Episode 154: Good Dog's Year in Review: 2023

Nicole takes us through all the updates and milestones Good Dog accomplished through 2023. From better health testing recognition, to insurance, to a buyer mobile app, 2023 was an eventful year! We can't wait to show you what we have planned for 2024.

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Transcript

Nicole Engelman [0:29] Hi everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Good Dog Pod, where we discuss all things related to canine health, research, how Good Dog helps breeders run their breeding programs, and so much more. I’m Nicole, the Breeder Community Lead here at Good Dog and your host for this week’s episode. I can’t believe it’s already December and time for us to wrap up the year. I don’t know if anyone listening to this agrees, but I feel like in many ways, the year just started. But it’s already zipped by, and it’s time for us to start thinking of 2024 here at Good Dog, but before we can do that, I thought it was really great to come together as a community and take a look back at 2023 because it’s been quite the year for Good Dog and the Good Breeder Community and, together, we’ve achieved many, many things—many new things! Today we wanted to spend time in this podcast episode just talking about what all of those were. I will dive right into things and talk about some of my favorite things that we did this year that I think really impacted our community in such significant ways and is really a reflection of how we’re always working with breeders to help better your programs, help make your lives easier. These are a few of my favorites. A lot of them fit under this idea of really improving the way that we’re offering breeders and buyers to communicate on Good Dog and some of the improvements we made there.

We started off this year right out of the gate with the launch of the Buyer Mobile App on Android and iOS. That was following the end of last year when we rolled out the Breeder Mobile App, which was a huge milestone for us at Good Dog. It was something that breeders had been requesting for years, and we were finally able to put that out, but there was kind of a missing piece in the fact that buyers didn’t have a mobile app experience in addition to what breeders had, so it was a huge priority for us to start off 2023 with the launch of that app. We did so on Android and iOS. We really just made it easier for buyers and breeders to communicate on the go. I know all of us don’t live lives where we’re just sitting in front of a computer. We’re constantly doing things, whether you’re a buyer interested in a puppy or you’re a breeder who is shuttling puppies to vet appointments or just hanging out in your kennel—whatever it may be. We’re really excited that now there’s a mobile app experience for both buyers and breeders to really make it easier to stay in touch. I feel like using your cell phone can sometimes be a lot easier of a way to communicate, especially if you’re sharing quick updates and messages as a breeder, sharing photos and videos back and forth. That’s one of my favorite things that we did this year.

We also made it easier for breeders to call buyers directly from the mobile app. So when a number gets shared in your message thread when you’re using the app, you can actually just tap that number really quickly to make a call. One of the reasons that was a big priority for us to roll out is because we know how important it is for you to not just get to know buyers through their application or through messages, but we know how important a phone call can be, especially in the early stages of your screening process, so we made it a lot easier to call directly from the Good Dog Mobile App, so you don’t have to leave it.

We also know how important it is for buyers to be reminded of messages. I know we all live very busy lives, and sometimes things can slip our minds, something we have to do, something we have to answer. What we added this year was the feature that actually nudges buyers with a text and email notification when you send them a message or approve their application, so if they haven’t answered you, we at Good Dog will just send them a little nudge through a text and email notification, just to say, “This breeder got back to you! They would love to start getting to know you. Here’s how you can answer their message.” Just because we know sometimes life gets the best of you, and sometimes a message can slip by you. But I know how important it is to all of our breeders that their messages get answered, so we’re excited that that’s something we were able to put out that can help with that.

In that same idea, I know it can be a source of anxiety when you send out a message on the internet, and it feels like it just poofs into oblivion, and you don’t know where that message ends up. What we added this year to alleviate some of that anxiety is that you can also be alerted now on Good Dog when your message has been delivered or read by a buyer. You can just feel peace of mind knowing that that message made it, that it was delivered, and then if the message was read, you can see that as well, and what time it was read. Just adding to that comfort of knowing that your important messages are reaching buyers and that they are getting there. That was a really good one that I was really excited to see, and I know so many breeders in our community were really grateful for that small but mighty update of just knowing that your message had arrived to the buyer. 

