PetPails.com

Cats and dogs wagging tails over PetPails

By PATRICK CONNOLLY
Staff Writer

Entrepreneur has just the thing for those who pamper their pets

It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and doesn't Brisi Hall know it.

There she was, working hard and fast to launch her new business, selling designer gift pails for dogs and cats via the Internet and area shops, when she left a couple of her finished products on a counter in her Mt. Juliet home while she went out to run errands.

When she returned, cellophane paper was shredded, chew bones were covered in slobber and the homemade dog biscuits were crumb city. A very contented-looking Sundance, the sweetest Great Dane-pit bull mix you'll ever meet, lay in the middle of the living room floor cutting some Z's.

''I know it was her,'' Hall says with a laugh, fixing blame on the blind but determined 10-year-old Sundance while exonerating Lucky, her excitable but much smaller dog, and Cassidy, the household's reigning kitty. ''But I couldn't be mad at her.''

No indeed, especially after Sundance proved to be a satisfied customer and Hall became confident that supply could meet demand for her month-old PetPails business. A clothing designer for years, Hall thinks she's barking up the right tree by switching over to the world of helping humans pamper their pets.

''Pets offer unconditional love, and they don't talk back,'' she says. ''When it comes to human love, I think a lot of time people over-promise and under-deliver, and it makes for disappointment. But not these guys.

''I think PetPails is like buying a birthday present for your children, or a Christmas gift or something special for Valentine's Day, only in this case it's for people like me, whose animals are their families. ''

Hall knows there is Internet competition with PetPails but contends her prices are more competitive and she carries out the themes of her pails — K-9 Kowboy, Santa Paws and Yankee Doodle Doggy are just three of the 24 choices now offered — with a little more panache. Locally, her prepackaged gifts are carried in four stores; she also has items placed, so far, in shops in Salt Lake City.

A gift package ordered on the Web site costs $35-$40 on average and is larger and more elaborate than the PetPails available at local stores, which generally run less than $20, Hall says. A portion of all proceeds is donated to various animal rescue groups.

What's in the pails? It varies, depending on the theme. The Purr-ty Putty Cat pail, for example, includes dry-clean shampoo, a hairball remedy, a kitty comb, a cat bandana, a bag of catnip and other items for $49.50. Among the goodies in the Fido the Firechief pail, which sells for $43.50, are a rawhide donut, a huggable bone pillow (for those long nights), a fire chief bandana and hat and a bag of biscuits.

Hall uses Sundance, Lucky and Cassidy as in-house product testers for everything. She believes their paw of approval has been especially important with the dog biscuits that can be ordered and the absence of any biscuit in those for kitties.

''It took me several Sunday afternoons to get the recipe just right for the dog biscuits,'' says Hall, who describes the end products as healthy because they do not contain soy, salt, sugar or eggs, opting instead for stone-ground whole wheat and rice flours, honey and molasses. They come in four flavors: banana mutt, bone appetite, carrot crunch and fruity tuitti. All but the banana mutt are fat-free.

But try as she might, Hall hasn't been able to develop a cat biscuit that appeals to Cassidy, or any other neighborhood feline, for that matter.

''My neighbors laughed at me chasing cats around trying to get them to eat another new biscuit I had made,'' Hall says. ''I ended up thinking that I shouldn't have a cat biscuit just for the sake of having one if I couldn't find a cat to eat it myself.''

Hall guesses she's been an animal lover all her life.

''Even as a kid, I was always bringing strays home. My mom let me keep them all, except for one cat who ruined all her drapes.

''And I've stuck by Sundance, because when she was younger, she chewed up a couch and some linoleum flooring and carpet in an apartment. It cost me $800 just to move out of there. Friends told me to get rid of her, but I had made a commitment to her and I just couldn't do that.

''Our pets demand so little of us. I figure, why wouldn't people want to give them a present?''

To learn more

PetPails products are available through www.petpails.com and locally at The Cat Shoppe and The Dog Store, both across from the Mall at Green Hills off Crestmoor; Creature Comforts, 536 Paragon Mills Road; and Pup Scouts, 2909 Armory Drive.

The gift pails come in general and holiday-specific themes. For Halloween, for example, there are Scaredy Cat and Haunted Hound pails, for $34 and $43 respectively, through the Web site; less expensive versions are available in stores.

The Web site also offers links to various pet-friendly sites.

Patrick Connolly writes features for The Tennessean. He can be reached at pconnolly@tennessean.com and 259-8036.

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