It was Drew’s dog, Dexter, who inspired him to open his Calgary-based pet store, Dexter’s Pet Shop. Dexter was born with a number of food and airborne allergies, but Drew found it hard to obtain helpful advice from vets or other pet stores as he looked to improve his dog’s quality of life. Frustrations when it came to finding a food that worked, as well as a lack of speciality knowledge at other pet stores, led him to do research for himself on pet nutrition and health in order to help Dexter live a happy and healthy lifestyle. By then, Drew had decided it was time for a change of his own. “I had been thinking about finding a different career,” he explains. With a degree in community rehabilitation and many years of working in the healthcare industry as a social worker behind him, he took inspiration from his experience finding good nutrition for Dexter and opened the pet store in 2015. “That’s how I came to be,” says Drew. “And Dexter is still with us today!”
Drew started Dexter’s Pet Shop with the aim of using his new-found knowledge to open a pet store where customers could rely on quality advice, knowledge and great prices. “Our values are about knowledge, listening to our customers and helping them find what they want. Having knowledge about food and taking the time to actually ask the customers the right questions to know what they’re looking for and what they need - to me that was the most important thing.” Drew focuses on local, high-quality products that offer the best value for a fair price - over 90% of the products they carry are Canadian. In terms of quality, he looks for clean ingredient panels with minimal splitting, and an extremely high standard of ingredients. “None of the deceptive stuff,” Drew says. “The quality of the ingredients, where they’re coming from, what it actually is. That’s what is most important to me.”
When it comes to Drew’s partnership with Smack Pet Food, what he values most is the quality and the pricing. “Their product is good,” he says. “It has a clean ingredient panel and it’s fairly reasonably priced.” The core values that Dexter’s Pet Shop embodies - knowledge, reliability and great prices on local products - align with what Smack Pet Food has to offer. Additionally, Drew appreciates that they charge the same price to a customer buying directly from them as the store would charge, as well as their policy on returns. “If a customer decides they don’t like it, they get their money back and Smack will take it back. They stand behind their product.” Dexter’s Pet Shop, meanwhile, continues to serve the city of Calgary with high-quality, Canadian products and extensive, trustworthy knowledge for other customers looking to improve the quality of nutrition and lifestyle for their own pets.
Read more at https://www.dexterspetshop.ca/products/shop/
"Our values are about knowledge, listening to our customers and helping them find what they want. Having knowledge about food and taking the time to actually ask the customers the right questions to know what they’re looking for and what they need - to me that was the most important thing.”
Drew, Owner