After graduating from Wake Forest University, where she played four years of scholarship basketball, Gretchen Hollifield went to school to become a dog trainer. But she didn’t make enough to live on. So she juggled dog-training gigs, a paper route, restaurant jobs and occasional work for her father’s land-surveying business. After a few years, she decided her workload was unsustainable and decided to parlay her passion for dog training into a full-time business: The Dog Wizard.
 
Since its launch in 2005, The Dog Wizard has produced successful results for hundreds of dogs and continues to offer dog lovers with a tremendous business opportunity in the more than $50 billion pet industry. In fact, The Dog  Wizard has more than doubled in size over the past two years, growing to 12 locations in nine states. Through a unique franchise opportunity that begins with four months of extensive training, Gretchen plans to add as many as 18 new locations annually. Six new franchises have already opened since the beginning of 2013.