Meet The Team

Hi! My name is Ryan Bridgewater and I live in Vancouver, BC, where I was born and raised. I have a Marketing Degree from Langara College, which helped me develop my own business, Ante Up Clothing, in 2005. This experience allowed me to develop a number of qualities and skills, including interpersonal skills, business skills and management capability (self-motivation skills, time management skills, administrative skills, and interpersonal skills). I bring these qualities and skills to Westside WAGS and I look forward to this new venture. Now, having 9 years of managing Dog Wags with my friend Dan Rogers I am excited and inspired to start out on my own. I always did all the managing of clients, accounting, managing of employees and of course everyday walking with the pups so this will not be a huge change for me!

I am athletic, enjoy the outdoors, and love interacting with people. I grew up with dogs in my family and have always felt passionate about working with them. I am particularly familiar with handling larger breeds, such as Golden Retrievers and Standard Poodles. However, I have familiarized myself with handing smaller breeds, such as the Miniature Schnoodle. After 9 years in the business and many more to come all breeds are more than welcome to join our family. Meeting clients and their dogs is always a time I look forward to so I can always learn more about different breeds!

I’ve loved dogs since as long as I can remember. I was never allowed to have my own growing up but luckily they were never far away. My grandma bred golden retrievers, my next door neighbour would bring his elk hound over to play, and some of my friends had dogs that I bonded with and still look after now.

Ever since my first job with dogs at a dog daycare I knew that I wanted to work with them. Getting to see the dogs grow each day and building relationships with them and clients was a wonderful experience. I’ve taken a vet assistant course and considered working in a vet hospital but this job has given me the perfect opportunity to work with dogs while helping them in a different way. A vet’s office can be a scary place for a dog and I love working outside every day helping them maintain a good quality of life while also putting a smile on their faces.