Personal Statement

I am Will Pflaum, owner and founder of Glencadia Corporation, the parent company of Glencadia Dog Camp. My wife Aenne and I moved from Park Slope Brooklyn to Stuyvesant Falls, NY, Hudson Valley, Columbia County in 2005. At the time, we had one small son, Ollie, who is now heading to Columbia University – my alma mater, upper west side where I used to roam. Two other children were born here upstate, in 2008 and 2014, Leo and Viola respectively. Lotta was born in Ethiopia in 2008 and we adopted her in 2009.

When we moved here from the city, there is so much we didn’t know, I could write a book on city ignorance of this rural area… but I wrote a slightly different book called Under Two Maples in 2016. My son wants us to update the book and do a part two to cover the next four years. As ignorant as we were, I wouldn’t recommend more information, as stumbling around and making mistakes worked out well and the dumb stuff we did turned out to be the smart stuff years later. Or maybe my perspective changed. In any event, I knew nothing and now I know you don’t need to know much, so, well, you tell me the moral of the story.

After running Glencadia for many years, in 2018 I decided to expand our operation. Hiring people, renovating, upgrading and constructing new spaces, acquiring new vehicles, and other substantial investments. That’s business. It’s better to have more people and be a bigger operation. More people, more redundancy, better service. 

I love it here and I’m proud of this little business we have here. It’s nice and there is no show to this: what you see is what you get. I have other parts of my life that aren’t relevant to the business, but there they are, designer, more books, rap records, anti-corruption war, pro se lawsuit, art, a book of art and poetry, another pro se FOIL lawsuit pertaining to ongoing corruption on appeal, one I never filed…

And lots of dogs.

Does any of the information/personal history in this post matter to the operation of Glencadia and our ability as a team to care for dogs and work with customers? Maybe. Maybe not.

Education

Columbia University, NY: M.A. in Anthropology and Education — May 19, 1993 / M.Ed. in Anthropology and Education — May 19, 1993.  

The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor: B.A. with high honors in History and Anthropology, minor in Spanish Language and Literature — 1986 – 1990

Experience

Small Business Owner. Stuyvesant Falls, NY — 2005 – present: Ran business offering country vacations to city dogs.

Graphic Designer. New York, NY — 1991 – 2004: Designed promotional materials, mostly for the adult trade divisions of New York City book publishers.

Classroom Teacher. South Bronx, NY — 1990 – 1991:  Taught third grade in public school 

Publicity Assistant. New York, NY — 1992 – 1993: Promoted books for the adult trade division of Houghton Mifflin 

Deputy Press Secretary. New York, NY — 1994 – 1995: Worked in the local office of congresswoman Carolyn Maloney 

Adjunct Instructor. Brooklyn, NY — 1992 – 1994: Taught anthropology at Medgar Evers College, CUNY

Tenant organizer. Brooklyn, NY — 1989 – 1991 

Projects

Books: Juba: The Search for the Sons of the Martyrs (Pflaum, 2012) // Pazzis Sureda (pazzis.com)// M.O.G.E. (2013) // Dog Stories: Watch Your Step (2009) //Islands of the Imagination (2013) // Under Two Maples: Twelve years in the country (2017)

Maroon: 31 Year Reunion Detroit Free Press article Billboard article Stereogum article 

Podcast

Dog War: The story of a guy from the city wandering into a corrupt town in upstate NY in a corrupt county and fighting the government.

Here is a book I wrote about dogs after doing this job for three years…

We often hear from people something to the effect of “I don’t see a lot of shots from inside the place where the dogs sleep.” This post is meant to explain and rectify this problem. Please read and watch the two videos at the end of this text.

In 2018, we remodeled the “new side” of the kennel. There we put in a cement floor, added a new furnace, insulation, whole house AC, running hot and cold water, bathroom, fridge, bathtub, woodstove, etc. It’s beautiful and we’re proud of it. Eight yards are connected to this side of the kennel so there are plenty of options to mix and match dogs. If one dog is not getting along with others, s/he could still have a yard all day (access to outside) and if we have a group who are doing great together and should stay together at night, we can let them have a yard as well.

