Drive emotional engagement through unique puppy parks

Several sheltered puppies embracing each other with PCMA convening leaders 2025 Houston participants found the home forever. This is one of their stories.

Dating back over a decade, the idea of ​​bringing dogs to the convention to interact with attendees seems to be a foreign concept. But just as treatment dogs become commonplace in hospitals and nursing homes, houses of various commercial activities have been discovered by participants, from local shelters to dedicated spaces that embrace and potentially be puppies.

Call it healthy activation. Studies have shown that simple behavior of stroking a dog lowers the stress hormone cortisol, while social interactions between humans and dogs increase levels of the feel-good hormone oxytocin, the hormone that binds mothers to babies.

This feeling-good hormone must be what Shannon Coldon felt in January as she sat on the floor of the George R. Brown Convention Center floor, one of three puppies in the same garbage, climbed around those puppy-raising puppy parks, chewing her name on the poop leader’s name, stealing her purse, and stealing her purse. PCMA works with the rescue ranch of local shelter Jenni to bring the dogs to areas where other activations are taking place. Coldon, director of marketing sales at North Pacific, attended Caesars Entertainment national conferences and events, describing Puppy Park as “pure joy.”

She came to Houston with absolutely no intention of adopting a puppy during the event, “but that’s what happened,” Curton told Convene. “I went to pamper the puppy and fell in love with this little guy. I told myself if he could still use it after lunch that day, that would be that.”

When Cotton returns late that afternoon, she discovers that two Homer’s siblings (all three named after the characters “The Simpsons”) have been adopted, but he has not spoken yet. “I’m like, OK, I have to call my husband and see if we can achieve that.” Although he reminded her that they already had two dogs at home, he said he was happy with it if she had the intention to bring him home.

It’s easy to fall in love with Homer. From Houston to her home in Las Vegas, the five-pound Chihuahua mountain view has created anything. Coldon filled out the required paperwork to adopt Homer, but he was not answered by her before he had to fly home the next day. She learned that the transportation service could take him to her, but the closest descent point on the driver’s route was nine hours away from her home, which was a starter. So Coldon posted a request on Facebook: If someone happens to be from Houston to Las Vegas and is willing to “drive a dog to me, please let me know.”

Fortunately, the husband of a colleague in Houston held a meeting in Las Vegas the following week. Coldon arranged for Jenni’s rescue ranch to let someone take Homer for a week until her colleague’s husband traveled to Las Vegas. She met a grateful Colon at the airport and brought Homer to Homer who has been getting along with two other dogs since renamed Oakley’s home – “I call them ‘three Amigos’,” she said. “They are obsessed with him.” Idiot Coldon’s husband. “He was just fascinated.”

Michelle Russell is Convene’Editor-in-chief.