DOGS BOND Makes A Forever Home Possible. Alex Lu
Move away from your electronic devices and gather around the playing table to engage in Alex Lu’s board game, Dogs Bond. Alex Lu created Dogs Bond for several reasons. One, is for the multi-cultural experience, while another reason is to change the conversation we have regarding animal shelters and animal adoptions. But his ultimate goal and mission is to provide a positive outcome for dogs in animal shelters to find their forever happy home. Adopt Dogs Bond to your family playing table and save a dog.
Transcript
I share a special bond with my rescue dog Maka.
Speaker:She is a family member who shares time, vacations and our home with us.
Speaker:Maka I love dearly and Mike and I are responsible for her wellbeing.
Speaker:My guest today crosses international borders to rescue
Speaker:animals out of facilities and out of not so great situation.
Speaker:He and his team of two others developed a board game for you to play
Speaker:and to also support animal welfare organizations,
Speaker:world wide, listen to this sound.
Speaker:Did you recognize it?
Speaker:Well, I have super happy memories of playing board games
Speaker:with my siblings and friends.
Speaker:I can hear that sound and it just brings back the memories
Speaker:will Alex Lu loves board games.
Speaker:This one, Dogs Bond he has many emotional capital invested in it.
Speaker:He's passionate about the success of Dogs Bond board game, because he wants
Speaker:animals to find their forever happy home.
Speaker:Alex, Lu, thank you so much for joining me here on your positive imprint.
Alex Lu:thank you so much, Catherine.
Alex Lu:It's really great to be here.
Alex Lu:I'm super excited to talk to you.
Catherine:Oh, thank you so much.
Catherine:Well, I want to just get started on how you came up with this idea.
Catherine:Dogs Bond game.
Alex Lu:Absolutely.
Alex Lu:Dogs Bond is a board game about rescue dogs, finding their forever homes.
Alex Lu:It came together.
Alex Lu:It came together because I do a lot of work with and volunteer with local rescue.
Alex Lu:And because I'm not very shy, I talk to everyone.
Alex Lu:And so they'll put me in front of an adoption fair adoption day.
Alex Lu:I'll ask the question.
Alex Lu:What has been your thought process around becoming a responsible dog owner?
Alex Lu:What does it mean to you to change your life?
Alex Lu:To be a good Dog parent.
Alex Lu:And sometimes that's the first time a family or a child
Alex Lu:has really thought about it.
Alex Lu:They may have seen a dog on TV or a movie and just think, oh, well,
Alex Lu:that's just going to be how it is.
Alex Lu:But when you're rescuing a dog, there are oftentimes preexisting conditions and
Alex Lu:experiences that come with their own sets of challenges, but also to their joys.
Alex Lu:And that was something that I really felt needed to be built into our
Alex Lu:collective consciousness and to your show, a PAWSitive change to the
Alex Lu:way that we have the conversation about rescue and adoption.
Alex Lu:And I'm a big board game fan, big board game lover.
Alex Lu:And for me, many of my memories growing up are of myself and my family
Alex Lu:playing board games together, building those real memories and bonds of
Alex Lu:both friendship, love and antagonism.
Alex Lu:And these are the stories that I still tell at holiday dinners at
Alex Lu:birthdays, where we laugh and cry-laugh about something that happened.
Alex Lu:When I think about my nephews and nieces now, there's so many
Alex Lu:distractions with a cell phone.
Alex Lu:And with the screen time that how do we build those relationships,
Alex Lu:those bonds with each other across generations and dogs bond was my
Alex Lu:answer to both of these challenges.
Catherine:That is so amazing.
Catherine:And I so agree with you.
Catherine:Wow, well, that is phenomenal.
Catherine:And I love so many of these things that you're saying and the
Catherine:transformation that a person goes through when they adopt a dog.
Catherine:And in this case, we're talking dogs, but you can adopt cats.
Catherine:Dogs, horses, Potbelly.
Catherine:Pigs.
Catherine:Yeah.
Catherine:Birds.
Catherine:Yeah.
Catherine:And in the beginning you heard the little life, little game that I had in
Catherine:the introduction of the little spinner.
Catherine:Well, when I hear that sound, I always remember us sitting around the
Catherine:game life and spinning that thing.
Catherine:And sometimes as kids would spin it and then it has these colors and we would try
Catherine:to make it rise and then it would just go plop right back in down to the bottom.
