How a Dog Fetched Its Owner a New Career

A fresh new small-business series, Trading Places will take a look at entrepreneurs who have successfully transitioned from working in the corporate world to founding their own business. If you have such a story you'd like to share, please email me.

At 30, Amber McCrocklin was an accomplished medical sales representative working for a cancer-diagnostics company in Indianapolis. She was young, successful and seemingly living the American Dream, but underneath it all, McCrocklin was bored.

For a few years she considered different possibilities for starting her own business, but was uncertain as to what field she should venture into. "Eventually, I knew it would come to me," McCrocklin says. And she was right.

One year later, McCrocklin got Bo, a yellow Labrador dog. When he was a puppy, Bo loved coming out on her speed boat, where he would scamper in and out of the water with McCrocklin's help. As he grew, however, the process of lifting him onto the boat became increasingly difficult. ...