When she parked a potentially lucrative career in law and instead planned on building a business around doggy day care, Rhiannon Beach faced the common question of "yes, that's all very nice; what else do you plan to do?"
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But now with 55 full and part-time staff, around 1000 clients and two centres in Canberra - one at Fisher and another at Macgregor - her Pups4Fun is now one of the busiest operations of its type in the region.
The passion for her business has now netted her a Telstra Best of Business Award in the Accelerating Women category and she will now go to NSW in February as a finalist, and in the running for a national award.
What began as her business plan as a Canberra College student in 2005 has literally and figuratively grown legs - hundreds of them, in fact - and has spun off into dog grooming, dog socialisation, and dog and puppy training. Now she even faces the issue of so many successful businesses: finding and training staff to keep pace with demand.
"Our mission has always been to build this business in Australia, but specifically in Canberra," she said.
"I finished my [law] degree and I hung it on the wall.
"When I started, I was young and I worked with dogs, which was cute but not really many people thought that as a viable business model.
"I really want to build the validity of the business and support people coming through so we've worked really closely with Skills Canberra from a training point of view to get our qualifications on scope and put people through that training."
She had 14 trainees last year and celebrated 15 years in business in 2022.
One of the most unique elements to the business is what is called "out'n'about doggy day care" in which the dogs are loaded into several vans and taken to different places around the ACT where they socialise and interact in public.
"That gets them [the dogs] accustomed to different locations around Canberra like Parliament House and the Dinosaur Museum and it creates responsible canine citizens," she said.
She said that developing a well-behaved, well-socialised dog has to begin early. Her business takes on puppies under five months old, which she described as the "critical learning period", and exposes them not just to other dogs but other stimuli.
The puppies are taught how to control their reactions when confronted with everyday items while out walking, such as bicycles, skateboards, prams and wheelchairs.
Planning the community walks requires careful thought into which dogs fit best in with others, which also determines how many can be walked by one person.
"One of the major focuses is on animal behaviour and body language so when we that interpret correctly, that helps sort out the groups, and who belongs where and what service is best suited to the particular dog, rather than operate it as a numbers game," she said.
Five other ACT businesses also won awards in different categories. They included artist Julia Landford's NatureArt Lab, occupational therapy company Leading Health Solutions, flight training academy Learn2Fly, technology consultancy Informatech, and biotechnology company Diversity Arrays Technology.
