A hobby that became a career

In my 50 years in the pet industry, I’ve had the pleasure of hosting so many different pets in my life. A few customers recently commented on my “passion” and asked if I went to school for this. So, here’s my story:

When I was very young, my brother raised mice and rats for both pet stores and laboratory use. I’d help tend them occasionally, and one or two got waylaid here and there as personal pets. Before I was born, my father and older brothers kept fish and, when I was 12, I dug one of the dusty tanks out of the basement and asked if we could set it up. Once I proved I could care for the little 2.5-gallon tank with three cherry barbs in it, my Dad dug out a 20-gallon, slate-bottomed tank, and that was the start of a hobby that became my profession.

That one tank turned into three, then seven, and by the time I was 15, we had over 40 tanks in the basement. We would salvage windows and cut glass out of the unbroken panes, and my Dad, a sheet-metal journeyman, would make metal frames to hold them. This was right around the time silicone sealant became easily available, and soon we didn’t need frames.

I bred all kinds of fish, from guppies to angelfish and everything in between. I’d go out to forest ponds to collect bug larvae as food, or to the Kaministiquia River in Thunder Bay (where I grew up) to collect tubifex worms in the flats a half mile down from the sewage outlet. Yeah, it was kind of gross, but that’s where they grew, and they were the best food for my breeding angelfish.

Trading these fish and the aquatic plants I would raise to local stores for equipment to expand my collection of tanks was a real business, all before I was 15. It was a lot of work, but it kept me challenged and out of trouble.

I worked for a summer in a pet store, basically running the place, even though I was not yet 16. It was just a small shop, but it had live fish, rodents and a few birds. Its primary business was dog grooming, but the experience whetted my appetite as an entrepreneur.

School pushed me towards a career in computers and sales but even while pursuing that I seemed to be involved with pets – either owning them or working with companies in that industry. When I finally decided that computer sales was not for me, the opportunity to manage the logistics and computer side of a large tropical fish and pet wholesale outlet came along, and over a dozen years there led to moving to Winnipeg to open a pet store.

It’s often said: “Find something you love to do, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” My experience is exactly that. The past 25 years serving the people and pets of St. Vital, in particular, and Manitoba in general, has been wonderful. The people I’ve met, the pets we’ve worked to help – you just couldn’t ask for more.

The last 15 years have ignited a new passion for me, as anyone who has come into the store will attest to, which is healthier pets through nutrition. The pet food industry is full of marketing companies with all kinds of slick pitches, and it is hard to weed through them to get to the truth. That has been my passion – getting to the bottom of things, and helping shine a light on what works, and what is more sizzle than steak.

The best part of my day is when someone comes in and says, “I’m so glad we met, I know I have had extra time with my pet, and their life has been so much better, thanks to what I learned here.”

You cannot buy that kind of job satisfaction.