Co-founder of Esprit Dog, Tony Sylvestre was 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 canine education 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 been following 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. The lack of dog education is 50% of dropouts. Then we have roughly 30% of people who have money problems, which deteriorates their relationship with the animal. Finally, there are the 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 this August 28 in Marseille at the Velodrome. In the end, we will distribute five and a half tons of kibble provided by our partner. They are intended for dog owners who need them the most. But afterwards, anyone can pick it up, without proof. Here it is: “You come, you take!”. But everyone is very reasonable and that’s great! All social categories come, and it’s interesting. Because the more we mix, the more we will look at each other differently!
We wanted to link this distribution and associate it with exchange and sharing. Because if ten or fifteen years ago, the dog was a social vector, today everyone looks at each other a little badly. Our message is that you can still be happy with a dog.
How was the list of cities for this tour drawn up?
After a first operation in Nice in January and a fair organized in Paris, we said to ourselves that we were going to launch this tour by choosing a side of France. The next should concentrate between the North and the East. There, as we were in the middle of August, we wanted to get closer to the sea.
Your canine center is in Spain. Why not in France?
Because Spanish legislation allows us to recover many more shelter dogs. It’s much smoother. We have nothing in France because, for the moment, I am the only dog trainer in the company and I have a little trouble trusting someone, even if many people ask us for a franchise. But we cannot guarantee quality monitoring. The day when it will be possible, then yes! And then, in France, and even if there are large animal foundations, everything is a little too long with the paperwork. There is also a competition of solidarity. It’s a bit confusing for us, although that’s slowly changing. Because with us, there is no war of egos or political rivalries.
Online education, to the hair!
The founders of Esprit Dog, two couples passionate about quadrupeds, now offer training but also online tutorials. The goal ? Support dog owners in the education of their four-legged companion. The digital community that revolves around the company numbers nearly one million people. Defining itself as the reference in canine education with individuals and professionals via several formulas offered on the web (family, first bite, puppy, aggressive dog, etc.), the sale of accessories or training courses, Esprit Dog indicates that it has €2.2 million in turnover last year.