Catherine:Yep.
Catherine:Well mentioned something that definitely those types of games
Catherine:really resound in us memories.
Catherine:Sometimes we were learning to count money in the game.
Catherine:And in some of the games, there were many times of family bonding.
Catherine:Yeah.
Catherine:And aside from you playing board games as a child and just loving the
Catherine:memories, what other type of background do you have that would help you to
Catherine:build a board game and all of the marketing and pieces that go with it?
Alex Lu:Sure.
Alex Lu:So my day job is I do independent management consulting for a big
Alex Lu:technology firms here in the San Francisco bay area, Silicon valley.
Alex Lu:Companies like Cisco, eBay, PayPal, those are my clients.
Alex Lu:And my day job is project manager focusing on mergers and acquisitions boring.
Alex Lu:No, I'm
Catherine:Yeah.
Alex Lu:It is very fulfilling.
Alex Lu:But what I, what I found here was that my skillset around developing timelines
Alex Lu:around leveraging and finding the right team of, for me many times it's
Alex Lu:engineers or facilities managers, and they work together to complete a project,
Alex Lu:bring a team, an organization online.
Alex Lu:And I really wanted to try my hand at product management.
Alex Lu:Something that, could be a tangible kit, a tangible piece
Alex Lu:that would go out into the world.
Alex Lu:And, for our project, since we are a mission driven project, be a fundraising
Alex Lu:tool for animal rescue anywhere in world.
Alex Lu:Cause I know for me, finding time to give back is often challenging because
Alex Lu:there's so many great organizations, so many wonderful people that you want to
Alex Lu:work with and connect with, but you've only got so much time on that Saturday
Alex Lu:when you can donate your time you can always donate your money.
Alex Lu:That's easy.
Alex Lu:But donating your time.
Alex Lu:And so I wanted to try to figure out a way that where I could almost replicate
Alex Lu:myself and duplicate myself because many rescues will ask me, Alex, you were great
Alex Lu:at talking this up or speaking to this group or event or managing this and that.
Alex Lu:Can you do it again?
Alex Lu:Only one person.
Alex Lu:So that was a really big catalyst for me to try to create this game.
Alex Lu:And I used what skills that I have in the corporate world to apply
Alex Lu:them towards this board game.
Alex Lu:And many of those skills apply, right?
Alex Lu:Perseverance communication, vision, strategy, timeline,
Alex Lu:resource management, budgeting.
Alex Lu:And all those things really do come together.
Alex Lu:But there are many things that, that I had to explore that I
Alex Lu:had to learn on the, path.
Alex Lu:And certainly things like working directly with talented illustrator and
Alex Lu:a graphic designer, Sarah and Kiki, who I'm very pleased and proud to have
Alex Lu:as my partners in this project, I had to learn to speak a new language about
Alex Lu:art, about what is the goal of the art?
Alex Lu:What are the emotions we want to evoke in our players and people who are just
Alex Lu:passing by walking past this box on a shelf at a store ? Or in a virtual store,
Alex Lu:how do we make it interesting for folks?
Alex Lu:Why are they going to look at dogs bond?
Alex Lu:And so these kinds of questions and challenges are what we as a team
Alex Lu:really collaborated and and took on.
Alex Lu:And now we've been successful.
Alex Lu:We did it through Kickstarter, which is a crowdfunding platform
Alex Lu:and we raised over $20,000 there and we've since raised another $10,000.
Alex Lu:So $30,000 to make this board game come to life.
Alex Lu:And of course, spread that positive message around dog adoption
Alex Lu:and responsible dog ownership because our game asks players to
Alex Lu:take on the role of a rescue dog.
Alex Lu:And once you've played through that game, once you've experienced kind of
Alex Lu:metaphorically, what it's like to be a rescue dog, just being the best dog you
Alex Lu:can be trying to match with these humans.
Alex Lu:A lot of empathy comes in.
Alex Lu:A lot of compassion comes into the conversation and delighting
Alex Lu:us, certainly both in-person and in virtual playtests and demos.
Alex Lu:After playing the game, someone's always going to tell me about their
Alex Lu:dog or their rescue or how rescue impacted their life in a positive way.
Alex Lu:And that to me is how you really get to talk to people, cause they open
Alex Lu:up their soul and these kinds of conversations are the ones that are going
Alex Lu:to stick with you . I don't care about the funny name with the funny caption
Alex Lu:. That's not how we're building a bond.
