I recently listened to an episode of The Mel Robbins Podcast called How to Change Your Life Right Now, in which Mel sat down with Gary Vaynerchuk.
Gary has been incredibly influential in Mel’s career, so it was interesting to hear them talk about where she started, what has changed and what so often keeps people from moving forward.
One part of their conversation especially stayed with me: the blame game.
We look at what someone else has. We compare where they are to where we are. We think about what happened in our past, what someone else did—or did not do—for us, and all the reasons our lives, businesses or careers do not look the way we thought they would.
Then we allow those reasons to explain why we cannot move forward.
Their conversation was not about the pet care industry, but as I listened, I could not stop thinking about how often we do the very same thing.
We look at another facility’s enrichment program and think they have it all figured out.
We see their activities, equipment, photos or social media engagement and immediately begin comparing their finished product to whatever we are still trying to build.
They have more equipment.
They have a bigger staff.
Their customers seem more interested.
Their posts get more likes.
They started sooner.
They must know something we do not.
Meanwhile, we are left wondering why our program is not getting the participation, feedback or traction we hoped it would.
Maybe we feel like we are late to the game. Maybe we think we should have started last month, last year or five years ago. Maybe we tried something once and it did not go well. Our customers did not immediately understand it. Our staff was not fully on board. We did not have the right equipment, or the entire thing simply was not planned as well as it needed to be.
Those frustrations are real.
But they do not have to become the reason we stop.
What Didn’t Work Is Not Proof That It Won’t Work
When something does not go as planned, it is very easy to decide:
“Well, I guess enrichment just doesn’t work here.”
But what if that is not what the experience is telling us?
What if it is simply showing us what did not work—and giving us the information we need to make the next attempt better?
If customers did not respond, maybe they did not understand what was being offered or why it would benefit their dogs.
If the staff did not follow through, maybe no one was clearly assigned responsibility for preparing and leading the activities.
If the program felt chaotic, maybe it was too large to begin with. Maybe the supplies were not ready, or the activities did not fit naturally into the facility’s existing schedule.
If participation was low, maybe the pricing, promotion, registration process or timing needs to be adjusted.
None of that automatically means enrichment will not work in your facility. It simply means something about that particular plan did not work.
There is a very important difference between the two.
Instead of saying, “This is why enrichment doesn’t work here,” we can ask, “What didn’t work, why didn’t it work, and what can we change?”
That is ownership.
Ownership does not mean blaming yourself or beating yourself up because you did not get everything right the first time. It means being willing to look honestly at what happened, learn from it and take the next step.
I Didn’t Have It All Figured Out Either
If you are new here, you should know that I am not writing this as someone who woke up one morning with the perfect enrichment program completely mapped out.
I have been in the pet care industry for almost 20 years, and I have genuinely loved watching this entire ecosystem evolve and grow. I have especially loved watching enrichment become what it is today and seeing more facilities recognize how beneficial it can be for the dogs in their care.
But even with years of experience in this industry, I struggled to figure out how to get our own enrichment program off the ground.
And when I say it took me a while, I mean it took me years.
There were ideas to develop, activities to plan, supplies to gather, staff to train and customers to educate. There were schedules to consider, responsibilities to assign and daily facility operations that still had to happen.
When you feel like a one-person show trying to put all of that together, it can become very daunting, very quickly.
I would consider the enrichment program we have today to be extremely successful. I am proud of what we have built, and I am excited about everything we are still creating.
But I do not want to give anyone the impression that success means we no longer struggle.
We do.
We still have activities that need to be adjusted. We still have plans that look good on paper but do not work quite as smoothly once we put them into action. We still face staff changes, busy seasons, unexpected challenges and ideas that need more development.
We have not reached some magical point where everything runs perfectly and we never need to rethink anything.
Honestly, I hope we never become that comfortable.
Struggle Is Part of the Process
Struggle is not always evidence that something is failing.
Sometimes it is evidence that you are still paying attention.
It means you are noticing when an activity does not serve the dogs as well as you hoped it would. You are recognizing when a process is too complicated for your staff. You are listening when customers are confused about what you are offering. You are responding when the needs of your facility change.
Struggle is often part of continuing to evolve—and we have to evolve if we want to serve our dogs and clients to the best of our ability.
We cannot become stagnant.
That does not mean constantly changing everything or chasing every new idea we see online. It means being willing to learn, adjust and continue building a program that fits our own dogs, staff, schedule, space and goals.
Your program does not need to look like someone else’s program.
It simply needs to work in your facility.
Start Before Everything Is Perfect
This was my biggest takeaway from the podcast:
Start.
S-T-A-R-T.
Start.
You will get nowhere with anything you want to build if you never allow yourself to begin.
You do not need to have an entire year of activities planned. You do not need a room full of expensive equipment. You do not need every staff member to be an enrichment expert, and you do not need hundreds of customers waiting to sign up.
Choose one activity.
Choose one day.
Decide what supplies you need and who will be responsible for preparing them, leading the activity and documenting it.
Tell your customers what you are offering and why it matters.
Then run the activity.
Afterward, look at what happened.
What worked? What felt difficult? What did the dogs enjoy? What did the staff need? What questions did your customers ask? What could make it easier the next time?
Take what you learned, adjust the plan and start again.
You Are Going to Keep Starting
Starting is not one brave decision you make at the beginning of your program.
You are going to keep starting.
You will start again when an activity does not work, when a team member leaves and responsibilities have to be reassigned, or when a new season changes your schedule.
You will start again when participation slows down, when your dogs need something different or when you discover a better way to do something.
That is not failure.
That is what growth looks like.
Once you have a plan, once that plan has been assigned and once it begins to be executed, it suddenly does not feel quite so heavy.
It begins to feel manageable.
It may even begin to feel exciting.
I get excited now when I see all the pieces coming together. I get excited watching our team take an idea and bring it to life. I get excited seeing how the dogs respond and finding new ways to make the experience even better.
But that excitement was built on years of starting, learning, changing and starting again.
Why I Created TailMade Adventures
That experience is one of the biggest reasons I created TailMade Adventures.
I know what it feels like to have an idea you believe in but not know how to get all the pieces moving in the same direction.
I know how overwhelming it can feel when you are the person expected to develop the activities, prepare the supplies, guide the staff, market the program and keep everything organized—all while continuing to operate the rest of your business.
TailMade Adventures is not here to tell you there is only one correct way to run an enrichment program. It is not here to give you a rigid plan that must be followed line by line.
It is here to be a resource.
It is here to give you ideas, guidance and a place to begin. It is here to help you create a plan, communicate that plan to your staff and move from thinking about enrichment to putting it into action.
You can take what fits your dogs, your team and your facility and make it your own.
Will that mean everything suddenly becomes effortless?
No.
You will still have to make decisions. You will still need to lead your staff. You will still need to review what is happening and make changes along the way.
But you do not have to carry every piece of it alone, and you do not have to wait until you have everything figured out.
Stop waiting for the perfect staff, the perfect equipment, the perfect schedule or the perfect plan.
Stop allowing someone else’s program to make you feel as though you are already too far behind.
Stop treating the things that did not work as proof that you cannot make this work.
Look at what happened. Learn from it. Change what needs to change.
Then start again.
S-T-A-R-T.
Start.
Ready to Start?
You do not have to have everything figured out before you begin—and you do not have to build it alone.
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