This Father’s Day, I feel compelled to thank my dad, whose guidance and support helped shape the person – and the business owner – that I am today. Throughout my childhood, and into my twenties, I worked with my dad at his small trucking company in South Boston. Over the many hours and days that we spent together he would impart life lessons upon me – lessons about the person he hoped I would become, and the people with whom I should surround myself. Often, as a teenager and even a young adult, I would roll my eyes at his wisdom (do all young people think that they know it all?!). It is only with the passage of time – and my own development into a fully formed adult with two children and a couple businesses of my own – that I have come to see his monologues as the sage advice that they were.
My dad tolerated the rotating packs of dogs I would bring into his trucking warehouse. In his older years, and as he became sicker, he would nap on a cot in his office; many times my boarding clients would nap with him. But Dingo was always his favorite bedside companion.
My dad lived long enough to see the genesis of Dingo’s Dogsitting, from a side-gig with zero employees scrapped together out of the first home of a twenty-something to what it is now: a fully licensed and insured commercial facility boasting a staff of 15 and daycare attendance rates from 50 to 65 dogs per day on average.
So on this Father’s Day, I want to thank all of the “Dog Dads” out there who love their dogs endlessly and trust us with their care. I also want to thank my dad, who loved me endlessly and always trusted the endeavors for which I chose to care.
