Latest / Buying Local Podcast / How Downtown Dogs Is Redefining Local Pet Care | Buying Local #61

Transcript

How Downtown Dogs Is Redefining Local Pet Care | Buying Local #61 · Buying Local Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome everybody to Buying Local.
• 0:02
  I'm your host, Matt N from 5 Towers Media, joined today by
• 0:06
  Alicia of Downtown Dogs Spa and Boutique.
• 0:11
  I'm really excited about this conversation today because we
• 0:14
  have someone who has been doing some great things and who has
• 0:18
  been doing some very special things in our community for both
• 0:21
  pets and pet owners. So welcome, Alicia.
• 0:26
  Thank you so much for having me, Matt.
• 0:28
  Yeah. So like I said, you're, you're
• 0:31
  in Glens Falls. I've had the chance to, you
• 0:34
  know, come by the the shop that you have over there.
• 0:37
  But if you could just, you know, introduce to yourself and a
• 0:41
  little bit of what you do. Absolutely, Yeah.
• 0:45
  As you mentioned, we are in Glens Falls right in downtown.
• 0:48
  So we're the beginning businesses to in the
• 0:52
  revitalization of South Street. If if you're familiar with that,
• 0:57
  South St. has been pretty empty and and kind of run down for the
• 1:02
  past decade or more. So we're bringing life back to
• 1:05
  this area and it's super exciting to be, you know, in the
• 1:08
  heart of Glens Falls and it's such a walkable, dog friendly
• 1:11
  community that it's just a perfect fit for us.
• 1:15
  Yeah, that's, yeah, that's wonderful.
• 1:17
  Always, always love to hear the communities back up and
• 1:21
  thriving. Yeah.
• 1:23
  So like I, like I mentioned, I was, I had the chance to get
• 1:25
  over to the ribbon cutting. So what was that like sometime
• 1:29
  in December, you guys? It was December 16th, so we
• 1:32
  officially opened November 20th here in in the 45 S St. spot.
• 1:38
  And a little bit about me. After 20 years of healthcare and
• 1:42
  nonprofit management, I just decided to kind of get out of
• 1:46
  the corporate life and wanted to do something on my own.
• 1:49
  I knew it it needed to be centered around dogs.
• 1:52
  I am very passionate about animals and dogs in particular.
• 1:56
  And like I said, Glens Falls is such a dog friendly community
• 2:00
  that it was just a natural idea of worn from that.
• 2:05
  Once I saw this face, it was really.
• 2:07
  Just kind of. Quick decision to make it a
• 2:10
  boutique as well as grooming for one.
• 2:14
  Grooming is so needed in this community.
• 2:16
  We do have some fabulous groomers here, but there's a lot
• 2:20
  of dogs, so we just need some more options and then the
• 2:24
  boutique is just something fun to be able to offer the
• 2:28
  community in addition. That's awesome.
• 2:32
  Yeah. If you could just expand because
• 2:34
  that's something that's kind of unique with you guys.
• 2:36
  You know, you'll you'll see the the groomers here and there, but
• 2:39
  you, you don't really see the spa, the boutique aspect.
• 2:42
  I mean, you could, you could see just from behind you, you could
• 2:45
  see the the beautiful pops. Yeah.
• 2:47
  Absolutely. Yeah.
• 2:49
  If you could just explain a little bit about what you guys
• 2:51
  offer in the boutique aspect. Yeah.
• 2:54
  So like part of our boutique, our part of our spa, half of it
• 2:59
  is grooming and then the other half is the boutique.
• 3:01
  So we offer specialty toys, treats, wearables, just a lot of
• 3:06
  different things that you're not going to find, you know, walking
• 3:08
  into maybe Target or Petco. We do a lot of specialized USA
• 3:13
  made. Products that's awesome it's
• 3:17
  actually cool because I going back to the ribbon cutting I was
• 3:22
  I was looking at some of the products that I saw you guys had
• 3:25
  dog beer if I'm. I thought.
• 3:28
  That was the coolest thing. I've never seen anything like
• 3:31
  that but. Yeah, a lot of just fun,
• 3:32
  different items that, you know, people walk in and they're
• 3:35
  excited to check it out and kind of see what we have to offer.
• 3:39
  Yeah, that's awesome. So now where do all A lot of
• 3:43
  them are like homemade treats and.
• 3:45
  Yeah. So we have a couple locally made
• 3:47
  things. That that are.
• 3:49
  Homemade, you know, they obviously have to be licensed
• 3:52
  through the agricultural department, but a lot of it I, I
• 3:56
  do buy off of a wholesale website that's specifically USA
• 4:00
  made products. So we'll have things from
• 4:01
  Colorado or Michigan or, you know, anywhere in New York.