Alex Lu:That's not how we're building a true friend.
Alex Lu:So that's what I think board games do.
Alex Lu:And of course, what dogs do.
Catherine:Wow.
Catherine:I love those type conversations and obviously you want to make some money
Catherine:at this, but what you're really wanting to do is to take your positive imprint.
Catherine:And as you said, turn it into a PAWSitive imprint.
Catherine:Yup.
Catherine:Yup.
Catherine:And for the relationships between dog and human to build and for
Catherine:people to have their heart and to be good dog parents, I think,
Catherine:well, oh, look, you can see her, but she just walked in.
Catherine:My rescue dog.
Catherine:Yeah.
Catherine:Well that's my little rescue dog Maka.
Catherine:She rescued us.
Catherine:And when we went to the dog shelter to adopt her, she saw my husband and
Catherine:she came over and put her cute little darling, Australian cattle dog head
Catherine:in-between his legs and looked up at him and we said, oh my gosh, we
Catherine:have to adopt her into the family.
Catherine:Yeah, it's out.
Catherine:You you've been chosen.
Catherine:Right.
Catherine:So.
, Alex Lu:Yeah.
, Alex Lu:exactly, exactly.
, Alex Lu:And I think that these kinds of stories are what you do
, Alex Lu:experience through the game.
, Alex Lu:And then also come out when you're at the game table, having a great
, Alex Lu:conversation and again, learning and bonding with one another.
Catherine:And that's important and learning and bonding,
Catherine:and we have certainly bonded.
Catherine:Well, this is Maka.
Catherine:So her name is Mele Kalikimaka is her full name if you talk about birth
Catherine:certificates, adoption certificates.
Catherine:And yes, I do sing the song to her every day.
Catherine:Oh, wonderful.
Catherine:But her name is Maka and she is 15 now.
Alex Lu:Well, a senior dog.
Alex Lu:Yeah, my wife's dog Smudge.
Alex Lu:He was a Jack Russell terrier.
Alex Lu:Also a rescue.
Alex Lu:He is 14 and he's, he's got a little bit of that, like senior, senior dog
Alex Lu:hitch and stuff, and we're, learning how to care for a senior dog, but
Alex Lu:also too, he still loves to play ball.
Alex Lu:He'll still come up to you and just, jump on you . So yeah, it's, it's great.
Alex Lu:Love, love these dogs.
Alex Lu:And that was really too, what got me inspired was I've had
Alex Lu:more experience with dogs.
Alex Lu:And so that made it a much more genuine and authentic way to
Alex Lu:build in the characters and characteristics in the, in the game,
Alex Lu:because I had experience with them.
Alex Lu:I would say actually for this project, the number one question is
Alex Lu:how come the game is not about cats.
Alex Lu:Delightfully.
Alex Lu:So, but I just didn't have as much experience with cats.
Alex Lu:Our plan is once this game takes off, dogs bond the bond system will be
Alex Lu:kind of the baseline so that, you know what you're getting into
Alex Lu:when you talk about board games.
Alex Lu:Right?
Alex Lu:So if I said, Hey, Catherine, let's sit down and play.
Alex Lu:I don't know, star wars clue, or, Sesame street monopoly, you know what we're
Alex Lu:getting into cause I said the game name and the system name, similarly
Alex Lu:bond, I hope will be synonymous with, passion projects doing good work,
Alex Lu:improving the lives of animals and whether you're picking up dogs,
Alex Lu:bond, or cats bond, you kind of know what you're getting into.
Catherine:Yeah.
Catherine:And improving the lives of animals is certainly well, that is commendable.
Catherine:And that is something, obviously that is international.
Catherine:So tell me, have you learned much about some of how the rescue, the dog
Catherine:rescue animal rescue is in general?
Catherine:In other countries?
Alex Lu:Absolutely a hundred percent.
Alex Lu:So one of the things that fascinated me as I was doing the research for
Alex Lu:the game is that rescue is done the same way in most countries.
Alex Lu:You'll have a municipal, maybe animal control, tax funded,
Alex Lu:shelter system, essentially what we used to call the pound.
Alex Lu:And then you have these volunteer run.
Alex Lu:Mostly out of people's homes.
