Rob:  Well if you're a regular viewer, this next video may just look familiar.  
For over 25 years, REI has been helping business dreams come true, providing professional service with a personal touch, to meet your business needs.  
Without REI, Canine University would not be where it is today.  
Rob:  Well helping businesses like this grow, no matter their size or location, is the goal of Rural Enterprises Incorporated or REI.  Our Lisa Riley takes us behind the scenes of an REI-financed company whose business is going to the dogs.
Lisa:  Four years ago Angel Soriano was a private dog trainer trying to make his entrepreneurial dreams come true.  Today, he is the founder of K9 University, an established training facility in Oklahoma City.
Angel Soriano:  Dogs could be a real nuisance if not trained properly.  It doesn't matter what line of business you're in, you should have your dog trained, even to the most basic level.
Lisa:  Soriano has been training dogs for 23 years using techniques from the simple sit and fetch, to more advanced training, producing not just better behaved pets, but working dogs, like police dogs… or guide dogs.
Soriano:  Well I think that people really, really look at dogs and they think about dogs a lot further whenever you get into specialty dogs.  A dog that opens doors for people, a dog that gets things out of the refrigerator, or a dog that dials 911 for their owners.  That’s when you think of us, a specialty dog.  But it's not about just specialty dogs.  It's about a dog that actually can live with your family as part of the family pack, as opposed to being the nuisance that lives in the backyard.
Lisa:  Three years ago Soriano realized the high demand for facilities, such as K9 University, in Oklahoma.  According to a report by the American Veterinary Medical Association, Oklahoma has about 81,000 pet owning households. Owners that Soriano says often don’t have the time to invest in training their pets themselves. 
Soriano:  We have probably about 35 dogs right now, in house. That doesn't count the normal traffic. The normal traffic through this place is in the five to six hundred dogs per week.
Lisa:  However, getting his business to where it is today was not an easy walk.  Angel’s wife, Lynn, helped get K9 University off the ground, a process she says was, at times, very challenging.
Soriano:  The historical success of small businesses in this country is not that great. We started an entrepreneurial business that there were not many business models to go by.  So therefore, when we approached our local financial institution, Yukon National Bank, and wanted to involve the SBA, a lot of other financial institutions would not have even touched this. There were no other businesses like this in the Midwest; and to start a business venture this big we had to rely on intermediaries such as REI to help us pave the way.
Lisa:  Rural Enterprises Incorporated, better known as REI, is a company that has been meeting the needs of Oklahoma businesses and communities for 25 years through a variety of economic development services. They provided the assistance that the Sorianos needed to get their business off the ground.
Soriano:  They helped us out with the banking needs with the SBA needs.  They were always there when we needed them.  It's a good experience being able to talk to one person, actually, and getting it all done, getting everything signed, getting everything, you know, dealt with. 
Lisa:  And according to the Soriano’s, ever since their opening they have watched their business boom, serving more than two thousand dog owners each month.  Something the Sorianos said they could not have done without REI. 
Soriano:  They saw the vision. They saw the plan.  They saw the opportunity for success in this business and lent us the money and helped us do that.  And so that's not that common today.  
Soriano:  It's been an exponential growth, and it's been fun.  It's been a fun ride.  I'm doing what I enjoy doing, and you cannot replace my day.   I get up in the mornings, and I know that I'm going to be playing with a dog.  And at the end of the day, I'll be playing with a dog.
Lisa:  A dream that Angel gets to live out every day.