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

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Speaker 1
Welcome everybody to Buying Local. I’m your host, Matt Noth from Five Towers Media, joined today by Alicia. Of Downtown Dog’s Spine Boutique. I’m really excited about this conversation today. Because we have someone who has been doing some great things and who has been doing some very special things in our community for both pets and pet owners.

00;00;23;24 – 00;00;26;15
Speaker 1
So welcome, Alicia.

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Speaker 2
Thank you so much for having me, Matt.

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Speaker 1
Yeah. So, like I said, you’re, you’re in Glens Falls. I’ve had the chance to, you know, come by the the shop that you have over there. But if you could just, you know, introduce, to yourself and a little bit of what you do. Yeah.

00;00;43;22 – 00;01;09;14
Speaker 2
Absolutely. Yeah. As you mentioned, we are in Glens Falls, right? And downtown. So where are the beginning, businesses to and the revitalization of South Street. And if you’re familiar with that. South Street has been pretty empty and and kind of rundown for, the past decade or more. So we’re bringing life back to this area. And it’s super exciting to be, you know, in the heart of Glens Falls.

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Speaker 2
And it’s just such a walkable, dog friendly community that it’s just a perfect fit for us.

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Speaker 1
Yeah, that’s. Yeah. That’s wonderful. Always, always love to hear the community’s, back off driving. Yeah. So, like, I like, I mentioned, I was I had the chance to get over to the ribbon cutting. So what was that, like, sometime in December, you guys.

00;01;30;05 – 00;01;52;14
Speaker 2
And so it was December 16th, so we officially opened November 20th. Here. And that 45 South Street spot. And a little bit about me, after 20 years of, health care and nonprofit management, I just decided to kind of get out of the corporate life and wanted to do something on my own. I knew it, it needed to be centered around jobs.

00;01;52;14 – 00;02;15;06
Speaker 2
I am very passionate about animals and dogs in particular. And like I said, Glens Falls is such a dog friendly community that it was just a natural, idea born from that. Once I saw this space, it was really just kind of quick, this decision to make it a boutique as well as grooming for one, grooming is so needed.

00;02;15;06 – 00;02;31;10
Speaker 2
And this community, we do have some fabulous groomers here. But there’s a lot of dogs, so we just need some more options. And then the boutique is, just something fun to be able to offer the community in addition.

00;02;31;13 – 00;02;46;26
Speaker 1
That’s awesome. Yeah. If you could just expand because that’s something that’s kind of unique with you guys. You know, you’ll you’ll see the the groomers here and there, but you don’t really see the spa, the boutique aspect. I mean, you guys, you could see just from behind you, you could see the the beautiful parks.

00;02;46;28 – 00;02;48;15
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely.

00;02;48;18 – 00;02;53;13
Speaker 1
Yeah. If you could just explain a little bit about what you guys offer in the boutique aspect.

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Speaker 2
Yeah. So, like part of our beauty, our part of our spa, half of it is grooming. And then the other half is about teeth. So we offer specialty toys, treats, wearables. Just a lot of different things that you’re not going to find, you know, walking into maybe Target or Petco. We do a lot of specialized USA made products.

00;03;15;23 – 00;03;27;10
Speaker 1
That’s awesome. It’s actually cool because I, going back to the ribbon cutting, I was I was looking at some of the products, and I saw you guys had, dog beer if,

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Speaker 2
Yeah.

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Speaker 1
Yeah, I thought that was the coolest thing. I’ve never seen anything like that.

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Speaker 2
But, yeah, a lot of just fun. Different items that, you know, people walk in and they’re excited to check it out and kind of see what we have to offer.

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Speaker 1
Yeah. That’s awesome. So now where do all, a lot of them are like homemade treats and.

00;03;45;14 – 00;04;06;09
Speaker 2
Yeah, so we have a couple locally made things that, that are homemade. You know, they obviously have to be licensed through, the agricultural department, but a lot of it I, I do buy off of a wholesale website that, specifically USA made product. So we’ll have things from Colorado or Michigan or, you know, anywhere in New York.

00;04;06;09 – 00;04;09;03
Speaker 2
So it comes from all over the US.

