Registration
Early bird registration for the ODD Ball 2027 in Albuquerque, NM is now open!
Previously, registration was only open to members of the Owners of Dog Daycares Facebook group <-Current daycare owners, learn more about the group and register directly for the conference! (Proof of ownership of a dog daycare business is required to join the facebook group. Managers are not eligible for the facebook group, but may attend the conference.)
Now, the conference is open to individual (non-franchise) owners of dog daycares. We would love to have you join us! Please use the button below to email us for a registration link.
Tickets are transferable but not refundable.
Thank you to our ODD Ball 2027 Sponsors!
Our 2027 Speaker Lineup
Candace D’Agnolo
Candace D’Agnolo is a pet industry strategist, educator, and operator. She supports independent pet businesses through Pet Boss Nation and is the founder of Dante & Dory’s Pet Emporium, where she brings big-picture strategy to real-world retail. She writes for Pets+ Magazine, speaks at many pet industry trade shows and has a top globally ranked podcast.
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Keynote:
Every great flight starts on the ground, with fabric and a basket, until someone lights the burner. In this opening keynote, Candace uses the hot air balloon as a launchpad for dog daycare owners ready to stop running a tethered business: drop the ballast holding you back, trust the crew around you, and find the current that carries your business forward. You can't control the wind — but you can choose your altitude. Let's take off.
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Workshop: AI Simplified: Marketing & Time-Back for Pet Business Owners
AI isn't just changing marketing for pet businesses — it's changing how much time everything takes. In this hands-on, 3-hour workshop, Candace walks dog daycare owners through exactly how to use AI for marketing and the everyday business tasks eating up their week — no tech background required. Bring your laptop and leave with real content, working prompts, and a plan you'll actually use. Beginners get a clear, step-by-step foundation; more advanced attendees break into a second track to sharpen their skills, tackle bigger challenges, and swap ideas with peers. You'll get a pre-workshop checklist, prep resources, and a bonus ROI cheat sheet — so you walk away with more than notes. You'll walk away with hours back in your week.
(limited to first 30 people. Additional fee.)
Teija Heikkila
Teija Heikkilä founded PET|VET M&A, Sales & Advisory (formerly National Kennel Sales & Appraisals) and has been a pet care industry pioneer since 1990—the year she opened the first dog daycare in the U.S. Originally from Finland, she has built a 34-year career driven by deep industry passion and expertise.
Teija has personally owned, operated, and sold multiple pet care facilities, giving her unmatched insight into what drives successful sales. As an active pet resort owner through 2022, she understands both sides of the transaction—what it takes to build value and, critically, how to sell for maximum return.
Since founding the company in 2007, Teija has facilitated 285+ successful pet business sales totaling $530MM. She has been at the forefront of industry consolidation from its inception, building relationships with every major buyer and shaping how pet businesses are valued and sold in today’s competitive market.
Teija holds the Certified M&A Professional (CM&AP) and Merger & Acquisition Master Intermediary (M&AMI) designations and is a Licensed Real Estate Broker in over twenty states.
A native of Finland with 30+ years in the U.S., Teija enjoys time with her four dogs in the Colorado mountains, deep-sea diving in the Caribbean, and international travel.
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Topic: Changing competitive Landscape: Consolidators, Pet Sitters, Rover. Industry data.
John Sarver
As the Founder of The Dog Park Company and designer of Gyms For Dogs play and agility equipment, John has more than 30 years of experience helping global leaders in developing interactive human and animal park and play facilities. Throughout his career, John has focused on Health and Wellness products and facility design, leading teams of professionals in the development of unique, engaging play spaces.
John’s specialty is creating environments that encourage human-animal interaction and efficient movement while supporting the health and wellness of both people and pets. He is a strong advocate for Gentle Care for pets and an advocate for Animal Rights and Anti-Cruelty. He remains highly active in the pet-care industry and continues to guide the company’s growth in this direction.
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Topic: Health, Wellness and Physical Activity - Unleashed, Dogs in Group Play
Polly Gang
With more than 30 years of experience in facility design and space planning, Polly specializes in transforming complex environments into functional, high-traffic community spaces. Throughout her career, she has designed prototypes and developed spaces for global brands and national franchise chains, gaining extensive expertise in layout optimization, design consistency, and project management.
As Key Account Manager for The Dog Park Company, Polly works closely with clients on product selection and space planning to help global companies develop indoor and outdoor dog parks and play spaces that are safe, engaging, and practical for dogs and their owners. Polly is an advocate and leader in health and wellness education.
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Topic: Health, Wellness and Physical Activity - Unleashed, Dogs in Group Play
Shawntee Marquez
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Topic: When Good Buildings Get Old: How to modernize your facility without closing your doors.