Alex Lu:Maybe they've raised enough funds to have a facility, but yeah, a lot of times it's,
Alex Lu:People with huge hearts who say, you know what, we're going to rescue these animals
Alex Lu:and we're going to rescue them out of those facilities out of those situations.
Alex Lu:And, rescue animals can be there for all manner of different reasons and they
Alex Lu:just need that second chance at life.
Alex Lu:And that's what these fosters and that's what these rescues are really doing.
Alex Lu:And it's international.
Alex Lu:It's done the same way in the U S, Canada, the UK, Germany, Japan, Taiwan,
Alex Lu:Australia where, you've got a core group of passionate volunteers who
Alex Lu:really care for the animals and they administrate do all that hard work.
Alex Lu:And then, even do some personality kind of training and observations so that they
Alex Lu:know , Hey, this dog is great with kids or maybe not great with kids or great
Alex Lu:with cats, not great with cats right.
Alex Lu:Wants to be a single dog, or wouldn't mind being with a
Alex Lu:lot . These are these questions.
Alex Lu:that only get discovered through these wonderful organizations that
Alex Lu:I'm really proud to partner with.
Alex Lu:And so, Yeah, we're w it was just fascinating to learn that it is done
Alex Lu:exactly the same way across borders.
Alex Lu:And I think that that's one of the few things that I've ever experienced
Alex Lu:where it didn't matter what country, language you're working with.
Alex Lu:If these are big hearted folks out there to,
Alex Lu:find these animals forever homes.
Catherine:Yeah, forever homes.
Catherine:It's truly a key phrase or key words.
Catherine:So in your opinion, do you think that the process of caring for dogs that are
Catherine:abandoned or whatever the case may be, but that they need that forever home?
Catherine:Do you think the process needs to change worldwide and become more funded
Catherine:instead of trying to rely on volunteers to go in and work with these animals?
Alex Lu:I can't remember where I heard it, but it's, it's a, it's an easy
Alex Lu:quote that charity is a community's way to make up for a government's gap.
Alex Lu:It's filling a need.
Alex Lu:It's fulfilling that, that gap.
Alex Lu:And most of the time it's that, big heartedness and it causes
Alex Lu:people to jump into action.
Alex Lu:And That can happen too, that can happen.
Alex Lu:Or people have the space in their lives for that sometimes when they're
Alex Lu:younger or sometimes when they're older.
Alex Lu:Right.
Alex Lu:One of the icebreakers that I use at work is what would you do if
Alex Lu:you didn't have to work for money?
Alex Lu:And many times people will mention, oh, I really love to run a nonprofit, contribute
Alex Lu:to, solving some of these challenges that we have in our society today.
Alex Lu:And for me I definitely think that that would be animal rescue, if I didn't
Alex Lu:have to go and go working nine to.
Alex Lu:Well, seven to seven or whatever the case might be.
Alex Lu:There's a lot of opportunity there and a lot of things
Alex Lu:that I would like to see done.
Alex Lu:So yeah, it would always be great to get funding.
Alex Lu:That is the item that is maybe in the shortest supply at this moment.
Alex Lu:And that's again, why I wanted to create something that I could provide to
Alex Lu:rescues, to leverage in their fundraising to use annually as a raffle prize or
Alex Lu:a giveaway or some kind of auction.
Alex Lu:Use it however you want.
Alex Lu:I've done some work and would love to provide it out to the world.
Catherine:Oh, man, that is so rad.
Catherine:Well, now let's go to dogs bond, by the way.
Catherine:Congratulations on your Kickstarter campaign.
Catherine:And it works.
Catherine:If you have an idea and the public likes your idea, you will get funded.
Catherine:And I think that that's just awesome.
Catherine:And absolutely.
Catherine:So now let's look at dogs bond and the actual playing of the game.
Catherine:What can you share about some of the pictures or maybe the game pieces?
Alex Lu:Sure.
Alex Lu:Sure.
Alex Lu:Um, yeah, I'll start off with, you know, some of our, you know, kind of
Alex Lu:favorite components here, which are, and do any of those pieces look like Maka.
Alex Lu:Let's see.
Alex Lu:So we've got, um, we've,
Alex Lu:we've got, I'll show you what gate what breeds we do have.
Alex Lu:And of course, all of these are mixes.
Alex Lu:But as you have to do with a regular rescue many rescues have to identify a
Alex Lu:breed in order for them to be posted to, your favorite animal adoption website.
