Wendy Diamond
Wendy Diamond is a Social Entrepreneur, Humanitarian, Endangered Animal and Rescue Advocate, World’s Premiere Pet Lifestyle expert, Best-Selling Author, and TV Personality. Diamond is heralded and recognized as a pioneer in the animal world; dubbed “Martha Stewart of the Milk Bone Dish” by The New Yorker, and crowned the “Canine Queen” by Forbes.
With Wendy’s charismatic presence and undeniable pet knowledge, she unceasingly promotes animal welfare, adoption, and healthy pet lifestyles through various media outlets including; Today Show, Good Morning America, FOX News, CNN, The View, E!, MTV, VH1, The New York Times, Vogue, People Magazine, The New Yorker, Oprah, and many others! Wendy created, hosted, and served as the Executive Producer for the NBC pilot Mutt Makeover and the “for Style” special on FOX, wrote and produced the documentary In Search of Puppy Love and starred in the Style Network series Relationship Rehab. Wendy and Lucky were judges extraordinaire on the CBS hit series Greatest American Dog and WE Network’s America’s Cutest Puppy. You can also catch Wendy popping up on Bravo! TV‘s- Real Housewives of New York, Mad Fashion, and on two episodes of TLC’s Cake Boss — episode one with the world’s most expensive cake and our very own Most expensive Pet Wedding in History!
In 1999, after rescuing her first shelter animal, a purebred Russian blue she named Pasha, and then a Maltese named Lucky, Diamond became passionately motivated to help save the 12 million animals euthanized in shelters every year Wendy founded Animal Fair Media with a specific mission in mind and spirit, to save disenfranchised animals in shelters, and endangered wildlife globally, by promoting animal welfare and rescue, healthy pet lifestyles, and responsible breeding. She knew she could not just sit and rollover – she launched the premier lifestyle media company promoting animal welfare and rescue. She reined in the leash and got busy.
Diamond coined the term “pet-lifestyle”, and in 1999 launched Animal Fair magazine, the first magazine focusing on support of fairness to animals, which bridged celebrity with pets. Each issue featured celebrities promoting animal advocacy, pet parenting, health tips and pet art. Renée Zellweger appeared on the cover of the premiere issue in 1999, and since then celebrities including Beyoncé Knowles, Halle Berry, Regis Philbin, Charlize Theron, Pamela Anderson, Ashley Tisdale, Shania Twain, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Serena Williams, Kim Cattrall, Matt Leinart, Hilary Duff, Eric McCormack, Kristen Bell, Bo Derek, Diane Lane, Alicia Silverstone, Hayden Panettiere and LeAnn Rimes have all appeared on the cover with their pets. The New Yorker called Animal Fair “the first to cross-breed two American passions: celebrity and pets.”
Diamond revolutionized the pet industry by creating the premiere pop culture benefits to promote animal adoption, advocacy and fundraising, including the Yappy Hour® cocktail parties, the premiere pet celebrity fashion show called Paws For Style®, Howloween, St Pawtricks Day, with proceeds benefiting animal rescue. She quickly realized that she could direct her business agenda to promote animal rescue, and she has been doing it ever since! Since she began Animal Fair Media, the number of animals euthanized annually has dropped by 58 percent, from 12 million to 4 million — but she is not stopping there! To this day, organizations across the country and the world emulate Wendy/Animal Fair’s events to support their own organizations in their communities. As a pioneer of the industry, Wendy is looked to as a leader in the animal fairness community. Charities around the world emulate Wendy’s pet-lifestyle approach in their fundraising for their local community animal organizations.
In her constant quest to promote animal welfare, rescue, and endangered species, Diamond had a furry muse, shadow and inspiration, Lucky. Together they created a truly unique media mindshare where charity combined with celebrity raised animal welfare public awareness. Lucky served as the Katrina Pet Memorial Chair Dog, Barkus Grand Marshall, was inducted into the Guinness World Records and hosted thousands of fundraisers in her lifetime. She was the only civilian dog admitted into the United Nations, and inspired the White House Pet Correspondents Benefit. Lucky’s relationship with Wendy grew into unconditional love, loyalty, and a genuine bond that inspired her to make a difference in the world by helping animals.