• 4:06
  So it comes from all over the US.
• 4:09
  That's awesome. Yeah.
• 4:11
  If people were looking to, per SE, not in our community, but
• 4:15
  they were interested, interested in the boutique, you know, a
• 4:19
  nice gift. Were was there any place that
• 4:22
  they could go if like I said, they're they don't have the
• 4:25
  chance to come into stores? Yeah, absolutely.
• 4:28
  Yeah. We actually do ship things out
• 4:30
  right from our website. So it's downtown dog spa and
• 4:33
  boutique. I've shipped things to Montana,
• 4:36
  to California. So that's an another fun option
• 4:39
  for people. That's awesome.
• 4:41
  Yeah. So you you talked about this
• 4:44
  wasn't really your, you know, first plan.
• 4:46
  Yeah. You know, career, you know, this
• 4:50
  is the the second step of where you have where you right.
• 4:53
  Could you kind of just, you know, touch base, expand a
• 4:56
  little bit more on, you know, how you fell into here?
• 5:00
  Your yeah, definitely. Behind all that, yeah.
• 5:02
  Yeah, like I. Said I I knew I wanted to
• 5:04
  venture out onto my own and I wanted it to be centered around
• 5:07
  dogs. I've always.
• 5:08
  Grown up. In a dog family, my grandparents
• 5:11
  had a very large kennel where they bred Chihuahuas when I was
• 5:15
  young. So I would help out there, but I
• 5:18
  it was very important as well to be downtown.
• 5:21
  So just looking at some different options throughout the
• 5:25
  last half of the year last year, this was the one that really
• 5:29
  stood out, that was going to facilitate what my vision ended
• 5:33
  up being. Yeah, it's awesome and it sure
• 5:37
  looks like the vision is it's it's coming to where I I guess
• 5:42
  where you initially had it because it's the locations
• 5:45
  beautiful. But yeah, you've talked about
• 5:47
  the core history, about where you are, if if you know about
• 5:52
  any of that rich history of South St. of Glenn.
• 5:54
  Yeah, yeah. Just kind of what makes that
• 5:57
  place special. Sure.
• 5:58
  I don't really, I'm not a huge historian for here.
• 6:01
  I've lived here for 10 years. But my experience is that South
• 6:05
  St. has, just, like I said, just needed that revitalization.
• 6:09
  So the city has done a really wonderful job of getting the
• 6:13
  right people to do the right things to be able to provide
• 6:16
  that for the city. And like I said, we're in the
• 6:19
  beginning process. There's a lot happening on this
• 6:21
  street. At.
• 6:22
  The end of the spring of 2027, when it's all said and done,
• 6:27
  we'll have over 200 new apartments in this direct couple
• 6:31
  blocks vicinity. So it's a really exciting time
• 6:34
  down here. Wow.
• 6:35
  Yeah, yeah. I didn't know that that that's
• 6:38
  gonna be because, yeah, anybody who's been around South St., you
• 6:41
  know, they know about the construction that's going on.
• 6:44
  So. Right, right that.
• 6:46
  Must be challenging, you know, setting up a whole business
• 6:49
  through all that. Absolutely.
• 6:51
  Yeah. But it's fun.
• 6:52
  You know, we're right next to the new farmers market, so we
• 6:54
  got an amazing crowd on Saturdays and it's just gonna
• 6:58
  build more and more. That's awesome.
• 7:01
  And yeah, something that we like to uncover on this show, you
• 7:06
  know, talking with local business owners, we uncover
• 7:09
  that, you know, it's not all sunshine and rainbows.
• 7:14
  There's a lot of challenges that come along with, you know,
• 7:17
  running a business. And could you just walk us
• 7:20
  through any early onset challenges and kind of how you
• 7:24
  guys, you know, got through those?
• 7:26
  Yeah. Absolutely so.
• 7:29
  Basically it was. Just like I said, finding the
• 7:32
  property. Working with is.
• 7:34
  That going to be an issue the dogs are being.
• 7:36
  Back there. OK, Perks do the job.
• 7:40
  Working with Bonaccio, which has been a a fabulous experience and
• 7:44
  being able to kind of fit the the building to how I envisioned
• 7:49
  it and working correctly for the flow of the grooming as well as
• 7:53
  the boutique. And the nice thing is, is that
• 7:56
  we're able to grow slow so we can make those tweaks and and
• 8:00
  refine it to really work for us. That's awesome.
• 8:05
  Yeah. So we've gotten into a little
• 8:07
  bit of about the boutique. Could you talk about some of the
• 8:10
  grooming services that you guys provide over there?
