Episode 289 - Helping Dogs and Healing the Industry with Michael Shikashio

This weeks guest is agression dog specialist Michael Shikashio.

Michael grew up in a suburb of Rhode Island, as part of the only Japanese family in a big town of Irish and Italians families. 

He was encouraged by his parents to follow a maths based career, but struggled to settle studying engineeering, so ended up doing restaurant management. 

He worked as a sushi chef to put himself through school, which led to a job working as a chef, and eventually as a butler in the world famous Foxwoods casino, which he did for 20 years. 

Michael always had an entrepreneurial drive, and over the years had fostered a lot of dogs, who he helped with their behavioural issues, this led to a passion for working with agression cases. 

He toyed with the idea of running a doggy daycare, but in the end started a side hustle career as a dog trainer, which he ran for five years alongside is job at the casino. 

He eventually went all in with the training business, specialising in agression cases. Now he helps dogs, owners and aspirining dog trainers through his Agressive Dog brand. 

As well as sharing his full story, Mike also opens up about a recent interview he did, which sparked off a social media furore between different factions in the dog training world, and almost broke the internet! 

This is an unmissible episode...

Tune in to discover;

• How Mike started honing his canine communication skills dealing with celebrities working as a head-bulter at the casino
• Why entreprenuers in the pet industry should use lessons and stories from their previous careers to help market their business 
• Why building referral sources with local vetrinarys and pet stores is the best way to build a pipeline of clients for your pet buiness
• Why having a specialisation and owning a niche is crucial to massive growth of your dog training business
• Why hiring faster is the key to scaling up your training business, because you can help more people with a team around you
• Why he is so passionate about spreading positivity and kindness, by starting conversations in the dog training world, to encourage better shared knowledge, for the betterment of dogs everywhere.

This is a very open and honest interview with a very giving pet professional. Sincere thanks to Mike for sharing this story

To find out more about Michael Shikashio, his programs, podcast and events click here now

To find out about Dom's USA tour of his Grow Your Pet Business FAST! seminar click here now

You can grab a copy of my brand new book How to Disnify Your Pet Business, click here to get your copy now

To grab a ticket to IMPACT 23 - The Disnify Your Pet Business Success Summit, click here now