00;04;09;06 – 00;04;27;04
Speaker 1
That’s awesome. Yeah. If people were looking to, per se, not in our community, but they were interested in the boutique, you know, a nice gift. Were was there any place that they could go if, like I said, they’re they don’t have the chance to come into store. Yeah.

00;04;27;09 – 00;04;40;09
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We actually do ship things out right from our website. So it’s Downtown Dogs fan boutique. I’ve shipped things to Montana, to California. So that’s another fun option for people.

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Speaker 1
That’s awesome.

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Speaker 2
Yeah.

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Speaker 1
So you you talked about this wasn’t really your, you know, first plan, your, you know, career a you know, this is the second step of where you where are you? Right. Could you kind of just, you know, touch base, expand a little bit more on you know, how you fell into here. You’re.

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Speaker 2
Yeah, I definitely.

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Speaker 1
Find all that. Yeah.

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Speaker 2
Yeah. Like I said, I, I knew I wanted to venture out onto my own and I wanted it to be centered around dogs. I’ve always grown up in a dog family. My grandparents had a very large kennel where they, Bradshaw Chihuahua was when I was young. So I would help out there. But I it was very important as well to be downtown.

00;05;21;07 – 00;05;34;27
Speaker 2
So, just looking at some different options throughout the last, half of the year, last year, this was the one that really stood out that was going to facilitate what my vision ended up being.

00;05;34;29 – 00;05;54;28
Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s awesome. And, it sure looks like the vision is it’s it’s coming to where I, I guess where you initially had it because it’s the location’s beautiful. But, yeah, you’ve talked about the core history, about where you are. If, if you know about any of that rich history of South Street of Glenn.

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Speaker 2
Yeah.

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Speaker 1
Yeah, just kind of what makes that place special. Sure.

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Speaker 2
I don’t really. I’m not a huge historian for here. I’ve lived here for ten years, but, my experience is that South Street has, just, like I said, just needed that revitalization. So the city has done a really wonderful job of getting the right people to do the right things to be able to provide that for the city.

00;06;18;05 – 00;06;35;08
Speaker 2
And like I said, we’re in the beginning process. There’s a lot happening on this street at the end of the, spring of 2027, when it’s all said and done, we’ll have over 200 new apartments and this direct, couple blocks vicinity. So it’s a really exciting time down here.

00;06;35;10 – 00;06;45;04
Speaker 1
Wow. Yeah, yeah, I didn’t know that that that’s going to be because, yeah, anybody who’s been around South Street, you know, they know about the construction that’s going on. So.

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Speaker 2
Right, right.

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Speaker 1
That must be challenging. You know, setting up a whole business through all that.

00;06;50;09 – 00;07;00;15
Speaker 2
Absolutely. Yeah. But it’s fun. You know, we’re right next to the new farmers market. So we got an amazing crowd on Saturdays. And, it’s just going to build more and more.

00;07;00;17 – 00;07;26;29
Speaker 1
That’s awesome. And, yeah, something that we like to uncover on the show, you know, talking with local business owners, we uncover that, you know, it’s not all, sunshine and rainbows. There’s a lot of challenges that come along with, you know, running a business and, could you just walk us through any early onset challenges and kind of how you guys, you know, got through those?

00;07;27;01 – 00;07;54;11
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely. So, basically it was just, like I said, finding the property working with. Is that going to be an issue? The Don I’ve been back there. Okay. Perks of the job. Working with Pinocchio, which has been a fabulous experience and being able to kind of fit the the building to how I envisioned it and working correctly for the flow of the grooming as well as the boutique.

00;07;54;16 – 00;08;04;03
Speaker 2
And the nice thing is, is that we’re able to grow slow so we can make those tweaks and and refine it to really work for us.

00;08;04;06 – 00;08;13;13
Speaker 1
It’s awesome. Yeah. So we’ve gotten into a little bit about the boutique. Could you talk about some of the grooming services that you guys provide over there?

00;08;13;15 – 00;08;38;09
Speaker 2
Absolutely. Yeah, we do pretty much everything. So full grooms bath and brash walk in now clippings. We have special packages throughout the year. So that’s kind of fun for for pet owners to be able to, you know, really focus in on pets or family. So to be able to offer them something unique and different, we we’ve done things such as hair, tinsel and longer dogs hair.

