We were lucky to catch up with Holly Owens recently and have shared our conversation below.

Holly, appreciate you joining us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

My parents were always understanding and supportive people who wanted to see me doing anything I was passionate about, whether it was with animals, art or another venture.

They allowed me to have all kinds of exotic pets which fostered my interest in herpetology further even if they thought it was crazy. My mom connected me with my first job in 2014 of taking care of an exotic breeding collection of snakes, lizards and other various species which I loved. I worked there throughout high school and went to exotic trade shows like Repticon where I got to connect with other people who loved the hobby and studied like I did. I ended up with my first parrot, who is a cockatiel named Sonny from one of those shows in 2015 as well as bearded dragons, geckos and various other lizards.

Around 2017, our family dog Maggie, a pomeranian sheltie mix, passed away from old age. A few months after her passing, we decided to get an australian shepherd puppy, who unbeknownst to me would start an entirely new focus in my life but not right away. Shortly after graduating high school in 2018, I moved to Athens, Georgia to go to college and promptly dropped out after one semester. When I moved back home, I was depressed, anxious and had gained 60 pounds with no career direction. It was at the same time Mylo grew into his adolescence and was reeking havoc on my parents house. They gave me a justified ultimatum to train him or rehome, so it was then that I started to learn how to train dogs and it only grew from there.

I’m very thankful to have parents who always had the best intentions in mind with enough room to make mistakes and learn on my own and ask for support if I needed it.

Holly, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I think what makes me different is that I’m willing to attempt and take more risks than most to learn new skills in and outside of my career as a dog trainer. Inspiration is everywhere and anywhere from anyone.

As a lifelong creative introvert, I’ve explored a ton of art forms like realism drawing, flip book animation and I wrote a four volume book series which was never published. I’ve explored many hobbies like chess, ceramics, fps games, weightlifting, running, english horseback riding and loved them all. As an adult I could only wish for time to do more outside of monetized ventures.

I’m most proud of the trick training I do with Sparky and Mylo, my dogs who each have their individual talents and strengths. The complexity and discipline behind what we do stems from what I learned through art. Drawing from a photo is hard because your brain fills in the gaps for you, so you have to constantly switch between looking at the photo and where your hand is placing pressure on the pencil to the paper. The same is true for learning a dog trick from a viral video. You must take in every detail and think about how that person did that and how you can too then devise a way to train it yourself. There is no tutorial for this way of thinking and learning other than being a kinesthetic learner that I know of. I’ve been doing my best to create free tutorials for people who want to learn those complex tricks, too.

If there’s anything I’d want my followers to do it’s consider how much time you spend actually attempting versus only thinking about the idea of doing it.

Stop thinking anything is hard for you, it’s not hard you just don’t know yet.

Embarrassment is temporary, regret can be lifelong. Get out there!

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

My goal has always been to have a smaller, more connected audience of fans than millions of followers. Some think this is a bad business move, but i’ve found it to be more fulfilling seeing your clients, friends and fans enjoy your content than the free dopamine of instant likes.
Sharing our craft can go viral, and it has, but don’t negate the human element that is social media. When you start earning new clients daily and passive income from posting online, the data associated becomes less important.
My best advice is to decide what type of creator you want to be first. Being a dog creator is already a niche, but what sort of dog creator are you? A dog trainer, groomer, personality, etc are all sub niches that can help propel you in a direction. The second is to learn camera skills, photography and video editing basics while you have started posting. The best way to get started is to do just that and to accept there is no linear certainty when it comes to growing online.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

The biggest lesson I’ve had to unlearn is that meeting people is an opportunity for connection, not anxiety. I’ve had social anxiety disorder all my life but since I chose to be a dog trainer, a very people facing job, I’ve had to face it head on to keep this career. And thankfully I did, because I wouldn’t change it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.facebook.com/lizardGirl/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dynasty_trick_dogs/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DynastyTrickDogs