Meet The Experts

Guest Writer

Christa Collins

Account Executive

With 30 years of ad experience, Christa’s background is anything but one-track including print, online, custom-publishing and webinar, expo and event sales management. From Florida, she's been riding and owning horses since she was eight, and used to rodeo and barrel race. An animal lover herself, she has two dogs, two donkeys, one pony, two sheep and four horses.  When not working, you can find Christa equestrian riding and training, camping, four wheeling, attending animal events and getting involved in the local charities.

FIDO Friendly

Dr. Shawn Messonnier

Contributor

Dr. Shawn Messonnier has developed a line of organic pet shampoos and ear wash for dogs and cats named Dr. Shawn's Organics.

Lucy Postins

Contributor

Postins is a companion animal nutritionist and founder of The Honest Kitchen, a natural pet food company in San Diego, CA. She is author of the pet food recipe book, Made out of Love: Meals to prepare for and sometimes share with your animal companion.

Heather Larson

Contributor

Larson, a freelance writer and business journalist, frequently writes about dog-friendly lodging for FIDO Friendly. Her two assistants, a beagle and a collie, often dream about those same hotels.

Penny Eims

Contributor

Eims is a freelance writer who shares her love of dogs with readers in her Dog-News-Examiner articles at Examiner.com. She is a German shepherd owner who has worked extensively with two prominent German Shepherd Rescue organizations in Washington State for several years—fostering, providing web content and counseling adopters about dog behavior.

Sheryl Matthys

Contributor

Sheryl Matthys is The Dog Expert® and Founder of Leashes and Lovers—a dog lovers club to establish play dates, friendships or even love! As the Best Selling author of Leashes and Lovers, she has two young kids, a Greyhound and resides in NY.

Tammy Vohs

Account Executive

Tammy is an animal enthusiast who has spent most of her life caring for pets with her professional career in sales and marketing. She does a lot of volunteering and fostering with rescue groups and animal related organizations, owns a pet-sitting company, and writes articles on local pet-friendly places. When she is not working, she enjoys relaxing, traveling, site-seeing, dining out and shopping, especially when she can do these things with her pets. Tammy lives with her adorable 3 dogs and cat.

Dave & Wendi Weidner

Director of Sales

Passionate about skiing, traveling, exploring, and life, the Weidners make their home with two much loved feline companions.

Arden Moore

Editor-At-Large

With Chipper at 60 pounds and Cleo at 12, I feel I’ve got the best of all dog worlds – big and small. These second-chance rescues are now canine celebrities, making appearances on CNN, Fox and many other news programs with me. They live for long walks, road trips,  gourmet treats and making sure I’m up by 6:15 every morning. Who needs an alarm clock? I’ve got the C&C team to jumpstart my day!

Greg Sims

COO

Junior is the Will Rogers of the Canine set. He has never met a dog he did not like. Since we travel extensively with Junior sniffing out hotels for purpose of review, we have many opportunities to meet and greet the dog-loving community. Junior never fails to break the ice wherever we go. Everything Junior does is adorable, but the cutest thing about him is that he sounds exactly like Chewbacca from Star Wars when he chews his Nylabone. (Pictured with Greg and Junior is wife and Publisher, Susan Sims.)

Nicholas Sveslosky

Editor-in-Chief/CEO

Our lives can revolve around our dogs. Mine revolves around my beautiful black dog, Tasha. True to the slogan of Leave No Dog Behind®, anywhere you see me you’ll see Tasha. Hiking seems to be our alone time, otherwise, we’re at the office with Tasha making sure everyone on the FF Team knows that she is in the room. If you have the right energy, she’ll end up in your lap and slip you the tongue as slyly as possible. Her enthusiasm is the motivation behind some of the great content pulsing through FIDO Friendly magazine.

Laurie Jacobsen

Contributor

Jacobsen is a writer in Northern California with a small business called Living Legends Ltd. She books nostalgic celebrities, many of whom are closely identified with dogs, at unique personal appearances. She has written and produced documentaries, television series and specials. A respected historian, she appears regularly in magazines, on radio and television, including: E!'s Mysteries and Scandals, CNN, Mike Wallace's 20th Century, Art Bell, Entertainment Tonight, A&E, History Channel, Discovery Channel, AMC, Unsolved Mysteries, the Tom Snyder Show, KABC Radio, the BBC, National Geographic, L.A. Times, N.Y. Currently, she is working on two books.

Corey Olin

Creative Director

As a child, Corey Olin befriended a rescue Mutt—Spike—a known escape artist. Once the clever beast discovered that his back yard grew as he ran farther, Corey was in hot pursuit—chasing the white dog blindly from the highway to the lagoons and through prickly plants. Once the two returned home together, they both got the hose!

Claudine J. Taillac

Copy Editor

I lived in a rural neighborhood, and Bo was the ambassador of the neighborhood. He made his daily rounds to visit whomever he could find, human and canine alike--usually from 20 to 40 minutes. Chance would sit on the couch gazing worriedly out the window until Bo would come home. This probably stemed from the time that she decided to make her own rounds and somehow ended up a few acres away trapped in my grandfather's barn. To this day, I cannot figure out how she got in there. They came with me when I would go to feed and water the three pet doves that lived in my grandfather's greenhouse, and while Bo didn''t seem to know what to make of the doves, Chance thought they would be great squeaky toys!

Susan Sims

Publisher

Junior is the Will Rogers of the Canine set. He has never met a dog he did not like. Since we travel extensively with Junior sniffing out hotels for purpose of review, we have many opportunities to meet and greet the dog-loving community. Junior never fails to break the ice wherever we go. Everything Junior does is adorable, but the cutest thing about him is that he sounds exactly like Chewbacca from Star Wars when he chews his Nylabone. (Pictured with Susan and Junior is husband and COO, Greg Sims.)