Dog Moms Unite
by Jill Duff-Hoppes
When Myriam Gutstein founded the Orlando Dog Mom Club a couple of years ago, the young entrepreneur was just looking to connect with other local women who loved pooches as much as she did. At the time, Myriam was an in-demand dog walker and pet sitter. While she had plenty of work clients, Myriam didn’t have much free time to search for new friends with dogs.
“So I thought, ‘Why don’t I just start a dog mom club on Facebook and see what happens?’” recalls Myriam, who launched the group in March 2019. “And within 24 hours, we had 100 members. The club just grew really quickly. It seemed like I wasn’t the only one who wanted to make friends with dog moms.”
Today, the Orlando Dog Mom Club (ODMC) is 19,000 members strong, which means the 25-year-old Myriam is now blessed with an abundance of canine-loving friends. There is no fee to join the group, which cultivates a welcoming, inclusive environment.
“We say as long as they identify as a woman and they have a dog, they will be accepted,” says Myriam, who lives in Winter Park with her girlfriend Martita Sharlow, and their four dogs. “Ultimately, it’s about the moms and getting us together and uniting us.”
Pre-pandemic, the club hosted two social events every month: a dog pawty for doggie mamas and their pups and a BFF event just for the moms. Although the COVID crisis forced the club to put its popular events on a long pause, that didn’t keep Myriam from moving the group forward.
For starters, she ramped up the ODMC’s Facebook postings to keep the members connected. And in March 2020, Myriam formed a national version of the Facebook group because so many women across the country wanted to join the Orlando club. The national group, known simply as the Dog Mom Club, boasts 25,000 members from across the United States and a few other countries. Myriam is also in the process of launching the Dog Mom Club Foundation, a charitable organization designed to help financially strapped dog moms pay their emergency veterinary bills.
Canine Connections
Multi-tasking Myriam doesn’t run the club’s various endeavors singlehandedly, though. Martita, and Myriam’s mother, Léa Benegbi, are both invaluable team members. Known as the Orlando Dog Grandma, Léa was an administrator at Temple Israel in Winter Springs but left to work alongside her daughter.
Club member Geanne Share met Léa and Myriam at Temple Israel and formed a bond with both mother and daughter. To Geanne, Myriam’s upbeat personality is the key to the club’s popularity.
“Myriam is so positive and supportive, and she makes sure that everybody else is positive and supportive,” says Geanne, who has two dogs of her own plus a granddog.
Not only is the club a fun way to meet other dog moms and enjoy their companionship, it’s a valuable resource for pup-related advice.
“The club is a wonderful common denominator across the spectrum of humanity,” Geanne says. “And it makes life easier, just like any kind of mom group. Somebody knows the answer if you put the question out there.”
Evolving Admiration
It might surprise ODMC members to learn that the pooch-obsessed Myriam, a native of Canada, wasn’t always enamored with man’s (and woman’s) best friend.
“I was petrified of dogs before I moved to Central Florida about 10 years ago,” she says. “I had never been around dogs, just because most of my family members are really allergic. But then my mom and I moved here together without the rest of our family. We were finally able to be around dogs, and I fell in love.”
When she was 19, Myriam got her own dog, a fluffy American Eskimo named Prince. From that point on, there was no turning back from living with dogs 24-7. A graduate of Oviedo High School and Rollins College, Myriam launched her pet-sitting and dog-walking business, which she ran for several years. Now, ODMC is front and center in her life.
Although the club began as a social group, the ODMC soon expanded into a boutique store that sells apparel, accessories, and other products for dog moms and their precious pooches. Products range from T-shirts to dog bandanas to car magnets, with Myriam designing most of the collections herself.
At least 10 percent of net proceeds from merchandise sales are earmarked for the club’s rescue beneficiary program, which assists animal organizations such as Pet Alliance of Greater Orlando and Poodle and Pooch Rescue of Florida. The latter is especially dear to Myriam and Martita because they adopted one of their dogs from that organization.
The club also donates to organizations and causes that help people, such as the Zebra Coalition, which supports and inspires LGBTQ+ youth. To date, the ODMC and DMC have donated more than $11,000 to pets and people in need.
With the COVID vaccine rollout ongoing, Myriam and her ODMC team are excited about the prospect of safely bringing back their popular in-person (and in-pup) events, which they hope to resume this fall.
Before the pandemic, club member Michelle Feitler hosted several of the events at her shop, the Woof Gang Bakery & Grooming franchise in Orlando’s Conway area. As a pet-store owner, Michelle can attest that animals have a special way of bringing people together.
“This club is about one single subject – your dog. Everybody’s friendly, and there’s no discrimination of any kind,” says Michelle. “It’s just a bunch of women talking about their dogs. Myriam is so devoted to this community. She is always empowering women, and she’s so uplifting. It’s really cool; she has created something very nice.”
For Myriam, running the ODMC with her mother and girlfriend has been a joyful, life-changing experience. In large part, she says, that’s because of the collective character of the group’s devoted members.
“We’ve fostered a really positive, drama-free, happy community,” Myriam says. “These women are so selfless and generous and kind. They’re truly incredible.”