How Responsible Pet Ownership Builds Better Communities
Steve Zeidman
(YouTube Transcript)
Aneta (00:01.678): Steve, welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast.
Steve (00:06.225): Thank you.
Aneta(00:08.814): It's so good to have you here. We haven't seen each other in a while, and it's always such a treat for me when I get to have friends on the show. And I know that you recently started a new business and launched a new product. And I've always been fascinated and curious about your background and desire to combine technology, and also your compassion for animals. So tell us a little bit more about BarkPass.
Steve (00:38.577): BarkPest is a SAS-based platform designed to support local government and private dog parks in managing the pets that are using their facility. So, for pet licensing, local governments license their pets for rabies control and other items, and then also for dog park management, particularly in the Midwest, the idea of registering your pet ensures the pets are safe, and that they are there to make it a better experience for pet owners and the pets.
Aneta (01:13.602): Wow. And this is not your first product or business. So, did you always have a passion for animals?
Steve (01:24.545): Actually not. I actually, I sort of fell into it. My first, early in my career, I ended up answering a blind ad to work for New York City Animal Control, and I had a finance and technology background to help them out. And, you know, it was funny, I liked working in a nonprofit, and I liked you know, that's what they did, but I didn't specifically have a pet focus at that point in my life. But the more I learned about the animal welfare experience, the more I realized that, well, it is definitely about pets. It's also about the impact pets have on humans. As we look at today's world, sometimes the easiest way to be human is through interaction with a pet. Sometimes we could be really cruel to each other. But being cruel to an animal like crosses all political divides. No one just No one will live or handle. You know, we'll deal with that. So I think it's just it's just kind kind of an amazing area because it's sometimes people think it's 100 percent about the pet itself. But it's really about our access to our humanity through animals.
Aneta (02:49.358): I love that you said that because it's so true. It's like, I think that sometimes as humans, we forget to be compassionate to each other. And yet the animals, you know, we're not having these conversations with them. We could just be in their presence and love them and allow them to do the same. So you had some early experiences too, working with shelters and rescue organizations over the years as well. What have you seen with that experience working with those organizations?
Steve (03:22.939): I think that there are so many people who get involved because they want to help pets, and that's really what they want to do. But you still need it's it's still an organization, it still needs to function well and be a good steward of the financials that they have. It's really, you know, I really love the opportunity to help professionalize the interest. I've been been in the industry for almost 30 years now and watching it go from, you know, where there were always well-meaning people, but truly turning into a profession where, you know, you do need all the tools, you know, that any business, whether nonprofit or for-profit needs, to accomplish their their mission, their mission which is to save more pets' lives and support families with pets. So it's always been kind of cool for me to have this sort of opportunity to give people the tools to meet their mission.
Aneta (04:33.26): Yeah, that's so true. I know during COVID, there were many people that I know personally, and I don't know the numbers nationally, who got pets or who went to shelters and adopted animals. What have you seen over the years since COVID? Are people continuing to rescue more animals, or is it now that people are returning to work? Or is there any concern about that?
Steve (05:02.897): It's funny that you brought that up because there was a lot of stuff in the media during COVID that there were tons and tons of people adopting. And I was actually the person who kind of broke the story that that is not the case. It was a fallacy. It was a fallacy. Pets stopped coming into shelters. So shelters, well, adoptions were okay for going through a crisis at that point. The reason shelters were empty was that people weren't surrendering their pets, which is still a great thing. Don't get me wrong. It's a really great thing. That actually didn't happen. As a matter of fact, was the New York Times using my data
National Geographic is trying to break that kind of story. But after the pandemic, and this is where the story gets a little sad, when it comes to animal shelters, surrender rates went up as people started heading back to work. And it was a major backslide nationally on the number of animals being euthanized because of
It just, I think one, there was that flood gate, and then you add now all the economic pressures that are being put on families today. It's starting to bounce back and starting to get back to the original trend line. And the original trend line before the pandemic was that every year, fewer animals were coming into the shelters. Adoption rates were still pretty, were good. So that just helped continue to lower the number of animals that were euthanized in a shelter. You had that, and during the pandemic, of course, it seemed awesome because there were so few animals in shelters and everything seemed great. Then all of a sudden, they had this huge spike back up, and they've been, you know, it's been years to recover from that, from that spike. So it is a...
