Doggie Chic

High-end doggie fashion shoot. From Modern Dog, Winter 2004/05. Photograph: Chris Haylett

I’m sitting with Connie Wilson in the living room of her well-appointed Kitsilano duplex, her 11-year-old Weimaraner-pointer cross, Kaya, passed out on a rug nearby, when a mad, electronic cackle suddenly rises up from the kitchen. The disembodied voice bounces off the walls. The place seems wired with walkie-talkies, as if someone's listening in on our conversation.

"Oh, I'm sorry," the creator of Modern Dog magazine says, noticing my discomfort. Esther, her daughter's miniature dachshund, bounds up the stairs to greet us. "That's just a babble ball."

Ah, right. A babble ball. Esther's toy. She rolls it, a phrase spills out – "Oh, that tickles!" Of course: We're at the heart of doggie chic, the headquarters of Wilson's three-year-old lifestyle magazine for "urban dogs and their companions." Here, small, talking spheres are all the rage. So, too, are handmade Swarovski crystal collars and the House of Canine Couture's faux mink coats, pearl necklaces ("for dogs with diva aspirations") and four-star snacks ("You should eat so well!"). It'll make you forget The Littlest Hobo in a hurry. Think Best in Show crossed with Zoolander (doggie-style) – in a high-end glossy that looks a lot like Vogue or Vanity Fair.

Don't snicker. The Vancouver quarterly has had Paris Hilton (and Tinkerbell, her Chihuahua) on the cover. Pamela Anderson (and Peanut, her beagle mix), too. And its photo spreads are especially slick – chi-chi fashion modelled by the two-legged and the four. But there's much more than just Brownie, the Yorkshire terrier, showing off his ecru shearling leather aviator jacket. You can also read about the latest in "doggie dating" or Toronto's "furry and fabulous soirees of the Pug-centric." Wondering whether your pooch is a diva? MD's got a quiz for you. Taken together, the copy and colour seem to scream out one thing: the good life starts with pampering your dog. And they've generated some pretty powerful buzz. Last spring, MD garnered several mentions on Live With Regis and Kelly in conjunction with the television show's Mutt America contest. In August, they were featured in an NPR story on niche magazines. And in 2003, both Folio and Utne named Modern Dog one of the year's best start-ups.

Man's best friend. From Modern Dog, Winter 2003/04. Photograph: Jana Vackova

Perhaps it's a story best told as a kind of free-market parable: ignore this glossy, canine quarterly at your peril. With its beachhead in the United States, Modern Dog might just be the Canadian magazine industry's next, best hope. Just now, however, Wilson wants her house back. Since its launch in October 2002, she's edited the magazine out of her Kits Point home. The five-woman crew finally moved into its own office in January.

Wilson, 52, exudes a familiar kind of West Coast candour. She smiles easily, radiating good health. When we met on a dark, drizzly Vancouver afternoon, she wore tight red cords and a black turtleneck. A large Celtic cross hung low on her chest. The basic idea for the magazine, she says, came in a flash, walking with Kaya in the woods near UBC. "All of sudden I thought, 'Dogs! It has to be dogs.' I just knew it in my heart. It was almost like tears were suddenly coming into my eyes. I knew that this was exactly the right thing." To hear Wilson tell it, faith, family and friends were the fuel of Modern Dog's success. "It's all about relationships, especially in this doggie world," she observes. "It's a very emotional community." Still, you sense something hardboiled about her; clearly, she's a pretty savvy operator.

William Shields, editor of Masthead, the Canadian magazine industry's trade journal, calls Modern Dog's success south of the border extraordinary. "It is unusual," he says, "but it's not unheard of," mentioning Vice, Adbusters and Rue Morgue, Canadian periodicals that have also penetrated the American market. But Modern Dog's rise has certainly been swift – jumping from a regional publication (with a print run of 15,000) to an international title by its third issue. Practically every American chain, from Borders to Barnes & Noble, carries it. Circulation is expected to hit 40,000 this spring and by the fall they hope to be a bimonthly. MD expects to finish this fiscal year in the black, a first for the start-up.

Amazingly enough, Wilson had never worked in publishing before. She spent nearly her entire adult life in the Okanagan, only returning to Vancouver, her hometown, when her second marriage ended in 1996. She signed up for a self-employment program. Then, after stints as a legal secretary and a developer, she started to think about the magazine business. The idea grew out of her own lifestyle. It seemed a huge, untapped vein: the upscale, urban pet owner, the straight and the queer, the 30-somethings and the seniors. "There are a lot of lonely people, and they all get dogs," she says, referring to everyone from childless couples and the divorced to young professionals who just aren't ready for kids. "The dogs are their family. They're not outside in a doghouse, they're inside. Often they share their beds. They love them. They love them as much as they would love a child."

High-end doggie fashion shoot. From Modern Dog, Winter 2004/05. Photograph: Chris Haylett

So Wilson took "a leap of faith," cashed her RRSPs, sold her Kelowna house and sank her money into the project. Soon, Vogel, an Edmonton publisher of satellite listings guides, had purchased a 30-per-cent share. Her daughter, Jennifer Nosek, became the magazine's creative director. Her other child, Jessica Nosek, was recently added as an assistant. Her mother helps out, too. Wilson found a niche straight off. Dogs in Canada, the venerable breeders' journal, didn't speak to her upmarket obsessions. The pooches she had in mind were spoiled rotten.

William Shields believes MD pushed all the right buttons. "They [readers] archive it. They pass it onto friends. The magazine is a hit. It's struck a chord. It has an intimate relationship with its readers," he explains. What advertiser wouldn't want that kind of intimacy to extend to their product, especially when Canadians are spending more than $1 billion a year on their pets? Wilson certainly gets it. "Our readers say they enjoy the ads as much as they enjoy the editorial." Which means she’s hit the mother lode. Many of Modern Dog's clients had never had a place to put their ads before. Most of the high-end apparel – the diamond tiaras, the snazzy berets and booties – had only been available at small doggie boutiques. This spring, 50 per cent of the magazine's content will be advertising. It's a ratio that's thickened their coat for the fight ahead.

MD's got competition now – Urban Dog out of New Orleans and The New York Dog, a pair of newer, likeminded mags – and Wilson's envisioning a number of permutations. Modern Cat, she admits, might be very close behind. Whatever happens, however, she'll still be sticking to a niche that worships conspicuous consumption for canines. "The dog community is a great big interconnected family," she says. "And we're all together in this. It's continual and growing."

Greg Buium is a Vancouver writer.