Tony Lytle, The Original Doggie Fountain

From a shop-built fix to a product on the shelf

The story started on a 102° Louisiana afternoon. Tony Lytle’s daughter, Ginnie Marie, came home to find her dog lying in the yard, out of water and overheating. She got him inside, cooled him down, and asked her father whether he could make sure it never happened again.

The first answer — a big tub of water — failed quickly. The water went warm, then dirty, then unsanitary. A few days later, stepping on the paddle of a hardware-store drinking fountain, Tony had the idea: a fountain a dog could operate with its own paw. He built the first one in his shop from parts he had on hand, and Ginnie Marie’s dog learned to use it in a day.

That shop build became The Original Doggie Fountain: a paw-activated outdoor dog fountain that runs off a garden hose, with no filters, no batteries and no parts to replace. “It’s a thousand times better than a water bowl,” Tony said. “It never gets slime, mildew or bugs and birds in it. It’s fresh, it’s clean, and it’s cool all the time.”

Tony worked with LA NPDT on the parts of the journey that sit between a working idea and a product people can buy: product design and 3D-printed prototypes, product photography and video, and the website and marketing materials that carry the story to pet owners. The full account of that campaign is in our pet industry marketing case study.