Steve (07:14.321): Yeah, it doesn't get as much news because people have moved on, but it's not a great story. It's getting better. So I hate to be in 2026 to call out the story, but through 2023 2023 through 2025 have been really rough years for animal shelters.
Aneta (07:34.735): I didn't know that, and you know, of course, you see some of these stories in the media, and then anecdotally I saw people adopting, but that is so hard to see. Of course, I And I can understand why we're starting to see some of that, just given the hard times that people are experiencing right now. What do you think is going to happen going forward with shelters, rescue centers, and just animal welfare?
Steve (08:01.074): I think that means, yeah, animal welfare. I mean, do you think it's, like I said, we definitely have gotten back on it. They're getting back on the trend line of having fewer animals surrendered and fewer animals being euthanized because of that. And adoptions are stable, at least at this point, so they're doing okay. But, you know, I think that, and part of why the bark pass matters to me is that governments are up against, most large shelters are funded by government, by the local government. You have humane societies that are privately funded through donations and stuff like that, but your large animal control organizations, which manage most of the pets in the system, are local government funded, and they are very dependent on the general fund. So whatever, you know, tax revenue was coming in, and some communities have used, have been able to use pet licensing revenue to truly offset the general fund, or even there are a few communities that are even able to support their animal welfare efforts on pet licensing revenue alone. So to me, one of the big elements is how do we make sure in this world where this trickle-down effect is coming from the federal government, the federal government's cutting programs to the states, states are cutting programs that are at the local level. you can't...
Steve (09:37.202): Yeah, we say people like if they cut child welfare programs at the federal level, that doesn't mean it's child welfare programs that get canceled at the local level. They're still making decisions. And a lot of times, the ones that seem less important are things like park, for us, both parks and rec and animal shelters tend to be the ones who have to take a loss of funding.
So, where more funding is needed, they don't have their own revenue source to do that. So, with 90% of communities in the US jurisdictions requiring pet licensing, and a 12% conversion of people who license their pets. Right. So you think that a difference in revenue could truly change the game if more people who have pets license them and follow the laws of their community. Because it is like in almost any other, for lack of a better word, a lot of people think of it as a tax, and it is. At the end of the day, it is a tax. if...
But if anyone else had a different thing where 12 % of people were paying their fair share of taxes, people would be up in arms. But this is one of those where, over the years, people have just accepted a poor rate of that, but that revenue is desperately needed for communities, and it's a shame that more effort isn't put into ensuring that that revenue is coming in.
Aneta (11:30.872): Wow. So only 12 % of people who own their pets are actually licensing them. And then the dollars that go towards providing the services are only going on that number, and nobody's saying, what if it's higher because then that would require more. Is it because people don't have the money to do it, or don't see the value in doing it? Like, what are some of the common reasons why someone wouldn't do this?
Steve (11:57.042): Yeah. Yeah, I think that at 12%, I mean, a lot of people like always say, well, you know, maybe they can't afford it, but at 12%, you can't even say that, right? Because it's so low. It is definitely around value. It's around being, you know, having the right tools to make it easy. So many communities are still required to actually go in person to buy the license and so on.
Really, what today are we willing to go into City Hall to buy that license or go into the shelter to buy that license? Most of us aren't, especially if you don't see any enforcement of it. So it's a lot of work to do that. So part of what we do at Bark Pass is try to, one, put it all online. We make it really easy. We take away a lot of the barriers. for the pet owner to do it. And then we take a lot of the work out of the staff to do it. Because Good e-commerce software has handled all this stuff, but no one's applied that to pet licensing the way we are.
Aneta (13:11.662): That's wonderful. What are some of your hopes for Bark Pass? What do you hope that it will help solve? And how can people get involved?
Steve (13:24.005): Yeah, so our goals really are, there are two things, because I'm talking a lot about pet licensing, which is one piece of our business. The other is the dog park management, which is about creating safer spaces for pets to interact. And for a lot of communities, the parks in Rec will put up a fence and and build a dog park, and then sort of kind of walk away from it and those become not, they were designed to be safe spaces, but they become the most unsafe space to have your pet because you'll hear about attacks, you'll hear about animal control needing to come in and deal with bites and all those kinds of things.
But that can all be handled well in communities that put some management in place, which is having them register, make sure the pets that are there are vaccinated, ensure that only the, like, if you have troublemakers, you kind of keep them out of the park, all those kinds of things that make the space safe. So a big thing for us is the funding. Second is safety, pet safety, and human safety around pets. And then the last one is about building community.