Please note the cots in the video below. We have a design for washable beds that works well for us – we can spray them off, they are comfortable, and should a dog show up here with fleas, god forbid, they would have no place to lay eggs.

In 2019-20 we remodeled the “old side” of the 1904 post and beam barn. The foundation and roof are in excellent shape, we repainted the entire huge building, the fire alarms and sprinklers are up to snuff, and the heating and cooling systems are brand new. This brings us up to 6000 SF of insulated, interior space available to dogs. We like to let them out and explore the whole thing when many people are there to supervise – up the stairs, down… After exploring while we clean and maintain the space, then going out to the fields, they are usually quite ready to rest and relax by 11 AM in the morning.

1500 sf (new side) has AC and the rest (old side) has a sophisticated air circulation system to keep the warm air heading down in the winter when the heat is on and the hot air moving up and out of the building at night in the summer to cool the place off all day. Insulating a space this huge was a challenge and we did it. This “old” side includes the massive inside playground.

In addition to the five large fields (total of about 18 acres) for romping mornings and evenings, we have 16 yards around the barn. This means that no dog will be stuck inside if the weather is halfway decent. We have 64 spaces where we could put dogs – rooms of various sizes. We can feed every dog by him or herself if we need to, for example.

Inside photography is a bit trickier than outside videos and photos. However, we have plenty of interior shots sprinkled in the monthly photo albums linked on this site. The problem is to find the pictures.

Take a look at these video – about a minute each – and see if this helps.

From time to time I do more than repost YouTube videos and Google Photos here on the blog.

This list is an index of topics that may be of interest.

If you’d like to know where the dogs sleep here is the link: https://www.glencadia.com/inside/

If you are interested in how an average day goes here at Glencadia: https://www.glencadia.com/a-dogs-day-at-glencadia/

If you want to know about how we deal with nervous dogs: https://www.glencadia.com/nervous-nellie/

If you want to know how we compare the dog camp experience compared to the kids camp experience (dogs and kids and about cuts and scratches): https://www.glencadia.com/camp-for-dogs-camp-for-kids/

Here is an essay about dog moods: https://www.glencadia.com/mood/

Why dogs might gain or lose weight at camp: https://www.glencadia.com/weight/

How we deal with aggressive dogs and other issues: https://www.glencadia.com/dog-management/

About green stuff in the pond: https://www.glencadia.com/pond/

About prices: https://www.glencadia.com/prices/

About getting a dog portrait: https://www.glencadia.com/portraits/

About renovations: https://www.glencadia.com/glencadia-2-0/

About where the pick up free van will go: https://www.glencadia.com/free-pick-up-area-map-guide/

About any discounts and programs currently on offer: https://www.glencadia.com/discounts/

About Country Dogs, LLC, kind of dated and irrelevant: https://www.glencadia.com/cdogs/ ‎

An older post about renovations that is no longer very important: https://www.glencadia.com/renovations-under-way/

About frogs: https://www.glencadia.com/peepers-out-2020/

About a book I wrote (Will, 2016): https://www.glencadia.com/under-two-maples-2016/

About the “luxury” market: https://www.glencadia.com/luxury-is-the-opposite-of-quality/

About another book I wrote (Will, 2009): https://www.glencadia.com/dog-stories/ ‎

Here are some videos that show you more of what we do here:

Here is a single day inside and out: https://www.glencadia.com/aday/

This video walks around in the barn (prior to last renovation round competition): https://youtu.be/31W_K2nrVhs

Here is us having some fun: https://youtu.be/JBSqhfbDf3g

Digging a hole: https://youtu.be/uQDM7eGj0TM

Chasing a drone: https://youtu.be/hTkTINAk4Nk

Cleaning up: https://youtu.be/JOy7G0qNT7I

Staff: https://youtu.be/g1ubtTvlA-A