North Texas Deal Shows How Camp Bow Wow Is Rethinking Expansion
Camp Bow Wow’s latest North Texas franchise agreement offers a useful look at how established franchise systems are adapting their development strategies to higher construction and real estate costs.
The pet care franchise has signed Fort Worth entrepreneurs Trinity Shields and Abigale “Abby” Freeman to develop three locations across Weatherford, Burleson and Granbury, Texas.
The couple are first-time franchise owners, but they are entering the system with a multi-unit strategy rather than limiting their plans to a single location.
Weatherford is expected to become their first Camp, followed by development in Burleson and Granbury.
What makes the agreement especially notable is the format behind those locations. The franchisees will utilize Camp Bow Wow’s newer reduced-investment prototype, designed to lower development costs while allowing operators greater flexibility when selecting sites.
Reducing the Cost of Franchise Expansion
For many service franchises requiring significant physical space, development costs have become one of the biggest obstacles to growth.
Camp Bow Wow has responded by redesigning its traditional facility model.
The newer prototype reduces the initial investment required to develop a Camp by more than $400,000. It uses a more efficient footprint and is intended to work across a wider variety of real estate configurations.
That can have an important effect on franchise development.
A model requiring less capital can potentially expand the pool of qualified investors, make multi-unit commitments more achievable and provide franchisees with additional choices when evaluating properties.
For Camp Bow Wow, the strategy also creates another path for penetrating suburban markets where demand may be attractive but larger traditional locations could be harder or more expensive to develop.
Similar buildouts have already been introduced in markets including Dulles, Virginia, and Gallatin, Tennessee.
North Texas now becomes another test of how effectively the smaller model can support expansion.
A Three-Market Development Plan
Shields and Freeman’s territory selection places their future locations across growing communities on the southwestern side of the Dallas-Fort Worth region.
Instead of opening all three Camps simultaneously, the partners plan to build the business progressively, beginning with Weatherford.
That approach allows the new franchisees to gain operating experience, establish their management systems and understand the customer base before extending the operation across additional territories.
For first-time franchise owners, phased multi-unit development can provide an important balance between ambition and execution.
The couple’s decision was also influenced by the franchise system itself. During their search for a business opportunity, they were attracted to Camp Bow Wow’s established operating model, company culture and emphasis on dog safety and customer trust.
The result was not simply the purchase of one franchise territory, but a commitment to develop a regional group of locations.
Why Texas Fits the Pet Care Growth Story
Camp Bow Wow’s North Texas development comes in a state where the brand already has considerable penetration.
More than 30 Camp Bow Wow locations currently operate across Texas, serving markets ranging from Dallas-Fort Worth to Houston, Austin and surrounding communities.
Yet significant whitespace remains.
Camp Bow Wow continues to identify additional Texas territories for franchise development, including opportunities throughout Dallas-Fort Worth and other areas of the state.
This combination of an established customer-facing brand and remaining territorial availability gives Camp Bow Wow an opportunity to deepen its presence without entering Texas as an unfamiliar concept.
Weatherford, Burleson and Granbury also offer a different expansion profile from opening additional locations directly inside major urban cores.
Growing suburban communities can provide access to households with pets while potentially offering different real estate economics than central Dallas or Fort Worth.
Multiple Services Support the Franchise Model
Camp Bow Wow operates in a pet services category that has expanded well beyond traditional kenneling.
Its Camps offer dog daycare and overnight boarding as their core services, with grooming and enrichment providing additional revenue opportunities in many locations.
That structure allows franchisees to build relationships with customers who may use the business repeatedly for daycare, travel-related boarding and other services.
The franchise’s facilities are designed around supervised play environments and include features such as climate-controlled spaces and webcams that let pet parents view their dogs remotely.
Shields and Freeman also intend to make community relationships part of their business development strategy.
The partners plan to connect with veterinarians, rescues and animal shelters around their new territories, giving each Camp opportunities to become integrated into its local pet owner community rather than operating strictly as a transactional service business.
Camp Bow Wow Positions for Another Growth Phase
The Texas expansion comes as Camp Bow Wow continues refining its broader franchise strategy.
The system has grown to more than 220 U.S. locations, alongside its presence in Canada. The company entered 2026 following 14 franchise agreements signed the previous year and has been targeting additional development through its redesigned format.
The strategy appears aimed at addressing one of the most important questions facing mature franchise systems: how to continue expanding without allowing development costs to make new units increasingly difficult to build.
Camp Bow Wow’s answer is a smaller, more adaptable footprint combined with a stronger focus on multi-unit development.
The agreement with Shields and Freeman provides an example of that strategy in practice.
Two first-time franchise owners are entering the system with three territories, while the franchise is using a lower-cost facility model to help make that growth plan more achievable.
Weatherford will provide the first indication of how that strategy translates locally. If development progresses as planned, Burleson and Granbury will turn the initial location into a broader North Texas franchise operation.
For franchisors watching the economics of expansion closely, the deal illustrates how modifying the physical model—not simply selling more territories—can become an important part of a brand’s development strategy.
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