Alex Lu:You must post a breed.
Alex Lu:it.
Alex Lu:is a requirement.
Alex Lu:So, the breed, the the rescue has done their best to try to
Alex Lu:identify what these mutts are mostly . So there's the Jack Russell.
Alex Lu:The Pomeranian, a Basset hound.
Alex Lu:A Labrador.
Alex Lu:German shepherd have the border Collie.
Alex Lu:We have a golden retriever and a Boston.
Catherine:Yeah.
Alex Lu:These dogs again, are the, breeds that I just had
Alex Lu:had the most experience with.
Alex Lu:And then actually through our Kickstarter campaign, we were able to unlock
Alex Lu:two additional dog breeds in here.
Alex Lu:So there's a total of eight.
Alex Lu:We would love to expand the types of dogs that we have represented in the game
Alex Lu:so that we can, have additional breeds.
Alex Lu:Of course they all have their different superpowers in the game, and we'd be
Alex Lu:really, really excited about that.
Alex Lu:An expansion pack.
Alex Lu:Yeah, absolutely.
Alex Lu:Exactly.
Alex Lu:Right.
Alex Lu:And it works so well because it's, the expansion.
Alex Lu:dog pack.
Alex Lu:And then, for us, we also too wanted to make sure that there was a diversity and
Alex Lu:kind of, inclusiveness in our adopters.
Alex Lu:I didn't want to say, Hey, a a,
Catherine:Multicolored.
Alex Lu:Yeah.
Alex Lu:absolutely.
Alex Lu:Didn't want to say, an Asian American person, male who works in technology
Alex Lu:is the best kind of adopter.
Alex Lu:And that's how you get the most points.
Alex Lu:And I, and I really felt it was very important for me to be able to share with
Alex Lu:the community, the board game community these are people, and having that
Alex Lu:inclusion and representation and diversity in the game, but naturally, right.
Alex Lu:A lot of games will try to force diversity into the game structure.
Alex Lu:If you can imagine, and there are certain archetypes that come with it.
Alex Lu:So if you look at many games, popular games now, If you have an Asian
Alex Lu:character by and large, they're going to be a small and fast character.
Alex Lu:So if you think short round from Indiana Jones, that's the
Alex Lu:archetype you're playing with.
Alex Lu:And if you've got a, an African-American player or character, you've got
Alex Lu:this archetype of football player, really high-end strengths, but
Alex Lu:maybe not high intelligence.
Alex Lu:And these are just archetypes that I think don't really need to be
Alex Lu:the only exposure that we have to the diversity of characters,
Alex Lu:that we have in our society.
Alex Lu:And when I started the development of the project in 2017, that was
Alex Lu:very much important to me because I've got such a blended family.
Alex Lu:And we would just never see anyone that looked like us in the board games.
Alex Lu:And so putting that in was really important to me since I was designing
Alex Lu:the game, obviously in 2020 and 2021, it's become even more important for us
Alex Lu:to start to see one another as just, Hey, that's a person who loves dogs, too.
Alex Lu:What, great, awesome.
Alex Lu:They're going to rescue a dog, just like me.
Alex Lu:Fantastic.
Alex Lu:And I think it's the commonalities that we need to find rather than the differences
Alex Lu:and the otherness that that really excites me about being in the board game industry.
Alex Lu:And and having that, so, Yeah.
Catherine:Well, and finding those commonalities and actually going towards
Catherine:that definitely is another part of positive imprints, because as we all
Catherine:know, we are and 2020 taught this so well, we are citizens of the world
Catherine:and there are no borders when it comes to games or technology or podcasts.
Catherine:Yeah.
Catherine:So in your expansion pack, I can see an Australian cattle, dog breed.
Alex Lu:Right.
Alex Lu:, when we get there and hopefully that'll be soon, I'll call you up and I'll say, okay.
Alex Lu:What's the special power.
Alex Lu:Right.
Alex Lu:As an example I always pick on Smudge because he's my, he's my boy.
Alex Lu:And so as a Jack Russell, Smudge is always digging in the garbage, it's just how they
Alex Lu:were bred , what they were born to do is to be root, kind of like working dogs that
Alex Lu:root out , critters or, or whatever pests.
Alex Lu:And so they're always looking at, whatever is in the hole.
Alex Lu:And so when you open up the garbage can and you throw something in
Alex Lu:the hole, he immediately wants to know what did you just throw in?
