Clean Run - October 2010 - 48

Building Agility Dream
THE
By Micky Jerome and David Bailey, photos by authors What makes two fiscally conservative professionals who never dreamed of owning a business toss a substantial portion of their savings to the dogs? Was there a reason no one else had done this, or were we doing what every agility enthusiast would like to do, if only they had the resources? Can they make it in a dog-eat-dog business? Crazy or clever? Only time will tell. So here’s how it started. We’re two nearly empty nesters in our early fifties who each are still running our first agility dog. Not an impressive resume for canine entrepreneurs, but we had been solidly hooked on agility for about four years. Living in a small Midwestern city with only a few places to train or trial, we traveled a fair amount to compete and to attend seminars. Our travels took us to Lacrosse, Wisconsin, home of Jim and Laurie Haake’s Family Dog Center. We had never been in a facility built expressly for dog training. We looked around and wondered why we had nothing even remotely like this at home. At the time, the company where Micky worked was sold and her role in the business changed. She was surviving in the new corporate culture, but missed the autonomy she used to have running her own department. Micky interviewed around the country for a new job, but never quite found a job worth leaving a community where we had both become quite comfortable. In the spring of 2007, Micky gave up climbing the corporate ladder and decided to channel her business skills into developing a dog business on the side. We took the cash from the sale of her old stock options and we bid on land.

Land, Ho! We decided against buying an inexpensive piece of Iowa farm land outside the city. We wanted accessibility, with an infrastructure of roads and utilities already in place, and resale potential. We knew the site when we found it, nearly four acres of land in a slowly developing industrial park on the edge of town, just off the interstate. It was zoned light industrial and had water, sewer, electricity, and a paved road. The city was growing out to meet it. It had adequate room for a building, parking, and outdoor rings with some room left for earthdog or tracking events. Better yet, we had no close neighbors.
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Now We Need a Building We wanted a steel manufactured building (for pros and cons of various building types, see CR June 2009). Yet we still had much to decide: how big, how high (a lower ceiling means less to heat and cool, higher gives the building more versatility), supported roof (less expensive) or clear span? We wanted a minimum of a 100' x 120' agility ring. We also needed restrooms, an office, and crating space. While bigger is often better, we were mindful of the budget. We figured 100' x 150' would give us just about the minimum to do what we wanted—offer classes and run one-ring indoor trials.

We identified vendors of steel buildings, drew up plans, and started talking to them about various options and pricing. Clear span (no building supports other than the steel buttresses that extend from the sides to support the roof) was more expensive than a supported roof; however, it gave us great versatility in arranging the indoor space. In retrospect, that’s allowed us to divide the working area to accommodate running two classes at the same time. We opted for 16' ceilings, more than you need for agility, but high enough to accommodate a 14' foot overhead door so a truck could drive in if we ever converted the space to a warehouse.

Once we knew what we wanted for a building, we needed someone to build it. While the building vendors would provide contractors, we instead chose a local contractor who was connected with local subcontractors and knew local building code. We wrote a contract specifying that our building vendor would provide the design, steel and shell erection, and our contractor’s subs would do the excavation, concrete, plumbing, and electrical work. Once the interior was roughed in, we would do the remaining interior finishing (hanging doors, painting, trim work, and so on). Although we wrote the contract anticipating as much detail as we could, we
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Clean Run - October 2010

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