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Annual Conference Information for 2023

We are excited to announce that the aPaws sponsored 2023 Pooper Scooper Convention will be held in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina from Friday, September 15 to Sunday September 17, 2023 at the Crown Reef Resort and Water Park.

Sponsors 2023

Our Great Dane Sponsor for 2023

A special thanks for our Great Dane Sponsor Pet Sitters Associates! They have been our go to people for general liability insurance for many years and continue to provide a discount for aPaws members. They're easy to work with and great people too! #PetSittersAssociates

Labrador Sponsor -

Thanks to our Labrador sponsor, Ogosense, the creator of Sweep & Go, the first app designed specifically for the pooper scooper industry. #sweepandgo

Beagle Sponsors -

Chihuahua Sponsors -

Yuckos Pooper Scooper Service
Scoop Masters

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

FRIDAY EVENING: Meet and Greet with hors d'oeuvres and cash bar sponsored by aPaws. (aPaws supplies the hors d'oeuvres, you supply the cash for the bar.)

SATURDAY: Convention, including breakfast, dinner banquet and guest speakers. Speakers and seminars will be announced in the coming weeks as they are secured. We plan on having an expert on social media, a professional on securing commercial accounts for your scooping business, and a couple of other guests to help in your scooping business. And, let's not forget, the Turd Herding Contest.

Event Registration forms: Download it here - Fill it out, sign, then send it to treasurer@apaws.org or snail mail it to the address on the form. NOTE: If you are an aPaws member, your team may also register under your company at the member's rate. Just use the same form.

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Our Speaker Lineup

Brian Basilico

Brian is a speaker, award-winning author, syndicated blogger, podcaster, and a sought-after guest expert featured in Entrepreneur and Inc., magazines. With over 900 episodes, his show, “The Bacon Podcast”, was also recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of their top 35 business podcasts.

He was honored as one of the Top Marketers to Follow in 2018. Brian is an Online Marketing Strategist with over 45 years of marketing experience and the owner of an award-winning internet marketing company, B2b Interactive Marketing, Inc.

Kathleen Rhowedder & Sarah Jennings
of Poo Patrol LLC

A possible solution to the employee shortage your business may be facing. Presenting a different way to find quality employees within your community! Learn how hiring a person that may need employment supports within your community can benefit your company along with making a difference within your community.

Ogy Nikolic - OGO Sense

Ogy will be giving us Sweep & Go users a quick update on the newest features coming up for the only app made specifically for the pooper scooper industry:

New WordPress Plugin Version
Franchise / Multi-Location Portal
Client Migration Feature (If/when you acquire another Sweep&Go user, option to quickly copy data)
Pet Waste Station Management Feature

Numerous enhancements to existing features -1x payments, option to reoptimize route after adding job, etc.

Kandra Witkowski

Kandra Witkowski is the Manager of Business Development for Pet Butler and has been in the pet waste removal industry for 21 years. She has diversified several times owning several businesses and often adding additional services to those business. Some of her businesses include a scooping business, a pet sitting business, and a lawn care business.

Kandra has served as a guest speaker at past APAWS conventions as well as regional business networking and woman’s network events. She is a past board member of apaws and several Chicago based animal rescue groups and is the current board president for Spay Illinois Pet Well Clinics. Kandra brings a skill set uniquely suited to help small business owners understand the benefit of diversification.

Dave Jensen

"The 4 Keys to Winning More Commercial Business"

Dave is a pioneer in the commercial pet waste management service industry. He authored the first CE credit course endorsed by the Community Associations Institute and the Community Associations International Certifications Board about pet waste management in community associations. He is an expert on pet waste management issues in communities and has been a speaker at local, regional, and national events throughout the country. He’ll be sharing key takeaways that he learned over 13 years building the commercial sales program from the ground up that helped DoodyCalls double their revenue.

Saturday Evening

The Association of Professional Animal Waste Specialists (aPaws), a 501(c)(6) nonprofit trade organization, has hosted this special event every 2 years since its formation in 2002. The purpose is to provide continuing education specifically for professional animal waste specialists from around the country. However, all pet professional are invited! In the past, guest speakers have discussed topics such as social media and interactive marketing, how to effectively use google ads, how to start or expand your business, a virtual office for pet professionals, pet first aide basics and much more. Round table discussions are also held to allow pet professional to share information with one another on a variety of topics. #pooperscooperconvention

In addition, aPaws has made it their ongoing mission to raise money to donate pet air masks to fire departments and EMS Personnel. These cone-shaped plastic masks come in three sizes and fit snugly onto snouts so pets of all sizes can be resuscitated when suffering from smoke inhalation. For more information on pet recovery masks and how you can support our efforts to provide these masks, please visit http://apaws.org/about/support/donate

The members of aPaws like to mix a little fun into the convention. The “Turd Herding” Contest and “Name That Turd” are activities that every professional pooper scooper looks forward to. The “Turd-Herding” Contest is for professional pooper scoopers to determine who is the fastest pooper scooper in the nation. For this unique contest, fake dog waste is placed around the grounds of the hotel and participating pooper scoopers see who can pick up the most piles in two minutes. The top three winners each receive a trophy and bragging rights... at least until next time!

Turd Herding

Turd Herding Contest, which has become a staple of the aPaws annual convention, will take place on Saturday and is open only to aPaws members. If you got what it takes, you can prove to the world that you are the fastest pooper scooper and take home the first place trophy and have the bragging rights for the rest of the year. #turdherding