Alex Lu:Let me go see, and if he can he'll knock over the trash
Alex Lu:can to, go root around in it.
Alex Lu:In the game, the special ability for the Jack Russell terrier is that
Alex Lu:they may draw from the discard pile rather than the blind draw pile.
Alex Lu:So that's my omage to Smudge that he's always in the garbage and
Alex Lu:he's always finding the best stuff and he's pulling out something.
Alex Lu:We've got we've got game mechanics where, a card may say, oh, you
Alex Lu:can take another player's, card.
Alex Lu:And
Alex Lu:Maybe Australian cattle dog just says 'no' all the time.
Alex Lu:Right.
Alex Lu:Just no, I'm protected.
Alex Lu:Nope I'm protected.
Alex Lu:That's my special ability.
Alex Lu:Right.
Alex Lu:So that's so cool.
Alex Lu:I've got a border Collie in here too.
Alex Lu:And the Labrador, so yeah.
Alex Lu:Yeah.
Alex Lu:If you'd like to adopt eight dogs, I've got them in the box.
Catherine:So funny, Alex.
Catherine:Well, you're doing such a great job of bonding and bringing empathy to
Catherine:the game players about a dog's life.
Catherine:But you're also bringing that conversation to the table outside of the game.
Catherine:And that's important and people might not be in a place to adopt right now,
Catherine:but they can still provide volunteerism.
Alex Lu:Absolutely.
Alex Lu:That's right.
Alex Lu:That's right.
Alex Lu:Yeah.
Alex Lu:And, after the game is done, you find out who got adopted by whom.
Alex Lu:And you get adopted and, and that's really great.
Alex Lu:And then of course we do celebrate every adoption.
Alex Lu:And so at the end of the game, all players who got adopted, they get
Alex Lu:to go ahead and turn over their their dog card then see how they
Alex Lu:adopted with, we got adopted
Catherine:Their forever home.
Alex Lu:And yeah.
Alex Lu:Yeah, exactly.
Alex Lu:. Catherine: Oh, my gosh.
, Alex Lu:that's the note that we end on.
, Alex Lu:So, at the end of the game, you're seeing this and all the other,
, Alex Lu:completed successful adoptions that you've gotten in the game.
, Alex Lu:And because we do support animal rescue, every time you play, every
, Alex Lu:copy you buy, you are contributing to animals having that moment in real life.
, Alex Lu:Oh, Alex, that is so amazing.
, Alex Lu:Say that one more time.
, Alex Lu:About real life.
Alex Lu:Yeah so because every adoption is special, there's a winner
Alex Lu:based on points, but everyone that does get adopted, you get to turn
Alex Lu:over the cards and then see how they matched up in their forever home.
Alex Lu:And because of the way that we structured the project as a passion
Alex Lu:project mission-driven project, every time you play the game
Alex Lu:every time you buy a copy or recommend it to a friend, you are
Alex Lu:contributing to real life animals, having this exact moment in real life.
Catherine:Wow, this is just so fantastic.
Catherine:Such happiness there.
Catherine:Yeah.
Catherine:And we wish that every ending could be as happy as the ending there in Dogs Bond.
Catherine:I just, I just love this idea with the fact that you are partnering with
Catherine:the organizations that are out there defending these animals and finding their
Catherine:forever homes and also fostering them.
Catherine:That's right?
Catherine:Yeah.
Catherine:Yeah, absolutely.
Catherine:And so you are immersing yourself in not just the game, but of course
Catherine:the reality changing, trying to transform the reality for dogs.
Alex Lu:Absolutely.
Alex Lu:Absolutely.
Alex Lu:Wow.
Alex Lu:Well, of course come visit us.
Alex Lu:We are online and on all of your social media platforms DogsBondGame.com and
Alex Lu:all of our social media handles are Dogs Bond Game just to make it really easy.
Alex Lu:And you can kind of get to know me, Sarah, Kiki it's just the team of three
Alex Lu:that made this truly come together and we're working to bring it out.
Alex Lu:And we hope to be delivering copies to our backers in late summer of 2021.
Alex Lu:Which is coming right up.
Alex Lu:And if you know of a rescue that might benefit from this project have
Alex Lu:them reach out to us, same place dogsbondgame.com they can sign up
Alex Lu:as a rescue.
Alex Lu:We'll work with them.