00;08;38;11 – 00;09;00;25
Speaker 2
We’re just starting off with, pet sales, coloring of the fur. So that’s something exciting. But yeah. So really, we do all of it. We take any size and all breeds of dogs. We have a little bit experience with pet grooming. One of our, our, groomers, but we haven’t quite ventured into that fully yet.

00;09;00;28 – 00;09;04;15
Speaker 1
Awesome. Yeah. How many groomers do you guys now currently have?

00;09;04;15 – 00;09;11;26
Speaker 2
So right now we have two and we well, look two. We have enough room to have four full time when it’s all said and done.

00;09;11;29 – 00;09;12;16
Speaker 1
Awesome.

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Speaker 2
Yeah.

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Speaker 1
And what would be the easiest way for people to, you know, kind of book?

00;09;18;06 – 00;09;28;00
Speaker 2
Right. Online at Downtown Dog Finder. It’s super easy. You can take the time and date that works for your schedule, as well as just calling or texting myself.

00;09;28;02 – 00;09;28;25
Speaker 1
Awesome.

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Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;09;30;26 – 00;09;39;02
Speaker 1
Yeah. You know, you guys are fairly new. You said you are, official open date. Is was when.

00;09;39;02 – 00;09;40;08
Speaker 2
Or was November.

00;09;40;08 – 00;09;41;08
Speaker 1
2020? Yes.

00;09;41;08 – 00;09;42;28
Speaker 2
So you’re two months down.

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Speaker 1
Wow. Congratulations.

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Speaker 2
Thank you.

00;09;45;29 – 00;09;53;26
Speaker 1
Do you have any. You know, like I said, you know, it’s kind of early. But what are the goals? You know, start of January. Yeah.

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Speaker 2
So we have a lot of we have a lot of ideas and, a lot of them involve community involvement. So I myself am very passionate about Glens Falls as well as supporting the different, small businesses and organizations that really make this community thrive. So it’s getting involved and, you know, how can we help people learn more about service animals?

00;10;17;25 – 00;10;47;04
Speaker 2
How can we work with, organizations that that match veterans with service dogs? Things like that? You know, I really it’s really important to me to be able to offer that. So that’s in the works. Another thing that I’m implementing is a pet loss support group. So something that’s not currently really happening in the community, but is such a needed, just an outlet and a time, a connection for people that lose their pets.

00;10;47;06 – 00;11;01;08
Speaker 2
To be able to come together and and share their experience and have that support. I took some certification, paws to be a pet last specialist to be able to moderate those conversations.

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Speaker 1
That’s awesome. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I guess could has there has it just kind of been talks of it or has there. Yeah.

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Speaker 2
So we’ll probably start in February. I just haven’t really fine tuned the details. It’ll be offsite from the boutique and spa. So we’ll do work and a local, maybe coffee shop in downtown Glens Falls. Maybe in the summer we’ll meet in the park. So, you know, just just bringing people together.

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Speaker 1
Awesome.

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Speaker 2
Yeah.

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Speaker 1
So just getting back to, I guess, the vibe every time I’ve walked in, whether it’s newspapers, ribbon cutting, just stopping in to say hi, the vibes are always so good in that.

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Speaker 2
Yeah.

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Speaker 1
Yeah. And your shops there are there, are there any funny stories you could share with us with,

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Speaker 2
Oh my goodness. Well, it’s it’s quite entertaining when we have a big crowd and a lot of different dogs meeting each other. There’s also so many different smells and it’s. We can hear sounds in the shop. So it, you know, it just it’s just so fun. Like you said, exciting vibe. We it can also be very mellow.

00;12;05;27 – 00;12;21;03
Speaker 2
So it’s nice for anxious guys. We, we have certain times a day that are better for dogs that might be a little more anxious around other pets or people. So, we we make sure to, prioritize that as well.

00;12;21;05 – 00;12;31;08
Speaker 1
That’s awesome. Yeah. I was going to say do is there like, if there if there are tons of dogs, do they have a little play area or do they.

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Speaker 2
Yeah, we have a couple little play type areas in the shop. We don’t put dogs together unless they’re family. They’re already family dogs. And we, we don’t necessarily. Then we have like, I said, open spaces.

