Small Businesses Are Not Neutral

By Stephanie Keesey-Phelan, Ph.D., BCBA

Whenever we are introducing ourselves Ran and I like to joke about how The Dog Behavior Institute, though founded in July of 2021, has been in the making conceptually for over a decade. Ran and I grew up in the same suburb of Boston and attended the same high school. We shared a love and passion for animals, especially and obviously dogs, and followed a similar trajectory in our careers. We attended Simmons College where we obtained our Masters degrees in Behavior Analysis, went on to work together at a company that provided Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) services, went our separate ways to work with human learners for a few years, and found ourselves both wanting something different in January of 2021. Through all of these shared experiences, Ran asked me about once every six months if we should start a dog training company together. Each time they asked me, I smiled and said “not yet,” or some other similarly placating remark.

That is, until March 3, 2023 when I finally texted Ran:

(Don’t be fooled by the “since you first mentioned it a few months ago” comment - this was in response to the most recent attempt at convincing me to start a dog training business!)

When we sat down to craft what our business would actually be, again and again we found ourselves returning to values. We had a general sense of what types of services we wanted to provide for clients with dogs and dog professionals with clients, but we wanted to do it in a way that honestly just wouldn’t feel icky. We both had prior employment experiences where the bottom line bumped up against and was often in conflict with the best interests and wellbeing of both employees and consumers. It took a toll in more ways than one. On the flip side, we had also been part of companies and organizations that took an active role in and were important parts of their communities. We saw that there really was no neutral place from which to work as a small business - and even if there was, we didn’t want it! We didn’t want to hide our values. Ran and I knew that if DBI was going to last, we had to embed our values into every piece of our work together.

Thus began the work! First, we laid out what our values were and then set about figuring out how to incorporate them into The Dog Behavior Institute. It can sometimes feel overwhelming to determine how to best contribute to a positive vision for the world (should I volunteer? Donate money? Read more books? Attend more talks?) and Ran and I found that by weaving the things we cared about into our business we could not only make DBI a more authentic version of the work we wanted to do, but we could live our values within more than just our personal lives - within our professional lives as well. Ultimately, though we are still growing and learning every day, this came down to lots of little actions that fit under three big umbrellas:

Umbrella #1: Making our services accessible

We know that dog training and behavior services can be expensive, which can be a significant barrier for some. From the start, we have offered a sliding scale program that provides a set number of spots per month for our training services, group classes, and professional courses. We also offer a set number of free BIPOC enrollments for our group classes and professional courses as well. We are thrilled that this program has served as a model for other trainers (if you’d like to use it, please contact us! We’re happy to share our model with attribution).

Umbrella #2: Supporting local organizations

As a small business, we want to participate and support the other organizations and businesses in our community that are working on important issues! To that end, we donate 5% of our revenue quarterly. Although we do sometimes donate to larger, national organizations, the majority of our donations have gone to Massachusetts-based organizations. Most recently, in the last quarter of 2022 we donated to our local libraries. Though best known for the lending of books, libraries provide so much more - including community programming, social events, job support, and a warm space that is open to all. We list all past recipients of our donations on our website. 

Umbrella #3: A commitment to anti-racism and inclusion 

Ran and I acknowledge that we are both white people who grew up in a primarily white town outside of Boston, Masscahusetts. We know that this privilege has impacted us in innumerable ways and has impacted how we came to even found The Dog Behavior Institute in the first place. We also know that unlearning racism and other prejudices is ongoing active work. To that end, here are some of the actions we take to support an anti-racist and inclusive efforts:

• We allocate a portion of our professional development funding to education in anti-racism and inclusivity 

• We host consultants for the dog training community so we can continue to identify gaps in our knowledge and practices. It is really important that we hire qualified people for this. It is hard work and emotional labor to teach others about their privilege and about the ways in which they can do better. This emotional labor is work and as such it should be paid! One example of how we do this is the workshop we’re hosting this month on neurodiversity-affirming practices, led by Dr. August Stockwell. 

• Ran leads a webinar on gender identity for dog professionals several times a year. This webinar seeks to help participants clarify language (especially around pronoun use), build skills, and better support families that participants work with. 

• We have started to incorporate land acknowledgements into all of our presentations and courses and are seeking out ways to learn more about and support our local indigenous communities. 

• We ask everyone we consider partnering or working with (including the certifying bodies that we consider getting certified with) about their values and their work around diversity, equity, and inclusion. We do this not to ensure that other organizations are doing exactly what we are, but because we want to be sure that our time and effort goes to people who share our values and commitment to anti-racism and inclusion. 

• We reach out and give feedback to the organizers or conferences, webinars, and other events that we attend when we see that all of the speakers at their events are white or that BIPOC speakers have only been invited to talk about topics around DEI.  

We welcome feedback on how we are doing and know that there is always more to be done.  We hope that in taking these actions we can continue to grow, serve our community fully and consistently with our values, and inspire other small (and large!) businesses to do the same.