Alex Lu:We do all the packing, the shipping, the ordering, we take care of
Alex Lu:all of that.
Alex Lu:All they have to do is tell us that, That they are doing good work with
Alex Lu:with the animals and we'll take care of it and handle the donations.
Alex Lu:So there's really no additional work for a lot of these volunteer organizations.
Alex Lu:Cause I know that's one of the biggest challenges for them is they're already
Alex Lu:so, strapped for time strapped for volunteers for, new ideas.
Alex Lu:That's why we want it to be able to put this all into a box for them.
Alex Lu:So, yeah.
Alex Lu:Come join us.
Alex Lu:www.dogsbondgame.com.
Alex Lu:We would love it if you adopted us to your game table.
Catherine:Wow.
Catherine:I love that.
Catherine:So dogs bond that's D O G S B O N D.
Catherine:Dogs, bond game.com.
Catherine:So this has just been really interesting awesome, and inspiring hearing your
Catherine:journey from going from your own board games, growing up and feeling the absolute
Catherine:family bonding time and the friends that you bonded with during those games that
Catherine:brought you to this place that you yeah.
Catherine:That you wanted to do a game, but then you went first.
Catherine:You went further, you went deeper into the world of positivity.
Catherine:And I mean that in POSIT and with PAWSitivity, PAWS with your
Catherine:play on words there, but you went deeper and you immersed yourself
Catherine:in joining those organizations that are doing such good worldwide.
Catherine:So we're coming to an end here and you've been extremely inspiring,
Catherine:but are there any last minute inspiring words you'd like to share?
Alex Lu:Yeah, I think that, yeah.
Alex Lu:This project opened up more doors than I could've possibly imagined.
Alex Lu:Even being so, so, so thankful to be on a podcast like yours, Catherine.
Alex Lu:If I hadn't had done this, we wouldn't have nearly as much to talk about.
Alex Lu:You probably wouldn't ask me about, what's it like to be a program management
Alex Lu:professional for a fortune 500 company?
Alex Lu:Like it just wouldn't happen.
Alex Lu:Right.
Alex Lu:But through this project and making sure that it's mission
Alex Lu:driven, not a side hustle.
Alex Lu:And I think that that's a really big distinction, a passion project
Alex Lu:for me is something that you're doing because you care about the
Alex Lu:outcomes that can be delivered and really help lift up your community.
Alex Lu:Maybe the society.
Alex Lu:And a side hustle is kind of just and don't get me wrong.
Alex Lu:Money is a fine motivator for folks, but it's a, it's something where
Alex Lu:you kind of look at it as a way to supplement income . And if it went away,
Alex Lu:you wouldn't feel an emotional loss.
Alex Lu:Whereas the passion projects, things that people truly believe in like rescue,
Alex Lu:like a board game about rescue dogs.
Alex Lu:That's really tying it to your own emotional capitol and sharing that with
Alex Lu:the world, which can be very frightening.
Alex Lu:I mean, talk about being vulnerable on the internet saying I have a dream.
Alex Lu:Do you like it?
Alex Lu:Maybe you support us.
Alex Lu:Very frightening.
Alex Lu:But do it.
Alex Lu:I think that a lot of people are willing to help you do good things in the
Alex Lu:world in this time and, going forwards.
Alex Lu:I think we all realize how yeah.
Alex Lu:very much we can influence one another and lift each other
Alex Lu:up or tear each other down.
Alex Lu:And if you, me, all of us focus on making a positive imprint then I think that
Alex Lu:we'll be in a much nicer world to live in.
Catherine:Yes, that would be great.
Catherine:Alex Lu, it has been incredibly wonderful chatting with you
Catherine:and learning about Dogs Bond.
Catherine:I can't wait to play the game now.
Catherine:Your work is commendable in providing a positive outcome for dogs to
Catherine:find their forever happy home.
Catherine:Thank you so much for being here on your positive imprint
Alex Lu:thank you, Catherine.
Alex Lu:Thanks everyone.
Alex Lu:Your positive imprint.
What a fantastic idea. I’m so glad he is working with other organizations and wish him tons of luck with his board game. I think his game would make a fabulous birthday, Christmas, or a “just because” gift for anyone. Thanks for this great interview.
Terry, I agree and I love the partnership with animal welfare organizations worldwide! Thank you so much for listening and providing feedback. I appreciate you. Catherine