Who Are We?
Pull up a barstool, grab a barktini and a biscuit, and let us introduce ourselves. We’re the folks behind the bar… the “barktenders” if you will, at Downtown Dogs Canine Social Club. We’re dog lovers … and also motorcycle enthusiasts, the only thing we love as much as dogs are the travels we take around the country on our Harleys.
You can call us MamaDawg & PapaDawg. (Or Dawn & Tom, we respond to both!)
We’re not just dog lovers—we’re dog “lifers.” Dawn has been smitten with dogs since birth, and for the last decade has dragged Doc with her down the dog-obsessed rabbit hole (willingly of course!)
For Dawn, The Club is more than just a business, it’s her life work, her one true passion. For Tom, it’s an unexpected decade-long adventure with his best friend. Together, Downtown Dogs Canine Social Club is the dream that Dawn & Tom have thoughtfully crafted for you and your best friend.
Here’s a little about us…
Dawn Larie Michel
You Can Call Me “MamaDawg”
Dogs have always been Dawn’s calling. As a kid, she was the one who ALWAYS brought home the strays. She knew she had found her path in life when she began training dogs just a few years out of high school—learning basic obedience first, then advanced techniques, and then continuing onto learning how to raise guide dog puppies for the blind.
After becoming the Area Coordinator in Iowa for the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind, she began mentoring others to raise GDF puppies, and spent nearly two decades loving every minute she volunteered for their organization providing new freedoms to the visually impaired.
At the same time, while working her “real job” with the Department of Corrections, she developed & implemented a pet therapy program for the offenders and discovered a natural affinity for animal assisted therapy.
Unfortunately (or fortunately if you ask her), her position with the DOC was moved to a facility hundreds of miles away. Dawn chose to stay in Cedar Rapids. She’d been researching dog daycare for over a year, so she took the risk to follow her dreams of working with dogs full time.
In October of 2002, Dawn opened Iowa’s first dog daycare-only facility in Iowa in Cedar Rapids. This meant no boarding or grooming, just good old-fashioned play for the dogs, something that was new to the state at the time.
Dawn continued pioneering the industry in Iowa, going on to help shape state regulations with lawmakers, volunteering to mentor new up-and-coming daycare owners, and soon after opened her second facility.
But after experiencing a burst brain aneurysm that left her in a coma for a time, Dawn decided to leave her business of ten years behind & “retired early” to the beach in Belize for a few years. It was there she experienced more health scares & even more challenging life events, so Dawn returned to Iowa determined to get her herself, her health, her life, and her happiness back.
She landed back in Cedar Rapids with a tarnished dream & a vague plan to somehow return to doing what she loved, working with dogs. It was incredibly difficult… & took ten years of her working two (& sometimes three) jobs, scrimping & saving before those dreams came to fruition again.
Today - Downtown Dogs Canine Social Club - is the result of a decade of determination & resilience — and testament to her love for working with dogs.
Dawn’s motto? “Just keep going ten minutes at a time, and you’ll get there.”
She did it. She got there. And now you can too.
Tom Whiting
“PapaDawg” or “Doc”
Mr Tom Whiting, aka PapaDawg, aka “Doc”, is the brains & the brawn behind the magic at Downtown Dogs Canine Social Club. A Cedar Rapids native with grit in his veins & grease under his fingernails, Doc started out as a CNC machinist, working long shifts while raising his son AND earning his business degree in the evenings (magna cum laude no less!).
That work ethic took him all the way to the top at a major national leasing company, where he spent nearly 20 years as a portfolio manager and racked up some of the company’s highest awards & accolades year after year.
At The Club, PapaDawg Doc is our fixer, our planner, our behind-the-scenes wizard, and the guy every pup wants to nap with—the one they seek when they need a cuddle, a smooshy kiss, or just a calm hand on a busy day. But his heart? It’s always been in the fast lane.
Tom has built & raced sprint cars as well as midget cars (yes, there’s a difference—just ask him) and torn up tracks racing on motocross bikes all across the country since he was a kid. He planned ahead so he could retire early, and now delivers car parts a couple mornings a week for fun money, and hits the open road on his beautiful blue Street Glide whenever he can.
Together, Doc & Dawn both ride their Harleys for charity events every weekend all summer long with their friends, and for at least a full week every year—straight to Sturgis, S.D. for the oldest motorcycle rally in existence.
To quote the PapaDawg "I didn’t know when I met Dawn where the road would take us, and I wasn’t exactly expecting this, but Downtown Dogs is the dream we’ve rebuilt together, hand in hand, ride after ride, rain or shine, to make real. We’re in this life’s adventure though thick and thin. And I wouldn’t change it for anything!"