• 8:13
  Absolutely. Yeah, we do pretty much
• 8:15
  everything. So full grooms, bath and brush,
• 8:17
  walk in, nail clippings. We have special packages
• 8:21
  throughout the year. So that's kind of fun for for
• 8:24
  pet owners to be able to, you know, really focus in on pet
• 8:28
  serve family. So to be able to offer them
• 8:31
  something unique and different, we we've done things such as
• 8:35
  hair tinsel and longer dog's hair.
• 8:38
  We're just starting off with pet safe coloring of the fur.
• 8:42
  So that's something exciting. But yeah, so really we do all of
• 8:46
  it. We take any size and all breeds
• 8:50
  of dogs. We have a little bit experience
• 8:53
  with pet grooming one of our our groomers, but we haven't quite
• 8:57
  ventured into that fully yet. So awesome.
• 9:01
  Yeah. How many groomers do you guys
• 9:03
  now currently have? Right now we have 2 and we will
• 9:06
  look to we have enough room to have full full time when it's
• 9:10
  all said and done. Awesome.
• 9:12
  Yeah. And what would be the easiest
• 9:14
  way for people to, you know, kind of book?
• 9:18
  Right online at Downtown dog spawn boutique.
• 9:20
  Super easy. You can pick the time and date
• 9:22
  that works for your schedule as well as just calling or texting
• 9:26
  myself. Awesome.
• 9:28
  Yeah, Yeah, you know, you guys are fairly new.
• 9:34
  You said you are official open date.
• 9:38
  Is was when or was? November 20th, 20th.
• 9:40
  So you're. Two months still wow.
• 9:43
  Congratulations. Thank you.
• 9:45
  Do you have any? Like I said, you know, it's kind
• 9:48
  of early, but what are the goals, you know, start of
• 9:51
  January? Yeah.
• 9:53
  So we have a lot of, we have a lot of ideas and a lot of them
• 9:58
  involve community involvement. So I myself am very passionate
• 10:01
  about Glens Falls as well as supporting the different small
• 10:05
  businesses and organizations that really make this community
• 10:09
  thrive. So it's getting involved in, you
• 10:13
  know, how can we help people learn more about service
• 10:16
  animals? How can we work with
• 10:19
  organizations that that match veterans with service dogs,
• 10:24
  things like that. You know, I really, it's really
• 10:26
  important to me to be able to offer that.
• 10:29
  So that's in the works. Another thing that I'm
• 10:33
  implementing is a pet loss support group.
• 10:36
  So something that's not currently really happening in
• 10:39
  the community, but it's such a needed just an outlet and a time
• 10:43
  of connection for people that lose their pets to be able to
• 10:47
  come together and, and share their experience and have that
• 10:50
  support. I took some certification force
• 10:54
  to be a pet loss specialist to be able to moderate those
• 10:59
  conversations. That's awesome.
• 11:02
  Yeah. Wow.
• 11:03
  Yeah, I guess could you has there, has it just kind of been
• 11:07
  talks of it or has there been? Yeah.
• 11:09
  So we'll probably start in February.
• 11:12
  I just haven't really fine-tuned the details.
• 11:14
  It'll be off site from the boutique and spa, so we'll do it
• 11:18
  in a local, maybe coffee shop in downtown Glens Falls, maybe in
• 11:22
  the similar. We'll meet in the park.
• 11:24
  So, you know, just just bringing people together.
• 11:28
  Awesome. Yeah.
• 11:29
  So just getting back to, I guess the vibe every time I've walked
• 11:33
  in, whether it's newspapers, ribbon cutting, just stopping in
• 11:36
  to say hi, The vibes are always so good in that.
• 11:39
  Yes, in your. Shops there are there are there
• 11:43
  any funny stories you could share with us with the with the
• 11:45
  Oh my. Goodness.
• 11:46
  Well, it's it's quite entertaining when we have a big
• 11:49
  crowd and a lot of different dogs meeting each other.
• 11:52
  There's also so many different smells and if you can hear
• 11:56
  sounds in the shop, so it, you know, it just, it's just a fun,
• 12:02
  like you said, exciting vibe. We can also be very mellow.
• 12:05
  So it's nice for anxious dogs. We, we have certain times a day
• 12:10
  that are better for dogs that might be a little more anxious
• 12:13
  around other pets or people. So we we make sure to prioritize
• 12:19
  that as well. That's awesome.
• 12:22
  Yeah, I was going to say, do is there like if there, if there
• 12:28
  are tons of dogs, do they have a little play area or do they?
• 12:31
  Yeah, we have a couple of little play type areas in the shop.
• 12:35
  We don't put dogs together unless they're family.
