Gwen Meyer, 38

By Barbara Connors

Gwen Meyer was nine when her parents took her to her first dog show. She laid her eyes on the long, red fur of a show Irish Setter – and she was hooked. A few months later she enrolled in the dog program in 4H, but it wasn’t until she was 13 that she got her first show dog, an Irish Setter named Banner.

To prove her determination to her parents that she was serious about raising and training show dogs, the Milwaukee area native volunteered on weekends with a local veterinarian and washed Westies for two bucks a piece. When the workload got too heavy on holidays, she hired a friend to help. “I begged every Christmas, every birthday, for four years, to get a show dog,” Meyer said with a chuckle.

Now as owner, with her husband Kent, of Meyer’s Kennel, with locations in Belvidere, Roscoe and DeForest (Wis.) near Madison, Meyer has more than her share of show dogs, and regular old family dogs, to care for and train. Husband Kent comes from a family of dog trainers, and the Meyer’s Kennel business has been in his family for three generations.

In 1996, the couple purchased Meyer’s Kennel from the Meyer’s family and renovated the original property in Belvidere. After that, they purchased Canine Colony in Roscoe and Animal House in DeForest.

Today the Belvidere and DeForest locations have lodging for pets with caretakers living onsite. In Belvidere, the luxury Outpost Suites located in a separate log cabin, house dogs in individual rooms, complete with a fieldstone fireplace, air conditioning, log beds, soft music, and TVs. The Belvidere location also offers obedience and show training, agility training, and aquatics training in a new pool. Other services include pet styling and doggie day care.

If all this wasn’t enough, Meyer trains show dogs, particularly Wheaten Terriers, and handles them at show circuits.

When Gwen and Kent met and married, each brought their “heart dogs” — Kent’s a Whippet named Bosephus and Gwen’s a Wheaten Terrier named Georgia. Both agreed that their dogs were like their kids and having children would come a little later. In 2008, the couple lost their dogs to old age – and Gwen found out a week later that she was pregnant with their first child. Last December, they welcomed their son Luke.

This year, just weeks after having her son, Meyer was on the road to show a dog at the Westminster Kennel Club event in New York.

Meyer translates her understanding of the importance of dogs to their owners to how she runs her business. She gives her almost 40-person staff her “Million Dollar Dog” speech. “I tell staff if someone had taken Georgia from me, how much I would pay to get her back – and that’s a million bucks. So they must treat the dogs in their care like million dollar babies.”

Surprisingly, she doesn’t necessarily hire “dog people” for her staff. It’s more important that employees have the ability to develop relationships with people. “I can teach a person about dogs, but I can’t teach a person to be a people person.” Her concept for building an effective team is her “School Bus” theory. “You’ve got to get the right people on the bus, and get the wrong people off the bus, and make sure you get the right people in the right seats.”

The school bus theory fits well with Meyer’s other passion: education. The former Meehan School (Belvidere) teacher believes that the values that she and her husband have learned raising dogs should be shared with children.

In 2008, Meyer launched Kids-N-K-9s Camp for area children entering fifth, sixth and seventh grades. The summer, weeklong day camp matched 14 children with dogs on the premises for a week of training. “The camp taught the kids persistence and how to speak another language – of dog behavior.” She said it was fun, with just a little bit of stress to challenge the children. The experience was so positive, Meyer is repeating the camp this year.