have two years, I better hurry up.” I didn’t have time to really think through possible failure, or what if it doesn’t work, or have all those little conversations because I just needed to get in there, roll up my sleeves, get it done and then move onto the next location.
Ideally, as I discovered with the dog training, creating something that was portable really made all the difference. And certainly, Dog Is Good was made possible because by the time we finally launched that, my husband was nearing the end of his Navy career and we weren’t going to be moving anymore, so I could actually build that foundation and then continue to grow upon it.
I love the fact that you’re talking about how you have this limited time, and it’s like you better run. I think that’s so perfect, what a great thing to use to your advantage like I said before, rather than looking at it as a disadvantage. Very powerful.
Let’s tell people where they can go to find out more about you.
They can learn more about me as well as Dog Is Good by going to DogIsGood.com. There’s all the information on the brand, right available on the website and then in the bio section, there’s certainly a little bit about me.
One of the things they can also do if they want to learn even more about me is taking time out to read Fur Covered Wisdom, a Dog Can Change the Way You See the World. It’s a book that I authored a couple years ago, and quite honestly it was a very pivotal point in the growth of our company and in my own personal growth, my personal journey. And it is the basis for which I am creating new programs and choose to live a life more inspired by the lessons that we learn from our dogs.
Beautiful, I love it. We’re gonna take a quick break. You’re gonna want to stick with us, because when we come back we’re gonna talk with Gila more about her experiences and how you can start taking some action in invoking that discipline today, in your business or in a potential business that maybe you’ve been noodling about for a little bit. So stay with us, we’re talking with Gila Kurtz about pet entrepreneur ideas, and we’ll be right back.
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
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