• 12:37
  They're already family dogs and we we don't necessarily print
• 12:42
  them. We have, like I said, open
• 12:45
  spaces. That's awesome.
• 12:47
  Yeah, I would. I would always be, you know,
• 12:51
  having to get back to my work because I would always want to
• 12:54
  be playing with all the oh. Yeah, that's the best part of it
• 12:58
  for. Sure.
• 12:59
  Has there been any, I guess dog specific that that you're like,
• 13:04
  oh, I love seeing this breed come in and.
• 13:07
  Yeah, I love big dogs. So Saint Bernards.
• 13:11
  Oh yeah, Bernie's Mountain Dogs. I have a porgy heeler mix right
• 13:15
  now that's very talkative. Yeah, really I'm.
• 13:18
  Sorry, yeah. It's all right.
• 13:23
  You just never know. Some are are quite quiet and
• 13:26
  some are very welcome so. Yeah, I love it.
• 13:30
  Yeah. Well, you said you get your
• 13:39
  involved with a lot of the community aspects and you know
• 13:43
  with the farmers market can, can the viewers, listeners expect to
• 13:48
  see a table of you of your business at any of these
• 13:51
  upcoming things that are happening?
• 13:53
  Well not at the farmers market but we will be offering pup cups
• 13:57
  on Saturdays, free pup cups. If you bring your pup in they
• 14:00
  can get one. But we are very big in the Glens
• 14:04
  Falls Collaborative, so they do a lot of fantastic events and 1
• 14:09
  is like ladies night prior to Christmas.
• 14:12
  We'll participate and take a. Bite, but I'm going to be
• 14:14
  calling it take a bark and we'll have, like you said, the dog
• 14:17
  beer. We'll have some dog specialty
• 14:20
  dog pretzels that they can buy while their owners are perus and
• 14:25
  trying the local restaurants. The dogs will be able to get
• 14:28
  something for themselves as well.
• 14:30
  So fun things like that are in the.
• 14:33
  That's awesome. Yeah.
• 14:35
  So I guess if, if we go back to the start, when, you know, the
• 14:41
  idea sparked up, you talked about moving from the corporate
• 14:45
  world and, you know, being a freelance, we, we say over here
• 14:48
  at buying local, the truest path to freedom is entrepreneurship.
• 14:55
  If you could kind of go back to your younger self with the, you
• 14:58
  know, advice, all the knowledge you have now, what would be that
• 15:00
  one key piece of advice that you'd give to your younger self?
• 15:06
  Take the leap. Do it.
• 15:08
  You know, even when it's scary, it took me a long time to learn
• 15:11
  that. So just do it.
• 15:12
  There's never going to be the perfect time.
• 15:15
  Do you wish now that obviously you're you're seeing success
• 15:21
  here? Do you wish that this was, you
• 15:24
  know, where you started or do you do you think I.
• 15:27
  Think I probably. Needed to have those experience
• 15:30
  to be able to get to the point of of feeling like I could do
• 15:33
  it. So, yeah, yeah.
• 15:37
  You know everything points you in the right direction.
• 15:41
  Absolutely. Yes, you learned from everything
• 15:43
  that you do so. Yeah, well, our time's running
• 15:46
  low here, so if there were any questions that I didn't ask you
• 15:50
  that you know now that you would want me to ask if there were
• 15:55
  any. I think we covered it.
• 15:59
  Like I said, we're we're really excited to be in the downtown
• 16:02
  community and looking forward to making more of those community
• 16:05
  connections and really having a special place for pets and their
• 16:10
  owners. Awesome.
• 16:12
  And if people wanted to learn more about you, what you do or
• 16:17
  you know, just get in contact book, book their furry friend
• 16:20
  with you. What's the best way to get ahold
• 16:23
  of you? Definitely.
• 16:24
  Our website is great Downtown dog spawn Boutique.
• 16:27
  There's a text me button right on there.
• 16:28
  It goes right to my phone. I'm very quick at responding.
• 16:32
  But if you really want to see a day in the life, you would go to
• 16:35
  our social media pages, Facebook or Instagram.
• 16:38
  You'll see pictures of the pups posted every single day and
• 16:42
  you'll get a great a great idea of what we do here.
• 16:45
  That's awesome. And thank you again, Alicia, for
• 16:47
  coming on and thank you. Yeah, thank you and thanks to
• 16:51
  everybody for listening. And of course, you can find at
• 16:54
  Buying Local dot US, we're on Spotify, Apple Rumble and
• 16:58
  YouTube and just please hit that like and subscribe button.
• 17:02
  And thank you again for listening to Buying Local and
• 17:05
  you'll hear from us next week.