Then we had a new way for buyers to keep up with your program. Like I keep saying, we’re all living such busy lives, and even with the best intentions, we can forget things (as buyers)—maybe where we are in our puppy search, if there was a puppy that we really liked, but all of a sudden, we’ve X’d out of the page or we’ve scrolled past it and we don’t remember how to get it back… We added this new way for buyers to keep up with your program by favoriting your puppies. So now Good Dog buyers, as they’re searching for puppies that might be the right fit for them, can actually heart an available puppy as they search and revisit each favorited puppy listing straight from their dashboard. In addition to that, they’ll also get email updates about that puppy’s availability and instructions from us on how to request more information from you and get started talking to you and learning more. It’s been a really popular feature. I think it’s helped buyers just not feel pressure immediately to need to do something once they see a puppy that really resonates with them. It gives them some time to think about this puppy, envision their lives with it maybe. It can help keep your program top of mind for buyers, which is the most important thing of all. That’s been a really great update that we added this year, that I personally love and I’ve seen a lot of buyers give us great feedback about that as well, because it helps them stay on track throughout the beginning stages of their puppy search!

Those were some of my favorite communication improvements that we added this year that I think have been really impactful. Some other things I wanted to touch on are the new ways that we added for breeders to differentiate their programs. They’re really special. I know all of our breeders on Good Dog are putting so much into their programs, whether it’s through all of the health testing you’re doing or the really great customer experience you’re offering—whatever it may be, we want to just always be adding new ways to help you stand out and really differentiate what makes your program so special. One of the big things we launched this year to speak to that is the Preferred Breeder Program. That’s something we launched to recognize and reward Good Breeders for their loyalty in choosing to place their puppies on Good Dog and their dedication to supporting Good Dog buyers. When you qualify as a preferred breeder, you receive special rewards and recognition that help you stand out to potential puppy buyers. Right now, some of those special rewards are an exclusive badge that’s displayed on your Good Breeder profile and in search results. It indicates your status as a Preferred Breeder to any Good Dog buyers who are browsing through the search results. You also get higher ranking in search results, so more buyers will see your puppies. The really exciting thing for me to watch as this program has taken shape—and since it’s been around for a few months now—is to watch new breeders get their preferred status because we do evaluate programs every single month so that we make sure that as soon as you’re able to meet the qualifications for the program, you can get that badge and that additional recognition. It’s been really nice. I think the program has been around since April or March, and in these past few months, it’s been really great to see (especially in our private Facebook group) breeders celebrating when they earn their preferred status or they maintain it for the month. It’s really great to see all of you cheering each other on and supporting that victory in getting your preferred status. That has been a very big and exciting program for us. That speaks to the breeders that are really going above and beyond to support their Good Dog buyers. 

We added something this year to really speak to the breeders that are going above and beyond with their health testing as well. We know how much work and care breeders are putting into breeding healthy puppies. I think that takes shape in all aspects of the planning of breedings, how you run your programs, and we want to make sure that Good Dog buyers know it, too. As part of our mission to continue educating the public and promoting canine health, we added a special designation for your puppies which highlights that their parents have verified health testing. This designation shows up in search results and on your Good Breeder profile. It helps buyers learn more about your program’s commitment to health testing and what you are doing uniquely as a breeder and as part of your program to really further canine health. These are parent health testing badges for individual puppies that show up in search results. In the past, you could actually only get health testing badges for your breeding dogs, but we heard community feedback that you were looking for more ways to differentiate your program and educate potential buyers on what exactly you’re doing to ensure the health of your puppies, so this has been a really exciting and new addition to the search results, and it’s been really great to see buyers interacting with this feature, learning more about what it means for a puppy to have excellent parent health testing. It’s been very exciting and one of my favorite updates of the year. It made it right in there to round out 2023, but it’s been so great to see this be adopted by our breeders in the last few weeks and see so many puppies in our search results now have these parent heath testing badges. We are looking forward to continuing to add things similar to that in the future, because it’s just really great to continue helping you show off all of these amazing things that you’re doing. 

