Viral Tails

The saying goes, ‘a dog is a man’s best friend’, and for Chris Equale, a 2010 business school graduate, that certainly rings true.  

For the past five years, Equale and his wife, Sarah, have amassed a global social media following of over 15 million people who tune in to watch videos featuring the couple’s dogs. “I always had this idea about what it would be like to have a conversation with my pet,” Equale said. “But I never thought about commercializing it.”

The early days of Covid lockdowns in California found the pair homebound, so they started creating content with their corgi dogs, Hammy and Olivia. “We spent all day with our pets and would take videos and post them. People needed to smile, and we were a vessel for that,” Equale said.

What started as a fun passion project, @hammyandolivia quickly turned into a fulltime opportunity with the online attention they garnered. Equale takes inspiration from everyday activities to create storylines and scripting that follows the dogs through silly and heartwarming scenarios. “We have developed their personalities so it’s easier to pull from there to dive into ideas,” Equale said. Garfield and other comics and cartoons have also been a source of creativity. 

The Equales lost Olivia to a sudden kidney infection in 2023, but have since added another member to their family, five-month-old corgi Fiona. With over 1,200 pieces of video content, @hammyandolivia has expanded to work with several Fortune 500 brands, including dog food companies, national franchise sports teams, and online retailers. Most recently, they signed with a studio for work on a cartoon series.

“My dream as a pet parent above all else is how do I make my animals live forever,” Equale said. “Memorializing them in animated form and creating those characters and personalities has been really exciting.” The series will stream on the @hammyandolivia YouTube channel.

Earlier this year they debuted their first live pet event, Chonkfest, in Philadelphia. The three-day dog festival attracted over 2,000 dog lovers from across the U.S. and included activities like yoga, swimming, and community building—all dog friendly. They are underway in planning the next Chonkfest for October, with more on the horizon.

“When you’re an entrepreneur, whatever you pour into it is what you get out of it,” he said. “At the end of the day, our pets are our products and sustainable success would make them the best version of themselves. Like any entrepreneurial endeavor, you are the head of everything.”

His path to @hammyandolivia was not linear. After graduation, Equale drove west and spent three years in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ front office before working in sales at tech startups and in the cannabis industry. Covid created an opportunity he wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. “When you have that in the palm of your hand, it’s really just about where you go from there,” he said.

“We are dog people through and through. And we’re really just trying to make people laugh.”