Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Miranda Hitchcock. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Miranda, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

Founding Every Dog was a big risk. I was burnt out from my time working in animal shelters, and didn’t know if I was really capable of making this new nonprofit work. When Michele (my cofounder) asked if we should buy our website domain for one year or two, I didn’t even want to commit to a 2-year cost!

At the time, I didn’t really believe we’d make it past a year. Launching a nonprofit is difficult, and many organizations don’t last long. I knew that I had some nonprofit experience and that Michele had the experience of running a training business, but we were figuring things out as we went.

I’m incredibly glad that we made the leap and started Every Dog: now it has helped thousands of dogs and their families and is accomplishing more than we’d ever expected.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’ve always been a problem solver. Even from a young age I saw things that seemed inefficient or unkind, and wanted to fix them all. As I grew up and entered the workforce with my engineering degree, I became frustrated with how hard it was (in so many places) to really make the changes I wanted to see.

Launching Every Dog was the first time I’d really had full control to attempt to solve a major problem: the lack of access to quality professional dog training and behavior support in the Austin, TX community.

I’m really proud of our organization’s ability to meet the needs of our community. We knew that financial assistance was essential to provide access to affordable dog training in Austin, so we did that. We knew we wanted to reach clients further afield, so we offered virtual/online training and created free webinars. We knew there was a gap in services for folks in Spanish, so we began creating them.

I’m proud that our commitment to DEI in the training space and to overcoming barriers for families and their dogs has never wavered, and that we continue to take on the next challenge.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

We publicly launched Every Dog in February of 2020, with a lineup of in-person dog training seminars scheduled at local community centers. We were excited to start with these free dog training resources in Austin, TX! Two weeks later, the COVID-19 quarantine orders went out and the entire world changed.

Along with the rest of the training industry, we had to shift our world online. We began offering webinars instead of in-person workshops, and offering virtual private training and support groups instead of in-person services. There were many challenges along the way, but we were able to help so many families during this time.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I was fortunate to have experience with social media from my previous jobs in animal shelters, and had spent a lot of time researching best practices. Now, we’re inundated with webinars and classes and tutorials all designed to “hack” social media to go viral or build an audience quickly. And with so many tips from trending songs to posting times to gaming the algorithm, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. I have tried to maintain a few key rules about social media:

1- Post good content. When/how/where you post isn’t nearly as important as posting things that people are interested in and care about. Don’t let the details get in the way of thinking about quality content creation.

2- Social media shouldn’t be a goal unto itself. If you’re trying to build an audience to engage more people with a particular cause, great! If you’re hoping to capture sales, great. If you’re looking to build partnerships, great. But think critically about your goals for social media instead of getting sucked into just trying to be the biggest.

3- Set standards for your own mental health and determine when you’re going to delete and block. Don’t feed the trolls!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.everydogaustin.org
• Instagram: instagram.com/everydogaustin
• Facebook: fb.com/everydogaustin
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/every-dog-behavior-and-training
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@everydogaustin
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/every-dog-behavior-and-training-austin