Stacy Dickinson
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Topic: Agency: How Choice Affects Behavior
Kaz Kelly
Kaz Kelly began her working life in animal welfare, first as a Detector Dog Handler for the Australian Border Force and then as an RSPCA Inspector, before stepping into local politics and identifying a gap in her community that no one else was filling - a place for city dogs to spend their days learning and socializing. She built two doggy day care, training, and grooming businesses in Australia, grew them into a million-dollar operation, and successfully sold.
That experience of building something from nothing, running it through every season of life, and then navigating what it means to leave well became the foundation for everything she does now.
Kaz is the founder of Founder to Future Consulting, a succession planning and exit advisory practice working with founders of pet care businesses across the United States and Australia. She helps plan for whatever the next chapter looks like; whether that's stepping back, handing the business to the right person, or selling. She walks with founders through every step of that journey.
Originally from Australia, Kaz now lives in Las Vegas.
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Topic: Extracting Value: See your business through a buyer’s eye.
You know your business better than anyone. You know the hours that went into it, the problems you've solved, the team you've built, and the clients who keep coming back. But here's the question most pet business owners never stop to ask: does any of that translate into value to someone on the outside?
The way a buyer, a successor, or a future partner sees your business is almost never the way you see it. They're not looking at your passion or your history. They're looking for risk. They're looking for what happens when you're not in the room. They're looking at your numbers, your systems, your dependencies and they're making decisions based on what they find.
In this session, Kaz Kelly, will walk you through what actually creates value in a pet business, what quietly erodes it, and what you can start doing now regardless of whether your next chapter is five months or fifteen years away.
This is not a session about selling your business. It's about understanding what you've actually built so that whenever the time comes to step back, hand over, or sell, you're walking away with what you've truly earned.
What you'll walk away with:
— A clear picture of what buyers and successors actually look for
— The gaps most pet business owners don't see until it's too late
— Practical steps to start building and protecting value now
— A completely different way of looking at your own business
Alex Varney
Alex Varney is the founder and CEO of Considerably Bold, a coaching and resource company helping pet care businesses strengthen their leadership, operations, teams, and customer experience. She is also the Vice President of Operations for Pinnacle Pets Play & Stay, a full-service pet resort in Ohio, bringing more than a decade of hands-on pet care industry experience to her work.
Alex is the creator of The Ruff Call Deck, an educational tool designed to help pet care teams practice difficult conversations and real-world scenarios before they happen. As a public speaker, she presents on leadership, operations, communication, employee engagement, and other topics designed to help pet care professionals build stronger teams and better businesses.
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Topic: When Conversation Gets Ruff: Navigating high-stakes conversations with clients and teams.
Some conversations in pet care are simply hard. Telling a pet parent their dog is no longer a good fit for daycare, discussing an injury or the loss of a pet, addressing employee performance, enforcing an unpopular policy, responding to a complaint, or terminating a team member can leave even experienced professionals searching for the right words.
In this session, attendees will explore the psychology and communication principles behind productive conversations when emotions and stakes are high. Through practical communication frameworks and real-world pet industry scenarios, participants will learn how to prepare for difficult conversations, communicate clearly without losing empathy, manage emotional responses, and move conversations toward productive outcomes. Attendees will leave with repeatable tools they can use to approach crucial conversations with greater confidence, clarity, and compassion.
Marti Michaelis
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Topic: Hiring and Onboarding
Beverly Linning
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Topic: Procedures
Eve Molzhon
Eve Molzhon has been training, boarding, and learning about dogs for over 20 years. Eve is a member of the Association of Professional Dog Trainers, the International Association of Canine Professionals, the International Boarding & Pet Services Association, and the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants. In 2013, she started her dog daycare and boarding business, Fun Fur Pets, as a modest operation. It has grown and exceeded expectations in a very short amount of time.
As her Fun Fur Pets business grew, one of her obstacles was training new hires. Despite using checklists and tracking materials, Eve realized there were still gaps in her employees’ training. The biggest problem she found was perception. Sometimes what she meant and what a trainee heard turned out to be two different things. It’s easy to accept affirmation as understanding, but in reality, it’s based on the employee’s perception, not the trainer’s.
Dog Handler Academy grew out of Eve’s concern that her dog handlers might not be as proficient as she assumed. Her goal is to have the best dog daycare in the area that gives the best experience possible for the dogs and is a fun, safe place for people to work.
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Topic: Virtual Assistants
Susan Briggs
Susan Briggs is the founder of Crystal Canine, a fractional CFO resource helping pet care
business owners gain financial clarity, improve profitability, and make more confident
business decisions.
Susan brings a unique combination of financial expertise and hands-on pet industry
experience. She began her career as an auditor with Ernst & Young, earned a Master of
Accountancy, and passed the CPA exam before becoming an entrepreneur. As co-founder
of Urban Tails, a large multi-service pet care center in Houston, she spent more than 12
years operating a business offering daycare, boarding, grooming, and training services.