In that same idea, we also added a health testing filter in the breeder search results so buyers can filter search results on the breeder page from good, great, or excellent—to help differentiate breeders based on the health testing practices that they’re doing for their programs. That was something that we heard from the community was really important to them, so we were excited to add that health testing filter back into the breeder search results a few months ago as well. 

Last thing that we worked on this year to really help differentiate your programs and help you stand out: we improved how buyers are actually seeing your breeding dog information. Now when you’re using the mobile app, you’re actually able to see way more information than they previously were able to about the breeding dogs, so they can learn more about the attributes and health testing of your breeding dogs. Keeping this information up to date really helps buyers see what makes your program so special. 

Something else interesting that we’ve learned in this past year through some buyer research and interviews is that buyers absolutely love learning about your breeding dogs. They love learning about the parents of what their future puppy may be. They love seeing what they look like. While puppies are adorable and no one is ever mad about looking at too many photos of a puppy, it really is so important to buyers to envision what their future puppy might grow up to be like by having that visual of the parent dogs, having descriptions of their temperaments, their personalities, any accolades or special attributes that they have. Really including information about the parent dogs of your litter can be such a powerful way to keep your program standing out. Before I learned that, I just assumed that buyers are mostly excited to see adorable puppy photos because that is the actual puppy that they’re thinking of getting through Good Dog and through your program, but it surprised me to learn just how much the parent dog information is really resonating with buyers. I thought I would call that out! 

[13:29] We’re going to take a brief pause from this week’s episode to bring you the latest edition of our Good Dog Pod Mailbag, where we answer our community’s questions about canine health, behavior, how Good Dog works, and more. To answer this week’s questions, I’m joined by Good Dog Staff Veterinarian, Dr. Ritter. To kick things off for this week, our first question is: What DNA and genetic testing is needed or suggested for each breed? I’m a new breeder and trying to learn all this, and it’s taking me forever to figure out what I need to test for in my Dachshunds. For example, do I need a test for IVDD in my Dachshunds since basically all Dachshunds are impacted genetically by IVDD? Are there different types of IVDD? 

Nate Ritter [14:07] It’s a great question and a lot to break down in there. First, I’d like to say that I encourage genetic testing for all breeds. Regarding what tests are recommended for your particular breed, there are different resources that you can lean on to gather this information. I’d definitely recommend reaching out to your veterinarian, looking at your breed club. Oftentimes there are health pages on those breed clubs websites that have recommendations relating to testing. The OFA has recommended tests, as well as the CHIC requirements. Genetic testing companies may have recommendations as well, and even Good Dog’s recommended health testing to determine any relevant conditions for your breed. Oftentimes, genetic testing companies actually customize their panels to the breed that you select to include all pertinent diseases. The second part of the question: yes, it’s still important to test for IVDD and you need to consider these results, as well as the animal’s parents’ clinical histories when choosing the breeding pair. There are two types of IVDD, so we have an article and the University of Illinois’ College of Veterinary Medicine has an article as well. Type 1 IVDD occurs when the nucleus of the disc extrudes through the outer layer of the disc and presses on the spinal cord. Over time, the nucleus degenerates and hardens; as a result, it can no longer function as a shock-absorber. In Type 2 IVDD, the fibrous outer layer starts to break down and both the outer and inner parts of the disk bulge out and compress the spinal cord.

NE [15:35] For our last question for this week, this is from Myrna Web, and they’re wondering: What are the causes of osteochondritis dissecans? 

NR [15:45] Just for everybody’s knowledge, osteochondritis dissecans (OCD or OD) is an inflammatory condition that occurs when diseased cartilage separates from the underlying bone. The cause is actually unknown but various factors can contribute. Hereditary components are suspected in most dogs, as well as genetics. Diet also plays a significant role. Other potential causes of OCD include injury, rapid growth, lack of blood flow, and hormonal issues. 

