Annie interviews Carly Strife, COO and Co-founder of Bark, the company behind the incredibly successful BarkBox subscription service, which has earned more than half a million subscribers since it launched in 2012. Carly talks about the concept of turning dog toys into human entertainment, and she and Annie chat about the benefits and challenges involved in creating an office that caters equally to both people and pets.

Links:

Show notes - 8 tips for training the perfect office dog - Bark.co - "9 to 5" covered by Azalea Grace

Please make sure to subscribe & rate 5-stars on iTunes! Annie Grossman owns and operates School For The Dogs in NYC.

Studio: http://schoolforthedogs.com - Shop: http://storeforthedogs.com - Facebook: http://facebook.com/groups/schoolforthedogs

---

Partial Transcript:



Annie:

Hello everyone. Today I'm really excited to be talking to Carly Strife, who is one of the three co-founders of Bark, and if you haven't heard of Bark the company, you've probably heard of their best known product, which is called Bark Box. It's a monthly subscription service that has been around for about six years and now has offices in New York City and in Columbus. I met Carly at Bark’s Canal Street office, which is full of dogs and the entire space is set up in such a way that the dogs were clearly a priority. Every desk has room for a crate to go underneath it. There are big baskets full of dog toys at every corner of the office, pretty much. There are poop bags by the elevator and a dog treat dispenser by the elevator. And they're also all these different sort of like cubby- like areas where you can hang out with your dog. There's an area that's gated off where dogs could play off leash and they're planning on expanding their offices in the next few months. I believe they now have three floors and they're going to have five floors or something plus a roof deck. So if you are a dog lover and you are looking for a job in New York City, this is the place to check out. So I was really excited to go there and have Carly give me a tour of the offices and I was eager to hear how they went about creating this especially dog-friendly workplace.

In addition to wanting to talk about the space, I also wanted to talk to Carly about this kind of new sort of dog product she's created, which I would describe as dog products as human entertainment. Bark Boxes often have a theme and all the toys and treats that are in the box will go around this theme. So my favorite one is the artist box that they had with treats called starry bites and a paint palette squeaky toy. And the best part was the Bob Ross squirrel, a squirrel made to look like Bob Ross.



Everything they make is really cute and kitschy and cool. But I admit that I used to be sort of against it all only because it seemed to me like all of their toys were being marketed so that they'd be fun for the humans as opposed to really enjoyable for the dog. But I eventually came around for two big reasons...



Full Transcript available at SchoolfortheDogs.com/Podcasts

Get full access to Don't Be a Dick to Your Dog at dogtraining.substack.com/subscribe