Reprinted from April 1999
Ever since I could remember I’ve loved to work with animals, so it stands to reason once I was a widow and not struggling to make ends meet I would become more involved in this venture. I knew about running a business. You have merchandise, which in my case was discarded pets which we had spayed or neutered and cleaned up and offered for adoption to PetSmart, a local animal supply house which does not sell dogs and cats.
The first time I showed it was a fiasco. Dogs coming from the pound are usually so badly matted and dirty they are miserable. They’ve been locked in cages and held it in as long as possible, so if you get the paper work done and get them into a dog crate you are fortunate. For the less fortunate episodes you’ll have to draw your own conclusions. I must have told myself theses dogs were the inventory. Like polishing up rings and gold, we had to get them cleaned up. After the first encounter I found a groomer to do the job.
Now once decent, they go to our own vet. This is like grading diamonds. Someone has to assess the merchandise. The pound fee was $45, which included some shots. Our own vet, not to be critical, did not give my group very much off, so by the time we paid for desexing and other shots, I found we had over $100 in every dog, and PetSmart really wanted an $85 ceiling, so we all agreed to this.
The first showing was unreal. We posted our hours in the paper and when we got there people were mulling around waiting. People were opening the carriers and asking questions. I just said to myself, “this is like selling jewelry. You have to get those carriers in an area they can’t get to, and then shuffle them to the cages.”
We don’t like people at the store who come before we are open – I just compared these to them. Last week we had a man tap on our door before we opened. Tap…tap….tap… then he stepped up the pace – bang, bang, bang, and boom, boom, boom. I finally said to Chip, “I’m going to open the door” and he stood by the hold up button as I peeked out the crack of the door.
“Yes?”
“I have this here battery I bought at Walmart and I want him to put it in.”
I looked at a case with 4 screws and said, “It is the same price with or without your battery and we can’t do it now.” He left.
It is no different with the dogs. People come in early thinking they are going to get a rare breed at a bargain price and we are pummeled with questions before we even get open.
The factor I hadn’t computed was that dogs have needs that watches and gold jewelry does not. If you polish something every once in awhile it will suffice, but with the dogs the rule of order is to have them groomed only to discover they have found the only mud puddle on the property to roll in.
Dogs also have other problems jewelry does not have. It involved two ends of the dog. Dogs which come from the pound are often scared and show their feelings by expressing through one end or the other. Or both – usually after grooming.
After three of four showings I figured that a table was the answer to my problems and this would be like a counter in the store. Customers on one side of the table, dogs in cages behind. Well, it really didn’t work exactly that way.
Here at the store we have people best called Lookieloos who come in all the time and try on jewelry and never buy anything. I found this phenomena extended to people shopping in PetSmart. I found the volunteers taking animals out of the cages and handing them to people who sat stroking them and cooing in their ears only to take up an hour and hand the dog back saying they had no intention of adopting today. There is no chance this dog is going to be there two weeks down the road so it was a dead end. Those who might have wanted to adopt assumed the dog to be taken.
I thought about jewelry. You know when you get someone who is obviously not going to buy anything but is taking your time unnecessarily (if you are a pro you will understand this)? I say to them, “Are you considering buying a ring today or putting it in layaway?” If they say, “Oh, my no, I am just looking,” I smile and let them look.
With the doggies, I now say, “Are you considering adopting today?” If the answer is, “Oh no, we just want to look.” We now smile and say, “sure, go ahead, look all you want.” But we don’t take the merchandise out!
There is a selling process which I couldn’t seem to transfer from jewelry to pets. I had to ask a lot of questions, such as, “Have you ever owned a dog? What happened to the dog? Do you have a yard?” etc. There are agreements to be filled out and forms for the store and things to cover about every single dog which passes through our organization. We have to retain the leash, and we want them to leave the collar and tags on. All this takes a process that is so involved that twice, we forgot to get the money. In both cases, they came back and paid. I made light of it saying I thought they were going to pay at the register, which is absurd, as we are not connected financially with the store. Christmas season we had a Santa who sat with dogs on his lap while someone took pictures. We received $1200 for this effort from the store and I thought about giving up jewelry entirely.
I had thought the doggie business was going to be a separate business, and no one who came to the store would realize I did this and no one who come to look at doggies would realize I was in the jewelry business. This didn’t work. Well meaning people gave people with doggie interests my business phone and worse, my home phone. I would dash away from talking to a genuine customer to be asked on my business line if I had any Yorkies.
It didn’t stop here. People caught wind of the fact I often took in strays and put them out for adoption. Last week we had a situation which I hope is not repeated. Someone handed me a tiny fat puppy over the counter. We were too busy to take it home and the vets were closed and so we thought we’d leave it in the back room. The puppy was not going to stay alone and instantly sent up a protest, so we started carrying her around. I don’t know what they had given that dog to eat but whatever it was, was causing her gas. Some customer came in the door about that time, and I switched on the ceiling fans and air conditioner. It did the trick but the customer shivered and rubbed her arms and said “Gosh, it’s cold in here.” If she had to deal with the alternative….
Jewelry never had this problem!
