Stephen Ochs

Stephen Ochs founded Fetch Park, a set of dog friendly social clubs in Georgia built to get people off their phones.

Ochs came on the SALTYmf GOAT Podcast after Brad Banyas' kids, who take their dogs to parks constantly, told him Fetch was worth the trip. Banyas asked permission before wearing a Georgia shirt in front of a Florida State man. Ochs brought a bottle of Bark Batch and poured it. Banyas' wife had sent him in with one instruction, which was to ask for a park near the polo field in Forsyth County.

Membership works like a gym. Every dog has a profile with a photo, contact details and behavior notes, and staff called Wolf Wardens read those notes and keep the wrong two dogs apart. Vaccinations are required, there is a three strike system, and dogs do get banned. People without dogs walk in free. Each park has an Airstream built between 1967 and 1970, because Ochs says the retro look died around 1976. Mornings are a coffee bar and Wi-Fi. The rest of the year runs 15 to 20 large events, including a park turned into an art gallery with two Picassos and a Warhol, and another with a 50 foot fashion runway raising money for Canine Companions.

He heard no from 86 banks. He drove to South Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Florida, and every conversation ended the same way, because there was nothing in New York or California he could point at and say it works like that. He raised the money from athlete friends instead. Permitting then took two and a half years. Two neighbors in the NPU were convinced the concept was a cover story to rezone the land for a gas station, and a woman with the local senior center named after her loved the idea and hated dogs, so she fought it. Once it opened he worked 18 hour days filling water bowls and tubs until his feet never got a chance to dry. A doctor called in a second doctor to confirm he had trench foot.

Ochs says he has a hard time looking back at what he has done. Fourteen couples have met at a Fetch park and gotten engaged there. One Saturday, running around picking up after dogs, he met three older men who drove up from Florida every month for chemo and stopped at Fetch before heading home, because after the hardest part of their month they wanted the happiest. None of the three had a dog. Every Halloween he dresses as Cruella de Vil and chases puppies around Cujo's Carnival. His bourbon is called Bark Batch and it is bottled at 86 proof, one for each bank.