The co-founder of Esprit Dog, Tony Sylvestre yesterday morning at Parc Montcalm in Montpellier for a first solidarity tour.
Who are you Tony Sylvester?
I am one of the four founders, in 2019, of Esprit Dog, a company specialized in the education of dogs and equipped with a canine center in Valencia, Spain. In addition to the four founders, the company has twelve other people. We offer online, professional training, and are followed by a million people on social networks. And between one and two million have followed us since the start of the tour!
What is your solidarity tour?
This operation aims to meet, help and advise dog owners. We started from this observation: “How can we fight against the abandonment of dogs?”. And whose base is based on three factors: lack of education, financial problems and stupidity. Lack of dog education is 50% of dropouts. Then we have almost 30% of people who have money problems, which spoils their relationship with the animal. Finally, there are irresponsible owners, the idiots, against whom it is difficult to fight.
The purpose of this tour is to share and help each other.
How?
During this tour, we stopped in Caen, Nantes, Bordeaux, Béziers, Montpellier today and today August 28 in Marseille at the Velodrome. Finally, we will distribute five and a half tons of kibble provided by our partner. It is intended for dog owners who need it most. But then, anyone can pick it up, without evidence. Here it is: “Come, take it!”. But it all makes sense and that’s great! All social categories come up, and it’s interesting. The more we mix, the more we look at each other!
We want to link this distribution and associate it with exchange and sharing. Because if ten or fifteen years ago, the dog was a social vector, now everyone looks at each other a little bit badly. Our message is that you can still be happy with a dog.
How was the list of cities created for this tour?
After the first operation in Nice in January and a fair organized in Paris, we said to ourselves that we will start this tour by choosing a part of France. The next should concentrate between North and East. There, since we are in the middle of August, we want to get closer to the sea.
Your canine center is in Spain. Why not in France?
Because Spanish law allows us to recover many shelter dogs. It’s smoother. We are not in France because, at the moment, I am the only dog trainer in the company and I have little problem trusting someone, even though many people ask us for a franchise. But we cannot guarantee quality monitoring. The day it becomes possible, then yes! And then, in France, and even if there are big animal foundations, everything is a bit too long in the papers. There is also a unity competition. It’s a little confusing for us, even though it’s slowly changing. Because with us, there is no ego battle or political rivalry.
Online education, in hair!
The founders of Esprit Dog, two couples who love quadrupeds, now offer training but also online tutorials. The goal? Support dog owners in the education of their four-legged companions. The digital community surrounding the company has almost a million people. Defining itself as a benchmark for canine education for individuals and professionals through the many formulas offered on the web (family, first bite, puppy, aggressive dog, etc.), the sale of accessories or training courses, Esprit Dog indicated that it had a €2.2 million turnover last year.