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Interview with Cathy Stanley, Inventor of the Pooch Potty
1. How did you come up with the idea?
The idea of putting sod on your balcony (as a place for your dog to
go potty) has been around for years. Many dog owners have tried to
come up with their own potty boxes, usually made out of wood. In 1993 my friend, Loy Norrix, came up with the idea of actually starting a
business to provide not only the potty box for dog owners but the
weekly sod service as well. I bought the business from him in 2001
and have been growing it ever since.
2. How long did it take to bring your idea to market?
The idea was already in place when I bought the company. What I needed to do was to figure
out how to expand it on very limited funds. We haven't had a
publicist or done much advertising, yet in just 4 1/2 years
our sales have grown enormously. The annual sales in 2001 are now
equal to two weeks of sales in 2006. Although we are still very much a
small business.
3. What makes your product unique?
We were the first company to begin selling the dog potty boxes (we
have had many imitations since then) and we are the only company who
offers weekly sod service to about 70 percent of the country. We are growing our
own sod on the East coast and in the Midwest. Eventually we will
open more sod facilities so that we can ship it
nationwide.
4. Are you planning any enhancements/improvements to the product?
Yes, we have some new versions of our Pooch Potty boxes that we can't
talk about until we bring them to market. Sadly, all of the imitators
look to us for their ideas, so we can't talk about what is coming up
for us like we once could.
5. What is your professional background? Did that line of work or education help you in developing this product?
I was a professional celebrity personal assistant for 12 years,
which in many ways prepared me for wearing the many different hats
of an entrepreneur. Out of necessity, I had to learn how to stay
organized, cool, calm and collected under stress and think ahead,
operating proactively rather than reactively.
6. Throughout the entire inventive/manufacturing process what was the hardest obstacle you faced?
The most
challenging obstacle was coming up with how to supply sod nationwide
and after many years of research, growing experiments, and finally
getting a fantastic group of agriculture experts on board, Pooch
Potty finally has an amazing new lightweight sod. The growing process
we use is patented and we currently have a patent pending on the
actual recipe for the sod.
7. What type of pets do you own?
I have
several rescue dogs. My latest addition to the doggie household is
"Muffin," a blind cocker spaniel who barely survived starvation
from being abandoned after Hurricane Katrina.
8. Is there anything else you'd like readers to know about you or your product?
Well, one thing is that I pride myself on running my business with
ethics and integrity. At times, it can be frustrating to have other
companies copy what we are doing. At the same time, though, I am
flattered because it means I must be doing something right.
Having worthy competitors is always a good thing for any entrepreneur to
keep from getting complacent. What is unfortunate, is that some
of our imitators are selling cheaply made boxes that don't have good
functionability and ultimately are giving the dog potty business a
bad name. This is why I came up with a Pooch Potty guarantee, where
we stand behind the products of our competitors. We found a lot of
people were having bad experiences with the other companies' products and I
wanted to turn that around for those customers.
The second thing about me, that I am probably much too quiet about,
is my genuine ongoing support of the animal rescue community. Anyone
who adopts a rescue dog can get half off their Pooch Potty box, as
well as animal rescue volunteers.
I've supported P.A.W.S. of Los Angeles with many free boxes and I often donate boxes to rescue
groups, shelters and "special needs" dogs in order to help them get adopted.
I also made two trips to New Orleans after Hurricane
Katrina to volunteer with the animal rescue efforts, something I
couldn't really afford to do and it hurt my business (with me being
gone) and also set me back for months financially (I'm still paying
for medical bills for some of the dogs I brought back to California
with me). But in hindsight it was such an enormously rewarding
experience for me -- albeit quite sad and heartbreaking - that I don't
regret going.
I wrote about my experiences on KatrinaDogRescue.com and I'm currently gathering stories from other volunteers to post there, so that the tragedy of those poor pets who suffered will not be forgotten.
Those who know me say that if I ever do make Pooch Potty a financial success I'll still be broke from spending all of my money on animal rescue and that's just fine by me.
A wide variety of pet urns can be obtained fro pet supply stores; a few of the cremation urns are so unique that you can customize according to the size, height, and weight of your pet. It’s one of the important pet accessories. And yet another important pet supply, which benefits you a lot while traveling with the pets, is dog id tags.
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