Today we are celebrating!

We are celebrating our ability to survive in the midst of a pandemic.
We are celebrating the innovation and creativity of our amazing team.
We are celebrating the loyalty and support of our astonishingly loving community.
…and we are celebrating a small sign of hope and community in the middle of chaos.

Why are we celebrating these things today?

Because we are finally…finally allowed to hang our official sign outside our training facility.

Eric Swanson, COO of Amanda Gagnon Dog Training, holds up the sign that he worked for nearly 2 years to bring about.

When we signed our lease in August 2018, we could never have imagined that we wouldn’t be legally allowed to hang a sign until July of 2020. Our training center is in a landmarked building. The process that we had to go through to apply for this sign was long, challenging, prohibitively expensive, and constantly confusing. Have I mentioned that the maximum size allowed for such a sign is about the size of a standard piece of printer paper. That’s right, it took us one-and-a-half years, two architects, one dedicated team member (Yay Eric!!), one community board meeting presentation, one city hall presentation, extensive flyering of the neighborhood to inform people of our intent to sign, permit approval, two sign makers, one officially sanctioned sign hanger, and a partridge (of the pear tree inclination) to gain the rights to hang an 8x12 sign. That’s inches. 8x12 inches.

We were stoked to finally receive our permit in early March…
(You may be able to guess what happened next.)
But we decided not to hang it when we had to shutter our store due to the pandemic.

And now…amid chaos and uncertainty, we have decided to take a step forward in faith. Our team has worked passionately to save our company and to continue to help the people and dogs in our community. We are optimistic that we will have the strength to navigate the rest of this pandemic and beyond. The world looks new to us, and we are excited to see what the future holds. We look forward to continuing to work with all of our favorite humans and dogs in new and innovative ways.

Here’s to the future!
Here’s to perseverance!
Here’s to having faith in the unknown!

Cheers, my friends.