Susan is the author of Counting Noses, a financial management guide created specifically
for the pet industry, and co-author of Off-Leash Dog Play. She also co-founded The Dog
Gurus, an education and training resource for pet care businesses, and the Professional
Animal Care Certification Council (PACCC).
A frequent industry speaker and educator, Susan is passionate about making financial
management easier to understand and helping pet business owners use their numbers to
build stronger, more profitable businesses.
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Topic: Beyond the P&L: Financial Leadership for the Next Stage of Your Business
Established pet businesses need more than accurate financial reports—they need financial leadership that helps owners anticipate what’s ahead and take action before it impacts profit. This session explores three important shifts: moving from lagging results to leading indicators, from managing payroll percentages to building the right fixed and variable staffing structure, and from simply reviewing the numbers to actively leading your financial system. Walk away with practical strategies to spot issues earlier, make more confident decisions, and build a stronger financial foundation for your business’s next stage.
Mary Tan
Mary Tan is the chief storyteller of Whisker Media, a boutique strategic communications agency
specializing in the pet industry. She helps pet businesses and animal welfare organizations build
their brands, tell their stories and, most importantly, prepare for and communicate through a
crisis.
A sought-after speaker in the pet industry, Mary regularly speaks to pet professionals, trade
organizations and industry conferences about strategic communications, public relations and
crisis communications. Her approach is rooted in helping business owners understand how to
take control of their own stories—especially when something goes wrong.
Before launching Whisker Media, Mary worked in animal shelter public relations and served as
a public information officer in city government. She also spent many years as an award-winning
television reporter and anchor in markets including Atlanta, Minneapolis and Las Vegas,
reporting major stories for networks including Fox News, CNN, CBS News and NBC News. That
experience gives her a unique perspective on what happens when a crisis hits—and what
businesses need to do to protect their reputation, their customers and their teams.
Through Whisker Media, she combines her newsroom experience with her passion for animals
to help pet businesses communicate with confidence when it matters most. She lives in Buffalo,
Minnesota with her elderly father, a Schnoodle named Freddie and three rescued cats named
Dr. Farley Waddlesworth, President Franklin Delano Tan and Fleur.
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Topic: Your Worst Business Nightmare Just Happened: how to handle the public/media backlash
Dr. Jed Topham
Dr Jed Topham did his undergraduate studies at Utah State University and graduated with his DVM from Oregon State University. He spent the next 20 years working as a practice owner at American Pet Hospital in Las Vegas NV, focusing on general practice, dentistry, dermatology, and ultrasound. Following a corporate transition, he continued to serve as the medical director at the practice for another 6 years. Building and supporting a great clinic team enabled him to be successful in his career.
He joined Merck as a Professional Services Veterinarian in April of 2026 and is excited for this next phase of his career.
Outside of work he enjoys spending time with his family. He and his wife have 5 children, two grandchildren, a pointer named Blu and a Cavalier named Dottie. He enjoys travel, fishing, hiking, camping, and spending time in the outdoors.
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Topic: Latest on Vaccine Protocols and Upper Respiratory Diseases
Amber Bartlett
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Topic: The Balance of Work: the myth
Dr. Sarah Cutler Tew
Sarah Cutler Tew, MS, PhD, is an animal health executive, scientist, and strategist with more than 20 years of experience developing and commercializing innovative products, technologies, and services for pets and the veterinary profession.
She is currently Principal Consultant at SC2 Scientific and Commercial Consulting, where she works with animal health companies, investors, and nonprofit organizations on product development, scientific validation, commercialization, and strategic initiatives. Sarah also serves as a scientific advisor to emerging animal health companies focused on connected-pet technology and companion-animal therapeutics. Previously, she held senior leadership positions at PetIQ, IDEXX, and Merial/Boehringer Ingelheim, leading initiatives ranging from veterinary medical operations and access to care to new-product development and innovation. At PetIQ, she helped oversee medical operations supporting thousands of veterinary clinics and wellness centers serving more than one million pets annually.
Sarah holds a PhD in Bioengineering from Georgia Tech and Emory University and began her career conducting translational research in traumatic brain injury, contributing to numerous scientific publications and a U.S. patent application. Throughout her career, she has remained passionate about using science, innovation, and collaboration to improve veterinary care and strengthen the bond between people and their pets.
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Topic: Technology / What’s New in Petcare
Panel
Stacy Dickinson
Eve Molzhon
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Topic: Enrichment activities in daycare.
Panel
Marti Michaelis
Patrick Nolan
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Topic: Absentee Owners
Panel
John Seal
Del Esparza
Duane Carey
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Topic: Marketing