NE [16:13] Awesome! That is all the questions we have for you this week. Thank you for coming on here to help answer those community questions, and thank you to everyone who submitted. If you’d like to submit a question for a chance to hear it answered in a future episode of the Good Dog Pod, be sure to join our private Good Breeder Facebook group, where we share a submission form every single week.

NE [16:32] New offerings: this is also one of my favorite things to talk about because I think something so special that we offer our breeder community are discounts and partnerships and benefits that we’re always working to improve and add to as canine health and science changes, as we find new partnerships to work with, so I just wanted to call out a few of the really exciting new offerings that we added this year. The first one being our partnership with CitizenShipper to help breeders offer more transportation options. We had heard community feedback that transportation can be a really difficult and daunting thing for a breeder to set up and it can sometimes limit the amount of buyers that are able to get in contact with you and apply to your program if they live farther away and you’re not able to offer certain kinds of transportation. So we wanted to offer this partnership with CitizenShipper to really just help breeders get transportation set up, so breeders who are interested in offering it could start. That was an exciting thing that we added this year. We also started adding Good Dog Academy as an offering, so it’s an online course that we built to help you learn about all the Good Dog tools and pro tips that can help you successfully run your breeding program from start to finish. You earn four exclusive certificates of completion for completing Good Dog Academy. It’s been a really fun way to help breeders learn exactly how Good Dog works to help you place your puppies and, of course, recognize you for doing so. That’s been a fun launch that we had. It’s really helpful also for breeders who are brand new to our community and are trying to learn the ropes and how everything works. We love that, and we love seeing all of you share your certificates of completion in our Facebook group. Those are so fun to see come in!

This is a great one on my list: food. We made a new update very recently, which was extremely well-received. I think this might be our community’s favorite product update that we made this year. This new update shares your puppy food preferences with your buyers in their to-do list. With this update, buyers know exactly what kind of food you prefer to feed the puppies and what you’re expecting so they can actually click and purchase the food to make sure their puppy’s food is at their new home before they arrive. We did this for a few reasons, one being (of course) we want to make your lives earlier and help buyers really understand what you’re expecting in regards to the food that you’re feeding your puppies. We also know it can help with smoother transitions that puppies have in their new homes if their food that they recognize is already at the new home before they arrive, so that’s something comforting and familiar to them. Hopefully it makes that transition a little easier. It’s just really exciting to make sure that we’re helping buyers stay on track. I know that when you’re a breeder and you have a big litter of puppies, you’re juggling all these different conversations with buyers in different phases of the placement process, and it can be a lot to keep up with, so in general, I think that new to-do list that we added to your message conversations with buyers is really helpful, so you can see who’s paid their deposit, who still has to complete their final dog payments, who has purchased puppy food, who should you share information with pet insurance with. In general, the to-do list is a really helpful way to stay on track, help your buyers stay on track and just understand what you’re expecting, so they are more prepared when they talk to you.

I just mentioned this, but I wanted to give it its own moment, because this was probably our most exciting launch of the year, and that is our pet insurance offering with Fido. We know that the health and safety of your puppies mean absolutely everything to you. Night and day, while you’re raising these puppies, before they go off to their new homes, you’re working tirelessly to ensure they have the best beginnings possible, that ultimately lead to long and happy lives. This year, we took a big step to support you in that mission. As part of our shared commitment to promoting canine health and responsible dog ownership, we partnered with Figo to bring an exclusive pet insurance offer to your owners at 10% off for life. Now you can have peace of mind that the puppies you’ve invested so much in are going to continue to receive top-notch care as they grow in their new homes. I’m sure I don’t need to tell anyone listening to this, but good coverage can really protect your owners from costly vet bills that might come along with an unexpected accident or illness. It’s a risk that many pet owners, unfortunately, cannot afford to take. Accidents just happen. That is the reality of dealing with a living thing, especially a puppy, who might be very curious and clumsy. Pet insurance can really provide that security that the puppy that you love, that your buyers love, will always get quality and affordable care whenever they need it. What we did at Good Dog was we spent months researching and screening every pet insurance provider on the market to find the best option for your puppies and their new owners. Because you’re Good Dog Breeders and you’re part of our community, your owners will get 10% off for life from Figo. One of the reasons that we picked Figo and, really, why their coverage stood out to us breaks down into three distinct things. 

