MANNY's PLACE TAPROOM STORY
Manny’s Place Taproom is named after our sweet puppy Manny, who passed away in 2021.
We had lost our beloved Golden Retriever and decided we needed to have the positive energy that a dog brings to our lives, but we wanted something completely opposite of our Beau.
So, we checked out the different shelters online and saw this cute black dog that looked like it needed a loving home.
He was in a neighboring state, so we drove over 7 hours and met our new family member at 11pm. He had just returned from a walk, and the staff member commented, “This dog needs a job.” Of course, we didn’t know what that meant, and we were too tired to care, so we packed him in the car and drove home. On the way, we tried several names that we thought would fit and finally came up with Manny (for Manny Ramirez, the baseball player) because of the wild black hair on his head.
This
was our first time rescuing a dog, and we soon realized that Manny had difficulty
showing affection. He would tolerate us showing him affection but would not
reciprocate for the first year or two. We also realized that he had issues with
children and yellow school buses. He would react to kids and bark aggressively
whenever a yellow school bus passed. I can only imagine what happened to him in
his prior life.
The rescue staff member’s words returned to us as we realized that Manny was extremely smart and full of energy! We are quite sure he was part Border Collie and part Newfoundland.
Manny always wanted to play, run, and chase; if you weren’t paying attention to him, he would do something good or bad to ensure you were focused on him. Manny grew up to be an awesome dog, and we had many adventures together. The only issue we ever had to deal with was that he was a reactive dog, and we were never sure if he would be aggressive towards others dogs or people. We started to go for evening walks and ended up in a local taproom where you could take dogs. Manny LOVED it. He seemed to let down his guard, would let anyone (not kids of course) come and pet him, give him treats, and even was friendly and playful with most dogs. When we left the establishment, he would return to his reactive self, but every time we went into a taproom or brewery, he seemed to relax; he felt safe. We brought him to Surprise, AZ, and realized there were very few dog-friendly places and no Taprooms in the area. From that, we came up with the idea of opening a Dog-Friendly Taproom so that dog lovers like us have a place to bring our best friend in a safe environment.
Unfortunately, Manny didn’t live to see it, but it’s in his honor. We always said to people, “To know Manny was to Love Him” he could be a real butt, but he learned to love and lived his life to the fullest.