Business Spotlight: Leader of the Pack

Last edited at 5:32 p.m., March 23, 2015.

John Lopez’s Rogersville business venture really began amid the battlegrounds of Afghanistan.

An Army sergeant in 2006 told Lopez and the rest of the battalion the next year they’d focus on fighting their fears.

Lopez’s greatest fear?

“I used to actually be terrified of dogs,” Lopez says.

Today, Lopez runs two businesses catering to canines: Standing Obeytion Dog Training LLC and The Howliday Inn Pet Resort LLC.

Any given day, Lopez and staff handle over 30 dogs, and since 2010, he’s trained 4,000 dogs. Annual revenue is approaching $300,000.

The work has earned him a nickname in the canine community.

“He’s our dog whisperer,” says Deb White of Wonder Weims Rescue.

Lopez works with weimaraners awaiting foster homes or adoptive families through the rescue.

“There’s been a couple they told us could never be around people or other dogs,” White says.

Then John works them, “And the dog’s fine,” she says.

Magical walks
Well before the nickname, Lopez took the sergeant’s command to heart. When he returned home, Lopez started connecting with dog rescue groups. He also spent six months studying National Geographic TV show “Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan.”

In 2008, Lopez was ready to try his hand at the dog-training gig, and he posted an advertisement on Craigslist.

“My first training session was two pit bulls. I just jumped right into the mix,” he says, recalling his first impression of the territorial dogs: snarling faces and fangs out.

The trial by fire training served him well, but he does identify a misstep. The ad said, “If I can’t train your dog, I’ll pay you $50.”

The kickback offer backfired.

“They didn’t have any money to pay me. They just thought they were going to get $50,” he says. “I took that ad off two weeks later.”

Seven years in, Lopez has developed a knack for connecting with dog DNA.

“If you understand the instinct behind the animal, a dog is easy to train,” he says.

Targeting behavior, Lopez’s training follows three steps: 1. The walk. 2. Boundaries. 3. Food control.

“The magic is the walk,” he says. “Dogs are so pack oriented that they establish everything in movement.”

A video on his websites shows Lopez walking three dogs with no tension on the leashes. It’s a stark contrast to the common dog walking the owner scenario.

“His only job is to follow,” Lopez says on the video.

The walk, he says, establishes the alpha command inherently sought regardless of breed. An error among most dog owners, especially at the puppy phase, is giving unearned affection, he says.

“Humans are the only animals that start with affection. That’s why dogs grow up not listening to us but will listen to the cat,” he says.

With this model, Lopez says 95 percent of his dogs are trained in the first week. The longer process is transitioning that alpha position to the owners, which may take up to a year.

“If they practice dominance with the owner for three years,” he says, “they don’t want to give that mindset up.”

Nature’s copycat
Lopez spent his first five years in business based out of his house. In December 2013, he moved to a 9,000-square-foot former warehouse off of U.S. Highway 60 in Rogersville. The nondescript building tucked behind Titan Propane has an adjacent 6,000-square-foot fenced area for outdoor play.

With 26 rooms for boarding, Lopez says the space can hold up to 40 dogs. He invested $50,000 in the building for fencing, kennels, floor paint with two-part epoxy and bringing the boarding rooms up to Department of Agriculture code.

Wonder Weims’ White says Howliday Inn will house rescued weimaraners until their foster or adoptive families are ready.

“We don’t have a kennel or a shelter,” says White, the group’s volunteer coordinator for southwest Missouri.

Other dogs need Lopez’s corrective training before moving on. She says partners in St. Louis have been known to transport dogs to Springfield for his services.

“It helps get them ready for adoption,” she says of the group’s work to place 70 dogs in homes last year. “Unfortunately, we do get dogs in that have to be worked with before getting adopted.”

Lopez discounts his rate for rescues from the regular $60 nightly boarding and training fee. The drop-off training rate is $150 and in-home training is $250, he says, noting sales are evenly split between four services. Grooming starts at $20 per dog, and the work is handled by two subcontrators.

The next project is starting a food bank for dogs.

Lopez is working with professional speaker Pam Holt and attorney Kurt Larsen to create a nonprofit.

“It’s for rescue groups to get low-cost food,” Holt says, noting the group has yet to file paperwork.

She says they’ve identified over 20 dog rescue groups in southwest Missouri and northwest Arkansas that could benefit from the food bank.

Holt, who works as director of patient education for Mercy, also is a client. Her dogs, Brando and Jack, stay with Lopez a few days a week.

“Jack was in the top 10 list of worst dogs he’s worked with,” she says. “I had two previous dog trainers tell me my dog needed to be put to sleep. He’s fine now.”

While all cases are different, Lopez always goes back to structuring the dog pack.

“It’s not about making them robots,” he says. “It’s about setting the rules because, later, freedom is simple.

“We just copy what they do in nature.”[[In-content Ad]]