Dog parks are incredible community spaces, and people really connect over their pets. It can be one of the best-used amenities of a community if it's managed well. So for us, kind of those are our pillars of what we kind of believe in and what we're trying to accomplish.
Aneta (15:00.674): Yeah. That's beautiful. I love that so much. So, when you who are your clients, then you said you work with the government, then who are the different types of clients that you work with?
Steve (15:11.71): Yeah, mostly city governments, particularly for pet licensing and that in the dog parks. The private dog parks, which are kind of an up-and-coming thing, are sort of bar, restaurant, slash dog parks that are trying to truly create these social spaces. So we have that group of clients as well. And they're kind of fun because they're doing a lot of cool things and are truly trying to take that community to the next level and try to build these truths. What's the word I want to say? Like, not just safe spaces, but just like places where people can hang out with their pets, which is kind of cool. Yeah.
Aneta (15:53.65): Yeah, it's beautiful. It's like, we're all searching for connection and community and being able to do it in a way where you get to bring your pets with you because they're such a huge part of life, it's just a beautiful thing. So it was Bark Pass National. Are you working with cities across the country?
Steve (16:11.333): Yes, we are. We are national. We are just in the US at this point. Clients from Florida and New Jersey all the way to Salt Lake City, not quite the West Coast yet. So we do have a broad range of clients, all the way from small municipalities to a couple of large cities. So we're doing pretty good.
Aneta (16:33.816): That's wonderful. Well, I definitely encourage people to learn more. I wanted to ask you some personal stuff too, because you and I are friends. We met, of course, through your husband, Brian, with whom I went to school. And last time you guys were over, it's too long ago when you were in Cleveland, I remember you were sitting in our kitchen, and you were talking about your wish and your desire, your prayers to be a family, and to adopt a child. And at the time, we talked about how difficult it was, and you created your book, and I got to see it. So you did get to adopt Tristan many years ago. So tell me a little bit about the process of adopting your son and just what you guys have been able to experience since then, because I know you're still actively involved in the foster care system.
Steve (17:29.253): Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so it's actually interesting. Mean, when Brian and I had decided that we wanted a family, my animal welfare piece kind of kicked in, in the sense that I didn't want to hire a surrogate or go through international adoptions to have a baby. We knew that there were so many kids in the system, right here in our local community, who needed a home. So for us, no different than I would say to someone who wants to have a dog, go to your local shelter. There was no way I was going to do anything different than work through the foster care system here in Arizona to build our family. So for us, it was a really interesting journey.
At that point, bearish equality, we had just happened. So we were newly married, and you know, a lot of the laws were kind of changing along with it, around foster care. So, we were able to find an agency that had literally no issue with it. I remember going in, and we thought like we were gonna have a problem, but you know, depending, you could pick the agency that you want to work with, and they were like, we work with same sex families all the time, no problem. So that was never an issue. But we also had decided that we would open up, we weren't just looking for babies, we were looking at any age, we would look at any age. and...
So that means that the child has a lot to say about who they want as their parents as they get as they got older, and they could be more conscious of it. So we knew that there was always something around, you know, being a same sex couple that could work against us. But, you know, we really, really enjoyed it. We took it seriously. As you said, we had a book that you'd make that sort of tells them about your family and about the people in your life, and who they might have a connection with us. So we also took on the fact that we were willing to take on a child with autism. For those who know, obviously, a child with any issues makes it that much harder for them to find a home. And we thought that was something we could support. So we were then. That was how we were matched with Tristan, who was nine years old when we met him. And when he came to live with us.
Yeah, it's been a journey along the way. I think he was in that foster care system for five years. And well, we thought we knew what was going on with him by the time he got home with us, and we started working with experts and getting him the level of care. We realized his problems were much more severe than what the state thought they were. So it's been a bit of a journey there because, not that there's anything wrong, but it was just, we weren't.
I want to say we weren't prepared, like any parent who gets that news that their child has difficulties that they didn't expect, we had to rally around that, and really, our lives had to shift around Tristan's needs.
Aneta (21:02.252): Yeah, it's incredible because seeing you guys as a family and just following along has just been really beautiful for me to see. And I think, did Tristan just graduate?
