Jake - Candi - @DublynDoodle | #GreatIdeas Series

It's a snowy morning in Chicago and I'm laying in my bed, scrolling through my Instagram feed, contemplating burning some toast [well not really, but that's what usually happens]. And as usual, I came across my friends' @DublynDoodle Instagram feed, featuring Dublyn, their lively golden doodle. And I smile as I scroll through the multitude of comments about people who love Dublyn. 

Candi Chadwick & Jake Slobodnik are two fantastic and talented people that I had the pleasure of meeting a few years ago in KC through a mutual friend. They took me under their wing in a tough time in my life, and we became close. While getting to know them, I found out that Jake dabbled in photography (or so he said but he was actually super talented at it) and in September 2013, they adopted a golden doodle, Dublyn. 

Their story is a fantastic case of some people who have turned their passion into a bigger idea. 

The day they added Dublyn to their family, they took tons of photos and immediately started posting on Instagram. They said, they quickly realized they were going to drive their friends insane, or risk losing our friends altogether if they kept posting. 

So Candi came up with the idea to create an account, just for Dublyn. Jake says, "In December, Dublyn came home, and we posted our 'final' photo of Dublyn on our personal accounts, which read At the sake of sounding crazy, but more so you don't have to be inundated with pictures of our new dog, we have created a new account for Dublyn.  Check her out @dublyndoodle." 

Each day Candi & Jake would take pictures of Dublyn and post them with #goldendoodle and #dogsofinstagram. They quickly gained hundreds of followers and in 11 weeks over 1,000 followers who loved seeing their adorable dog. [Even as a non-dog person I got suckered in too]. 

They started adding watermarks to their photos and then were featured on @dogsofinstagram and they felt famous! so far, they've been featured on @natgeochannel, @petbox, @gramoftheday, @glamourpoland, @findingkc, and many more. They've been contacted about becoming a "product spokes-dog" by numerous companies.  Including @whistlelabs, which they recently teamed up with to represent, Whistle, a pet activity monitor, similar to a FitBit for humans. 

They've even won several contests and also entertained the idea of creating an ETSY account selling cards, photos, or calendars, but haven't committed quite yet.  

On October 15, 2014 at 5:45pm their account hit the 10,000 follower mark. And they are still amazed at the success of the account with (now) nearly 13,000 followers. They say their short-term goal is 25,000. Their ultimate goal is a feature by Instagram themselves, #weeklyfluff. 

To maintain the account regularly, it's a two-person gig, including taking the photos [and getting Dublyn to pose], adding the posts, responding to the comments, etc. When the account started, Jake did a lot of the photography but recently Candi has taking some photography classes and becoming adept at taking the photos herself as well. Making their possibilities endless. 

So what's next? 

Some of their favorite Instagram accounts have turned the fun pastime of pet photography into a full time job - through book deals with signing tours or abandoning their day to day jobs to become full-time pet photographers. For right now, they are happy just living our lives and sharing a very special piece of it with our friends, family, and over 12,000 strangers. 

But keep an eye out for a major addition to the account, coming Spring 2015. (Hint:  It might just be a miniature version of Dublyn). 

In the meantime be sure to check out Dublyn on Instagram @dublyndoodle