Although outreach has always been at the forefront of her animal rescue and welfare mission, and the need became even more real to Diamond when Lucky, her beloved Maltese and the inspiration of Animal Fair, was diagnosed with canine cancer. Though sadly Lucky lost her battle with cancer on June 5th, she will always be remembered as the pure inspiration that sparked a media empire dedicated to animal welfare and promoting the pet lifestyle on a daily basis. In July 2012 the Humane Society of New York dedicated the Lucky Diamond Critical Care Ward in Lucky’s honor. Through active media mindshare and filming a documentary, Wendy Diamond hopes to raise awareness and search for answers to help find conventional and holistic preventions/cures for this fatal disease, especially since 1 in 3 dogs will be diagnosed with cancer during their lifetime.
But even in its hardships, life can be ironic and magical. Just before Lucky died, a friend asked Wendy to foster a senior dog named Baby Hope. She never planned on keeping the dog at the time, but the little Coton de Tulear, though a little ruff around the edges, was truly heaven sent. The morning Lucky passed, Diamond found Baby sitting right next to her. It was as if they had their own spiritual canine code. Baby comforted Lucky as she went to the big doggie park on the other side. Since then Wendy decided to adopt Baby after fostering her for three weeks. The Celebration of Lucky’s Life and Baby Hope’s Wedding was on July 12, 2013 with a Guinness World Record and aired on TLC’s hit show Cake Boss and Conan O’Brien! Wendy is proud to call herself a “Foster Failure.”
For Wendy’s latest best-selling book, How To Train Your Boss To Rollover!, Wendy interviewed billionaires and industry alpha dogs such as Virgin’s Richard Branson, Spanx’s Sara Blakesley, Patriarch Partners CEO Lynn Tilton, Subway CEO Fred DeLuca to research what treats would make them roll over. Craig’s List founder Craig Newmark, who wrote a quote for the book, inspired her to dedicate her book tour to support Veterans with PTSD with rescued service dogs through K9s For Warriors. Every 65 minutes a Veteran commits suicide – according to the Department of Veteran Affairs. K9s For Warriors rescues dogs prior to being euthanized and trains them to be service dogs for Veterans with PTSD. Celebrities that supported the tour cross-country to raise awareness and money to bring down this statistic included Glee’s Jane Lynch, Chicago Fire’s David Eigenberg, Taylor Kinney, Joe Minosa, and New Orleans Saints Head Coach Sean Payton. Through the hard work of all involved and the generous contributions of animal lovers across the country, the tour raised $231,684, which connected 23 veterans with PTSD with dogs and made a positive impact on countless lives.
Wendy holds 3 Guinness World Records and has appeared on The Today Show as their Pet Lifestyle Expert. Thanks to her amazing experiences with her endearing pets, she penned the best-selling books: Chicken Soup for the Soul: What I Learned from the Dog, What I Learned from the Cat, My Cat’s Life, My Dog’s Life, How to Understand Men Through Their Dogs, How to Understand Women Through Their Cats and It’s a Dog’s World: The Savvy Guide to Four-Legged Living.
Wendy continues to extend her wealth of animal and entrepreneurial knowledge, continually blazing the trail in the animal kingdom. She serves as a keynote speaker on topics such as animal rescue, endangered animals, pet lifestyle and designing your own passionate career at universities and conferences around the world from Harvard University to the United Nations. In 2014, Diamond joined the Animal Welfare Leadership Council of the Class Awards. In addition to her work for animal rescue and welfare, she’s an endangered species advocate, Grand Marshal of Barkus, Chairwoman of the Katrina Pet Memorial (Lucky was the Chair Dog) and even authored two Best Selling Cookbooks with Madonna, Aerosmith and other artists… A Musical Feast and All Star Feast. She also serves on the Board of Advisers for the United Nations Millennium Development Goal Achievers, Grey Muzzle Foundation, K9s For Warriors, Social Innovation Forum/United Nations and World Entrepreneurship Day.
But Diamond is not stopping there. In 2014, she is setting out to better the world by launching Women’s Entrepreneurship Day (WED) at the UN. WED is designed to support female entrepreneurs globally, to gather a think tank of women leaders, and to amplify their mutual message of expanding business communities with social good initiatives.
In the next five years, Wendy Diamond would like to see a movement to establish a universal animal welfare policy in this country, and eventually globally. The national initiative would be a comprehensive package that includes; a “No-kill” nation, responsible breeding, FDA stricter regulations on pet food, a national animal rescue and shelter database, and stiffer penalties and punishment for animal cruelty including puppy mills. The overall goal would be for a worldwide shift in the way people see animals; they are not chattel, but living and breathing creatures with souls.
Wendy grew up in the quaint small town of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, studied at Pine Manor College in Boston and now resides in New York City with her children, Baby Hope and Pasha.
“The true act of charity means helping those would never be able to help you.”
In 2018 Wendy had a small roll in a movie called “The Brawler.”