Hey {{first_name}},

I want to tell you why we do this. Because it did not start with a brand or a business idea or anything like that. It started with a dog who could not walk.

His name was Mr. Pickles. And in 2012, he had been through six or seven surgeries on his knee. What nobody could figure out for a long time was that the original surgery site had gotten infected - a MRSA infection that took months and multiple vets to diagnose. By the time we finally met the vet who figured it out and fixed him, it had been nearly a year and a half.

Once he was healed, we had one thought: he loves the beach. Let us take him to the beach. Let us meet some other Corgi people.

We put it on Facebook - no Instagram back then, definitely no TikTok - and 15 people showed up. We made peanut butter sandwiches, put out cookies, made name tags, and just hung out. Nothing fancy. No vendors, no merch, no stage. Just Corgis.

We did it again three months later and a couple hundred people came. Then 500. Then it was in the thousands. We used to have a sign-in sheet where people would wait in line for an hour just to register their Corgi. At one point we counted 1,200 Corgis at a single event. Then we stopped counting.

Today Corgi Beach Day brings out around 10,000 people twice a year. We have Corgi Nationals at Santa Anita. We have Corgi Nation Vacation in Pismo Beach. We have an Arizona crew who drives six hours each way for every single event. We have people who met here and became best friends. And at least one wine tasting on a cliff overlooking the sunset.

And it is still just me and Dan. Dan painting props at 9pm the night before. Me with purple paint all over my hands wondering how we ended up here. We love every minute of it.

Over the next few emails I am going to share something with the community that I think a lot of you will find interesting. It is health-related - and given that the whole reason this community started was because of a dog who needed surgery, that feels right.

More in the next one. Thank you for being part of this. Truly.

P.S. If you are wondering whether Mr. Pickles eventually got to the beach and played Frisbee - he did. Many, many times. He had a good life.