One of them is affordability. I think that is, especially for buyers, really top of mind when they’re considering pet insurance. Figo’s coverage is priced by age. They have multi-pet discounts, and of course, the 10% off for life for Good Dog owners. There’s a really strong element of freedom to Figo’s coverage, so there’s optional wellness care, there are 100% reimbursement options. No upper age limits, which I know is a big concern. And then 24/7 access to a televet professional, which can be a lifesaver in certain situations. Convenience is also a big reason why we picked Figo. Owners are able to see any licensed pet anywhere in the world. They can quickly process online claims. Of course, they can cancel at any time with no fees. These were all of the things that were probably the strongest considerations we had when we were doing all of our research and figuring out what pet insurance provider we wanted to work with to bring insurance to your buyers. We’re doing this because your puppies (and their owners, too) are like family to you. Every breeder I’ve ever spoken with during my time at Good Dog just tells me how they are constantly in communication with their buyers. Even when their puppies have left their homes for quite some time, they’re always checking in with their buyers. They are truly part of a breeder’s family. When you have these puppies and their owners as part of your family, you want to make sure they are treated and cared for like family. That’s why we’re really excited to make pet insurance accessible to all Good Dog owners—because it can mean that we can help safeguard your puppies’ health for life. 

We also worked with Figo to expand our offer to cover your breeding dogs as well so that costs and fees for treatments arising out of complications from breeding, pregnancy, or whelping will be covered, too. It’s just been a really exciting new world for us to dive into at Good Dog. Just thinking about all of these things that we’re doing to really help breeders and buyers all along the journey to getting a puppy—but then really starting to think about how we help you after that journey ends as well. After the puppy goes home, being able to help with food, being able to help with insurance and really ensure that your puppy is cared for—not just for that short placement process but for life.

It wouldn’t be fair to talk about the past year without mentioning the Good Dog Pod because that is the format that we’re talking with each other on right now. This year was pretty momentous for the Good Dog Pod. We hit over 260,000 downloads, which is a huge number. I really can’t believe that that many people are listening to this. Some of our top-performing episodes that everyone really seemed to love, especially this year, were “How to Train Your Puppy,” “Dog Cognition and Social Learning,” and “The Dog Aging Project.” So if you haven’t listened to any of those, you can find them on our page. Those—I agree—are some of our best episodes of the year, so I really encourage you to listen to those if you haven’t already. 

Thank you all for listening to the Good Dog Pod. I feel like it’s a perfect time to shout that out. I ran some numbers, and I’ve realized that we have spent over 800 minutes this year on the Good Dog Pod, so thank you all for listening to us along with that huge amount of time. 

I think there is no other way for us to conclude the lookback of 2023 without talking about our community and, specifically, our community events. I think that’s such a big part of how we at Good Dog connect with one another. We connect with the Good Dog teammates, like myself. We connect with our fellow Good Breeders. I wanted to look back on some of the amazing ways we’ve built and grown our community over the past year. 

One of the ways we do that is through our private Good Breeder Facebook group. That is a place that is exclusive for members of our Good Breeder Community. It’s a really great way to find that one-to-one support that is really unique within the dog breeding world. It’s where you can get advice from other breeders. Cheer each other on in your achievements—whatever it may be. That group is growing rapidly every single day. I think the conversations that we’re having in the group are just getting better and better. We’re almost at 9,000 members to close off the year, which is really exciting. We’re just excited to see that group and that space continue to grow and really be that safe space for our community to come together. 