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Speaker 1
That’s awesome. Yeah, I would I would always be, you know, having to get back to my work because I would always want to be playing with all the oh yeah.

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Speaker 2
That’s the best part of it.

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Speaker 1
Oh. Has there been any, I guess, dogs specific that, that you’re like, oh, I love seeing this breed come in and yeah.

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Speaker 2
I love big dogs. So same thing happens. Oh yeah. Bernese Mountain Dogs. I have a corgi heeler mix right now. That’s very talkative. You really. I’m sorry. Yes.

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Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s all right.

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Speaker 2
You just never know. Some are quite quiet and some are very low down, so.

00;13;28;09 – 00;13;53;25
Speaker 1
Yeah, I love it. Yeah, well, You you said, you get, you’re, involved with a lot of the community aspects and, you know, with the farmers market, can can the viewers, listeners expect to see a table of you, of your business at any of these upcoming things that are happening?

00;13;53;27 – 00;14;18;20
Speaker 2
Well, not at the farmers market, but we will be offering cut cats, on Saturdays, free cups. If you bring your pop in, I can get one. But, we are very big in the Glens Falls collaborative, so they do a lot of fantastic events. And one is like, ladies night prior to Christmas. We’ll participate and take a bite, but I’m going to be calling it Take a Bark and we’ll have, like you said, the dog beer.

00;14;18;24 – 00;14;34;26
Speaker 2
We’ll have some dog, specialty dog pretzels that they can buy while their owners are perusing and trying the local restaurants, the dogs will be able to get something for themselves as well. So fun things like that. Or and like that’s awesome.

00;14;34;28 – 00;15;06;12
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I guess, if if we go back to the start when, you know, the idea sparked up, you talked about moving from the corporate world and, you know, being a freelance, we say over here at buying local, the truest path to freedom is entrepreneurship. If you could kind of go back to your younger self with, you know, advice, all the knowledge you have now, what would be that one key piece of advice that you would give to your younger self.

00;15;06;14 – 00;15;15;21
Speaker 2
Take the leap. Yeah. So you know, even when it’s scary. It took me a long time to learn that. So just do it. There’s never going to be the perfect time.

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Speaker 1
Do you wish now that obviously you’re you’re seeing success here? Do you, wish that this was, you know, where you started or do you, do you think.

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Speaker 2
I think I probably needed to have those experience to be able to get to the point of, of feeling like I could do it. So, yeah.

00;15;36;29 – 00;15;41;13
Speaker 1
Yeah. You know, everything, points you in the right direction.

00;15;41;13 – 00;15;45;03
Speaker 2
Absolutely. Yes. You learn from everything that you do. So.

00;15;45;05 – 00;15;57;21
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, our time’s running low here, so if there were any questions that I didn’t ask you that you know, now that you would want me to ask, if there were any.

00;15;57;23 – 00;16;11;12
Speaker 2
I think we covered it. Like I said, we’re we’re really excited to be in the downtown community and looking forward to making more of those community connections and really having a special place for pets and their owners.

00;16;11;14 – 00;16;24;01
Speaker 1
Awesome. And if people want to learn more about you, what you do or, you know, just get in contact book. But their furry friend with you, what’s the best way to get Ahold of you?

00;16;24;03 – 00;16;41;11
Speaker 2
Definitely. Our website is Gray Downtown Dogs Spine Boutique. There’s a text me button right on there. It goes right to my phone. I’m very quick at, responding. But if you really want to see a day in the life, you would go to our social media pages, Facebook or Instagram. You’ll see pictures of the pups posted every single day.

00;16;41;16 – 00;16;45;04
Speaker 2
And, you get a great, great idea of what we do here.

00;16;45;06 – 00;16;49;05
Speaker 1
That’s awesome. And thank you again, Alisha, for coming on. And thank you.

00;16;49;05 – 00;16;49;22
Speaker 2
Let me.

00;16;49;28 – 00;17;07;20
Speaker 1
Yeah, thank you. And thanks to everybody for listening. And of course, you can find us at local US. We’re on Spotify, Apple Rumble and YouTube. And just please hit that like and subscribe button. And thank you again for listening to Buying Local and you’ll hear from us next week.