We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Meredith and Rooker James Painter a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Meredith and Rooker James, appreciate you joining us today. Can you tell us the backstory behind how you came up with the idea?

To be honest, I didn’t come up with the idea myself, someone else mentioned starting my dog his own Instagram account because I was flooding my own personal account with pictures of him. I took a leap and decided, why not? If my friends and family are the only ones that follow him, then so be it.

Within the first two weeks, Rooker hit 1,000 followers and I was shocked! Users loved him and thought he was just as cute as I did, which is saying a lot because I am obsessed with my dog. From there I continued to reach out to brands and other accounts to learn more and to network. Now we have multiple brand partners and have over 8k followers.

I am not sure I always thought I could succeed, but I kept the mentality of “why not?” and “I don’t lose anything by trying”. Don’t get me wrong, I still cringe when I say “My dog is an influencer” out loud because even I can’t believe it and I am the one doing the majority of the work, but I keep going because I have proven to myself that it is possible and can only grow from here.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I have always had a creative knack for marketing, so once I started the account I was all in. The business strategy Rooker and I focus on is making others smile and/or laugh. That is the main point of his account and I don’t want to forget that because it stops being fun if I do. I would hope anyone who follows Rooker gets a kick out of the funny posts we do and enjoys seeing him pop up in their feed.

I answer questions EVERY DAY from dog owners about how I cut his hair, how I bell-trained him, how I get him to pose for pictures, and so much more. In the beginning, I also found a small-knit group of fellow pet influencers starting out and now we all support each other, and even though we all started at the same time, some of our friends have over 20k followers now.

I think I am most proud of putting myself out there. Doing something like this is embarrassing, although it shouldn’t be, especially if you really put your soul into it. Dont get me wrong, its not easy and when friends say they are going to start one or ask for advice on how to start out, I always tell them its like a part time job, and if you dont treat it as such, you wont follow through.

We love to partner with brands both small and large to help promote their businesses. I have more dog items in my home than purses if that tells you anything and we give honest and wholesome reviews so that our followers trust us when we push a product. We have encountered poorly constructed products, and even poorly ran businesses with rude representatives, but I dont let that stop us from continuing. The majority of the brands we have worked with are amazing and that is what fuels our fire to keep going.

Rooker is one of the most loveable, friendly, and adorable dog on this planet — so this account shares him with others all over the world. I grew up on a farm and I have had numerous pets and animals in my life, but Rooker is different. Which is why I think he stands out to brands, he catches their eye and always makes others happy. However, while writing this I know that this morning he had an accident in my hallway because he drank too much water from the toilet last night, so although I love him and think he is adorable, he isnt perfect, but neither am I.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

When I got Rooker, I want to be clear, I wasn’t ‘looking’ for a dog. A friend of mine wanted me to adopt a Goldendoodle, but I wanted a dog that stood out to me. I randomly found this shaggy blue merle-colored dog on an ad and thought maybe I should go see him. It was not love at first sight. I thought he was too chunky and knew he had worms (and he did). However, he curled into my arm and loved me instantly — and later peed on my lap while driving home.

I had to go straight to the pet store because I had nothing prepared, not even a leash and collar or dog food for that matter. He was so good that night (aside from peeing on me). He slept mostly and I was so impressed.

Then around 1:00am — he woke up and began to cry like someone was torturing him. I am guessing that the poor little guy was upset because he woke up in a new place and didnt have his mom with him. However, for me I had a panic attack. My sister was working night shifts as a nurse practitioner and thank god for that because she talked me off a ledge. I drafted an email to the breeder requesting my money back and claiming I just couldnt have a dog in my life right now — and my sister told me I was crazy and Rooker was going to be a great thing for me.

I am extremely thankful for that because I couldnt imagine my life without him.

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

I get this question A LOT – and my biggest advice to anyone is just GO FOR IT! That’s the first and most nerve-wracking step, is to just start and go for it.

Dont go into it looking at it like I need to make money or I need to be popular, just find something you truly love and enjoy and share it with people. Trust me, if you go in with any expectations at all, you will be let down more than once, so a lot of what I would suggest is sticking to it and going with the flow, but most importantly to have fun with it.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_rookerjames/
• Other: Mom’s Travel Instagram: @_meredithjamestravels

Image Credits
All images were taken by me with exclusion of the ones I am in, which were taken by my mother and edited by me.