Breeding Better Dogs: The Future of Canine Welfare with Victoria Ellsmore

So if we can talk about the amazing work that you've done in terms of welfare and the things that are coming up in the

future.

I created All Tales Media with it in mind to weave my welfare expertise through everything that we do.

And it came about as just a casual observation that actually there were brands out there within the pet industry that were tripping up with their messaging, not just through actual words and the way that they were presenting that brand, but through the imagery and videography.

and the breeds and things that they were choosing to represent their brand, they were tripping up on welfare grounds.

There were also, I was also coming across video of dogs exhibiting calming signals that, you know, as a dog behavior consultant, you pick up from a mile away and then you sat there thinking, Well, actually, I am the best person when I am in front of a behavior client to recommend a product.

If I can see that some of the media and marketing that you're using is representing something inappropriate in dog behavior or in the breeds or just on welfare grounds entirely, then I'm not going to feel very inclined to recommend that particular product.

And I thought, well, there's something in this.

I've done all of my press work that I've done in the past.

And I got my master photography qualification with the MPA.

And then there's all my behavior stuff that I'm qualified in as well.

I thought, well, What better way, what better person to lead a media and marketing agency that knows about the right messaging so that businesses can basically frame their marketing to represent their products well to vets, to behaviorists, to vet physios, to trainers, to veterinary nurses, because these are the people that are on the ground and you need to represent your brand well to them.

And I guess for me, the nudge that ultimately made me do it is I was walking through the halls of Pat's a few years ago and I walked past a brand that was fairly new.

It was quite a trendy brand.

It was run by a much younger kind of generation than where I'm from.

They were lovely people and they were incredibly passionate about what they did.

But the reason I stopped was not because of their brand.

It was because they'd got an enormous photograph on their stand of a, I think it was a German shepherd.

I wasn't, you see, this is how much I didn't even look at the breed because all I saw was that it was wearing a prong collar.

And I was like, wow, okay, how has somebody not picked this up for you before you've done it? And I know that actually if they'd have realized they'd have been devastated.

So I waited till the end of the show because I thought there's nothing that they can do about it immediately because it was such a integral part of their exhibition.

So I waited and I dropped them a quick message afterwards and I was like, I don't know if anyone else picked this up, but I felt bad in not mentioning it at the time.

Did you realize that that dog was wearing a prong collar? And they were, I was right.

They were devastated.

They were like, no, that's not what we stand for at all.