Those of you who follow the ballwalkpark facebook page might recognize the name Katie Johnson. Who is Katie Johnson you ask? She a dog lover, an old coworker, and possibly ballwalkpark’s biggest supporter. She “likes” about 80% of my posts, and usually within minutes of being posted. She will sometimes comment on a particular picture which made her smile that day, which in turn, makes me smile.
Ok, beyond an avid dog photo lover, who is this woman? She is a woman who I worked with at a miserable telecomm company prior to ballwalkpark. Think a real life version of “The Office”. She would often stop by my windowless box (also known as an office) and listen to my grand ideas of escaping the office life. One day, I presented her with the ultimate idea. I was going to be a dog walker. I was going to call the company “ball walk park” because those are the words I would say to my dog to get her all riled up to play. Believe it or not, I was totally unaware that there was a whole industry of professional dog walking, I thought this was a whole new concept. A couple google searches later, I realized I was totally wrong. There was a dog walking world and I was going to be a part of it. It was happening, I had already devoted every minute in the windowless box to researching and planning. There was no talking me out of it.
Katie was one of the very first people I told about my grand plan, and her reaction was not totally what I had hoped for. I remember these words like it was yesterday, after a good hard laugh, she said “You are the only person in the world who would leave a salaried job with benefits in the middle of a recession to go walk dogs.” Ok, so maybe I hadn’t totally thought this through, and maybe my 24 year old brain made a lot of justifications to make my grand plan make sense, but I was still determined and had already told my boss when my last day would be.
Katie was very supportive over the next couple months and stopped by daily to give input on logo colors, service area, fee schedules and more, but never let me forget how crazy she thought I was. Up until my last day with the company, she made sure I knew I was kissing a salary and health insurance goodbye. I wasn’t listening. My response was always that no matter how horrible of a day I was having, the dogs could never fail to do something that would make me smile, and even if just one smile, it was more than was happening in that windowless box.
I totally underestimated how often the dogs would make me smile, make me laugh uncontrollably, and make my heart hurt when they are no longer a part of my life. Through the pictures I take each day, I try to share these smiles and laughter with all of you, and especially you, Katie Johnson! Your support over the last four years has meant more to me than you would ever know. I am so happy to know my pups are making you smile too!
So that everyone, is the mystery behind Katie Johnson.
ballwalkparkseattledogwalker 