In terms of events, I couldn’t believe this when I was putting these notes together for this recording, but we hosted over 60 virtual events this year. That is more than we’ve done in any year past. That’s more than one event a week! Really crazy and a big year for us with virtual events. Some of the ones that stick out to me as highlights are some of our breeding business webinars that we did this year. Those were pretty new for us, and just an experiment to see if that was something that our community was interested in. You really were! It’s exciting for us to think about what we can do next year with those topics in mind. Just to look back on some of those topics we covered: Taxes for Breeders. That was a really popular one to kick off the new year as we entered tax season. We were able to bring on a tax professional to talk about the unique ways that taxes apply to dog breeders and help all of you navigate that. We hosted Search Engine Optimization 101 for breeders, where we talked all about the improvements that you can make to your Good Dog profile to really stand out in search results. We talked about all the work that our team does behind the scenes to bring you the Good Dog buyers from across the country that you have, and then business insurance! That was a really interesting webinar. We talked all about the unique needs of insurance for dog breeders. We were guided, again, by a business insurance professional who just walked through what this means for dog breeders, and answered your questions. It was really fun to dive into those brand-new business related topics for the year. I know our community really enjoyed those.

I’m sticking true to our Good Dog roots. We had a ton of webinars about canine health! Some of the ones that stick out to me are Merle Genetics that we did with Dr. Robert Westra. That one was really interesting. Then we did a number of webinars with Purina, which was so exciting. We partnered with them on a lot of webinars about canine nutrition, one of them being Food: Friend or Foe: How to Use Diet to Your Advantage with Dr. Jason Gagne. We covered canine nutrition before and after pregnancy with Dr. Fran Smith. And then we covered Canine Epilepsy and Cognitive Dysfunction with Dr. Lauren Stump. Those were super popular among our community. I remember the chats throughout all of those webinars, and they were just going crazy with questions. We got so many previously-submitted questions. It’s helpful for us to know that canine nutrition continues to be a huge topic of interest in our community. 

Speaking of Purina, we also hosted our in-person Breeder Appreciation Happy Hour with them, and that was in celebration of Westminster Week! That was in New York City, and that was really great. I was there. It was really fun to get to see breeders in real life, some that I know through our Facebook group, some that I’ve worked with on podcast episodes, or columns for the Good Breeder Center. It was not only fun for me to meet all of you in person but also to see all of you meeting each other for the first time and mingling together. That in-person event is always such a highlight.

I know, unfortunately, that we couldn’t get all of the breeders in our community into one room together in New York City, but in light of that, we did something new this year for the first time. We hosted our first-ever Breeder Appreciation Summer Celebration, which was a virtual event for everyone in our community to enjoy and celebrate before our big holiday party, a halfway mark to that. That was really fun. I loved that. I was so glad we were able to bring that idea to life and bring it to our community. It was just a really, really fun way to get together—I believe it was in July—and celebrate more than half of the year that had gone by. Of course, we had all the amazing giveaways as usual. That was a really fun event, and I am looking forward to doing that next July. Hopefully it becomes another new tradition for us. 

Thinking a little more recently, back to the past few months: we celebrated our third annual Health Symposium, also sponsored by Purina. The registration for that was pretty crazy. It was three times more than usual. That symposium was all about improving the reproductive health of our dogs. Some of the topics and presentations that we enjoyed were: Using Serial Progesterone Measurements in Breeding Management with Dr. Christina Belton, Myths and Misconceptions in Canine Reproductive with Dr. Greg Burns, Neonatal Resuscitation and Care with Dr. Shelby, which I think was our most popular. The chat for that one was just absolutely crazy with questions! There were so many great ones. We could have had her on for probably five hours, and I think everyone would have stayed on with us. I think we will definitely have to get Dr. Shelby back. And then we had a PennHIP and Hip Dysplasia Q&A with Dr. Gale Smith, and that was just a really great way to continue the tradition of our symposium. I’m always so happy to see, every year, how many breeders attend, how many breeders bring such great questions, and every day after a presentation, it’s really great to see the discussion in our Facebook group take shape. People share everything that they learned: things they knew, things they didn’t know before. We’re really excited to continue offering that. 