Steve (21:16.037): He graduated last year, and he's in an adult program now where he's learning independence, and he has to navigate public transportation and do all the things on his own to get there and support himself. So yeah, it's been a great, great opportunity for him to have his initial education. We had him in a private school with that. This was a wonderful bubble to protect him and give him everything that he needed. But now we want to burst that bubble open and start having him know what it's like to interact with the rest of the world.
So yeah, it's been a really interesting journey. This has probably been, I don't want to say it's the hardest time, but it's probably the hardest time for Brian and me because we can't protect him as much as we could before. We have to let him into the world, let the world can, stuff like that. And it's a little scary when you have a child with, and I keep saying a child, but he's 19. For a young adult, a young adult who we know struggles, but he's gonna have to learn how to do these things for us.
Aneta (22:25.964): Yeah, as a parent, it's hard. We want to protect him. We want to provide all of the perfect circumstances and control. And, as you said, the hard part for us is letting go. But he seems to be fairly independent. So I love that you guys are at this new stage. And one of the other things that I know was important for your family, too, is that, Tristan, you were able to create space for him to have relationships with his brother. He has a brother that I see sometimes, and you guys have also created this beautiful extended family.
Steve (23:04.817): Yeah, it was a really interesting situation. So when we adopted Tristan, his brother was also in foster care at the time, and he had not been placed yet and was in a group home situation, actually. But they had been separated in the system just because each of them had very each of them had very unique issues that they were dealing with. Tristan, with his autism, and his brother had other issues. No one family could care for them. They were separated. So when we adopted Tristan, we kind of put a letter in the son's file, in his brother's file that says if he gets adopted, you can reach out to us. Luckily, the family was only a few miles from where we live, and a lesbian couple, which is just kind of funny that that's how life kind of turns out. So now we're kind of raising them like cousins. So yeah, they see each other once or twice a month and have hangouts and sleepovers, and yeah, and they're there for each other. So it's really kind of cool.
Aneta (24:16.371): So beautiful. It's amazing how his fatherhood changed you.
Steve (24:21.329): I think it's one thing living for yourself or living for your spouse, because even with your spouse, you still have the kind of expectation that they have some responsibility in where these are. But when you've got the care of a child, it puts everything in perspective.
It puts not just like the like, the small things, like raising a child and the family aspects. But it's also like how I think about the world. When I see it through his eyes, and I want to, I worry about what the world's going to be like in 2050 because I might, you know, I hope 2050, it's just like 2075, let's say. I might not be around, I might not be around in 2075, but I want to make sure it's a world where my son is doing well. And so it does, it really does change your life, your thought processes on everything. I remember being like, I worked my way up in my career. And of course, I had people with families working for me. And I didn't have as much compassion for them. Like I had, well, each person has their own struggles at work, and I want to be conscious of it. But parenthood is, it's so much larger than any other issue. So it is, it's.
Steve (25:48.185): It gave me a lot of compassion for the people when I was in the corporate world, for those who worked for me and had families.
Aneta (25:58.315): I love it. So if someone's listening and maybe they care about animals and they want to give back somehow or want to get involved, but they're not sure what to do, like what's a great way for them to get involved?
Steve (26:14.029): I mean, if you want to reach out to me, I'm always happy to help. I'm on LinkedIn, Steve Zeidman, it's just with no spaces, or S Zeidman on Facebook. You know, those are probably the best ways, or steve@barkpass.com also works. So any way that people want to reach out to me, I'm happy to kind of point them in the right direction.
Aneta (26:33.166): Perfect. I'll include all those links in the show notes for sure. Encourage people to reach out. And I ask a final question of everyone, which is, what does it mean to you to live the width of your life?
Steve (26:53.463): I think that, you know, it's for me, I think it's the idea of having more control, isn't the right word, but like just more opportunity to have these great experiences. So, I mean, we didn't talk a lot about travel or just being able to really spend time with people. So for me, like, that kind of work-life balance element is taking care of your health and well-being so that you can do things like go hiking and explore. We live in Arizona, and Arizona is one of the most beautiful states. If you've never been to Arizona, it's just this amazing, amazing nature.
So for me, it's just about experiences and continuing to see the world to your point. It's like, you know, like, living long is fine. But if you don't really see the world or you don't experience the world, what's the then what's the point?
Aneta (27:58.431): Exactly. Thank you, Steve. So well said. Thank you for your time today, and thank you for the amazing contribution you just made to the world. And I do think I need to come out and visit you guys soon. So sounds great. Thank you, Steve.
Steve (28:10.993): Awesome. Thanks.