Ed took early retirement at age 49 without formulating any plan as to what he would do next. So while his wife continued to work each day as a high-end relator, Ed found himself with plenty of time on his hands and no idea of what to do with it.

Each day Ed would take Zippy, the family’s Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier, over to the dog park and let “the Zipster” hang out with his doggy buddies for an hour. Like most dogs, Zippy spent most of the hour peeing on everything he could find so that future visitors would know that he had been there.

In some ways Ed was jealous of Zippy. There were no expectations for him. All he had to do was be a dog. Ed suddenly had the idea that maybe Zip could become his ticket back to the real world! He could become a dog groomer and use Zip as his inspiration or he could invent a new dog food and make millions using Zip as his guinea pig. What about becoming a dog walker? OR maybe he could finally train Zippy and who knows what would happen?