While it’s on the top of my mind, I just wanted to take a second to call out to everybody that as we’re planning 2024, which we have started already (crazily enough), please continue emailing us, letting us know on Facebook what your suggestions are for future Canine Health topics. It is so, so helpful for us, as we plan the year ahead, to hear what kind of topics all of you are interested in learning about more, any speakers that we’ve brought on before that you’ve absolutely loved, that you’d like to hear from again, or speakers that you haven’t brought on before that you think would be really great. Please always email us at breederteam@gooddog.com with your suggestions. I cannot stress enough how helpful it is, as we’re thinking about what kind of webinars and podcasts to bring you, just to hear what’s top of mind for all of you! Please reach out as those ideas come to you.

By the time this episode airs (I believe this airs on the 13th of December) it will be time for our Fifth Annual Breeder Appreciation Virtual Celebration. For anyone who’s unfamiliar, this is our biggest event of the year. It is a completely virtual Facebook Live celebration, where we get together as the Good Dog team and breeder community, and we just celebrate everything we did this year. We talk about all that we achieved in 2023, all that we’re looking forward to. Most importantly: we have a ton of giveaways. It is, I think, our hallmark event of the year. Everyone is so excited about it, so if you have not attended before, I really encourage you to. I guess by the time this airs, it will be later that night, so I just can’t wait for it! We’re already finishing up planning for that, and we just have a bunch of really fun surprises on the way for that virtual party, so we hope to see all of you there to help us close out the year and celebrate. 

I think that lookback kind of brings us to right now. I’m looking at my calendar, and it’s December 4. We’re really close to the end of the year. We’re wrapping things up at Good Dog, to just tie a nice little bow around 2023 and go full steam ahead to 2024. I can’t give away too many things yet about the year ahead (unfortunately) but I did want to preview some of the things that we’re working on so everyone gets a little bit of an idea of what’s in the works at Good Dog.

What I can share is that we’re going to be doing some really exciting work to improve the way that our puppy listings look, to make your available puppies look better than ever, and give buyers even more information than they previously had. We’re working on putting together more educational webinars with Purina, which we can’t wait for. We’re working on more community events, so we will continue doing our Weekly Facebook Lives every single Friday. We have many more webinars in the works. Again, please let us know if you have any suggestions for business or canine health topics that you’d like to hear about in the year ahead. I can say we are planning another in-person event around Westminster Week. We look forward to sharing more about that as soon as we’re able to! 

Those are the only previews that I can give, but we are really putting new things out every single week at Good Dog. If you check our newsletter, if you watch our Facebook Lives, if you listen to this podcast—you know there’s never a dull week at Good Dog. There’s always something new on the way to really help improve what we’re doing for breeders. Please just keep an eye out and keep watching, and we will be sharing a lot of exciting things very soon! In the meantime, please let us know what you want to see from us. What are things we can do to help improve the platform that we’re giving you, to make your lives easier in any way. Please let us know what you want to hear and see from us in the year ahead. It’s just always so helpful!

I think that wraps up this episode. It’s so crazy to think that I’m recording this. I feel like I just recorded the last one looking ahead to 2023—and now the year is already over. I hope all of you have enjoyed this lookback on all that we did this year because it’s so much! I think you should all be so proud of the ways that all of your feedback and suggestions have really helped inform all of these things that we’ve been able to build for breeders and Good Dog buyers. We just can’t wait to share more about what’s coming up in the next few months! With that being said, we’re going to be taking a little break for the holidays, but our podcast will be back and better than ever starting in January. We will see you then in 2024 for our next episode! Until then, from all of us at Good Dog, we wish all of you a very, very happy holiday season and a happy new year! Bye, everyone!