Paw Rewards started with Riley. She is my Border Collie, the love of my life, and the reason any of this exists. When I look at what we have built, I still find it a little hard to believe that loving one dog could lead me here.

I’m Angelique, a Border Collie breeder, a web designer, and the woman behind Paw Privileges and Paw Rewards. If you’re joining our community, I want you to know who I am and why this matters so much to me.

When I first decided I wanted to breed, saying it out loud could be enough to get you torn apart on social media. People had opinions before they knew anything about you, your dogs, or what you intended to do. It was a horrible experience, and it left very little room to ask questions or find support.

I wasn’t going to change my mind. I was determined to do this responsibly and believed I could make a difference within our breed, even if it was only in my own small circle. But we had to learn too much the hard way. I have never forgotten what that felt like.

One decision was clear from the beginning: if someone could no longer keep one of our dogs, we would be there. We included a must-return clause in our contracts because our responsibility to a puppy continues for its entire life.

Over the years, we have helped four owners re-home their dogs, and we will always be here for our owners and our dogs' offspring. That support starts long before a puppy goes home. You take the time to understand the family and whether the breed is a good fit. You give them resources, stay available, and make sure they can come to you when something goes wrong without feeling judged.

People’s lives change. They struggle. They need help. I want an owner to feel comfortable picking up the phone before a difficult situation becomes a crisis. To me, that is part of being a responsible breeder.

With an amazing business partner, we built Willowcreek into a program and a community I am incredibly proud of. We are slowing down now in terms of breeding, but the relationships we built with our families have shaped everything I am doing today.

In 2024, I was looking for ways to improve our resources and add more value to our puppy packs. I wanted quality products I could feel good about recommending to people who trusted me.

I have real relationships with my owners. A free bag or a lovely coupon has never been enough reason for me to recommend something. I need to believe in it, and I expect the company behind it to answer questions, be transparent, and still be there after the sale.

My background is in high-end hotels, where you practically jumped tables to answer a phone before the second ring. Service mattered. Following through mattered. I brought those expectations with me, and yes, my standards are high.

For a time, I was part of Purina’s breeder program. Although I fed my own dogs home-cooked meals, I raised litters on Pro Plan and sent puppies home with the familiar puppy packs, coupons, and extras.

Then, in late 2023, concerns and accusations began circulating online. With a marketing background, I understood that an accusation was not proof. But I had just sent home a litter, and an owner contacted me. They had seen the discussion, recognized the food they were feeding, and wanted to know what they should do.

I took that seriously. I had recommended the food. Of course they were going to come to me with questions.

I contacted my representative, who told me the claims were false and sent me a link to the company’s response. What bothered me was that I was only getting that information after an owner had asked. As a breeder recommending their product, I wanted to have heard from them directly so I could support my families.

That wasn’t good enough for me. It made me question how much I knew about the products I recommended and the companies behind them. I started reading more, asking more questions, and rethinking what I was comfortable feeding and sending home with my puppies.

My own choices changed. I no longer felt comfortable recommending the big pet food conglomerates. I wanted to build relationships with companies whose products and approach I could personally stand behind.

I already had experience feeding raw, but I worried about what that would mean for our families. My own approach had involved preparing food myself, and I knew that would not be practical for everyone. Would parents be open to it? Would they feel overwhelmed? I needed a way for them to ask questions and understand their options.

In mid-2024, I contacted Big Country Raw and asked whether they would hold an information session for our puppy parents. They got back to me within a day or two and were happy to help. The date they suggested was only a couple of days away, so I scrambled to get the word out.

Thirty-five parents attended. At the time, our community included about seventy families. I had no idea we would have that kind of interest.

It impressed them, and it really impressed me. I had asked for help supporting our families, and they showed up.

Around the same time, while I was speaking with businesses about our puppy packs, an owner asked me a very simple question: “What do breeders need?”

It stopped me in my tracks. In all my years in the breeding world, I couldn’t remember a company asking me that.

I knew breeders who hesitated to tell people what they did because they were bracing for the reaction. I knew how much time responsible breeders put into their dogs and their families, and how little support there could be for that work. Suddenly, someone was asking what would help.

I spent the next two weeks putting together the first idea for Paw Privileges. Then I called Big Country Raw and arranged a conversation. They were willing to support it. Having someone believe in the idea that early meant a great deal.

The time since then has been a blur. I have heard plenty of no’s. There are still companies that hesitate to support breeders, and there is still work to do in helping people understand the role responsible breeders can play.

I believe we can work alongside responsible rescues and champion responsible ownership together. There should be room to support people who are trying to do right by their dogs, to share knowledge, and to keep learning ourselves.

At first, our puppy packs were simply products. No boxes. But I like pretty, and I really wanted opening a pack to feel like an experience. Of course, the price tag and my budget had very different ideas. Story of my life.

I kept working at it. I built the first website, reached out to breeders, and started getting puppy pack requests. There were mistakes, and there still are. A lot of them. I was and still am trying to organize more than I had expected, and there is still only one woman over here figuring it all out.

The idea for an app came partly from needing to bring everything together. I wanted it to make sense for our sponsors, breeders, our families, and, honestly, for me. Then I started thinking about what owners could do with it. I wanted them to have fun, get outside with their dogs, and share the life that happens after a puppy goes home.

I hired an app developer in early 2025, but every addition brought another cost I couldn’t manage. I had to step back and rethink how I was going to do this.

Strategic Marketing and Design has been my day job since 2016. A very dear friend asked why I wasn’t building it myself. There were tools available to help me learn, and I already had a foundation to work from. So I got started.

Five solid months of fourteen- to eighteen-hour days followed. There were things I had to learn, things I had to redo, and plenty of moments when I wondered what I had taken on. But I kept going.

Paw Rewards launched on September 1, 2026. I never would have thought I could build this myself, but here we are. I am incredibly proud of it.

The app isn’t perfect. It works, and I am continuing to improve it as I use it as an owner too. I want to understand where something feels awkward, what makes an outing more enjoyable, and what helps people come back and take part.

The community I want to build is centred on our dogs and the lives we share with them. A walk, a training session, a new place to visit, or a photo you’ll be glad you took. Those things matter. I want us to enjoy them together and be kind to one another while we do.

Education and confidence take time. People need room to ask questions and learn. I know that because I needed it myself when I was starting.

In our first week of launch, eleven people applied to become creators. I won’t lie: that was humbling, a little scary, and really emotional. After spending so much time building this, seeing people choose to be part of it meant more than I can explain.

There is still so much I want to do. I want our sponsors to be involved in ways that add something worthwhile to an owner’s experience. I want our breeders and creators to bring their communities together. And I want owners to find support, enjoy their dogs, and make memories they can look back on.

If you are here at the beginning, thank you. I know you have a choice about where you spend your time and what you put your name behind. I take that seriously.

This all began with Riley. Today, I get to help build a place where you can share the story of the dog who means that much to you. That is a pretty incredible thing to be working on.