Fetch Your Pet Needs is a pet shop with a difference in Mountmellick.
As they prepare for their first birthday, we caught up with owner Nikita O’Rourke to hear about how it all came about – and her exciting plans for the future.
Tell us a bit about your background in the pet industry?
My whole career has been in the Pet Industry. At 17 I started out as a part time worker in a Pet Shop, at the time it was just a job really, little did I know it would become a pure passion and interest.
Having worked there for a few months I then moved to an Assistant Manager position and then to Management. My life became revolved around educating myself on the nutritional needs of Dogs, Cats, Small Animals and the maintenance of Fish Tanks. Everything animal related really.
It was over those few years that I realized it was the career for me. Pet Nutrition is much more complex than we originally thought. Over the last three to four years I could see a massive increase in sensitivities in dogs and at the time there was very little options of dog food on the market in Ireland that could help these dogs be it a skin sensitivity or digestive sensitivity.
Just over two years ago then I decided to leave my position as Manager and begin the journey of Fetch Your Pet Needs, where I would have a Natural Range of Pet Food and Treats available specifically for Dogs that had been suffering with these sensitivities for many years.
What made you decide to go out on your own with Fetch your Pet Needs?
The Dog Food industry is very complex. I guess like all types of products the outer packaging can be quiet misleading. It can promise to be packed with Meat, Omegas and promise to be the best food for your pet.
This is something that has frustrated me for many years and unfortunately as a consumer we trust that what a Sales Rep or what the front of the packaging says is 100% true but this is not always the way.
In Europe there is not many guidelines or regulations for Dog Food Factories which allows misleading information to be marketed to the customer, by starting Fetch Your Pet Needs the key thing for me was to be 100% honest with the customer, not to sell a product to them but to educate them about Pet Nutrition so that they have the information they need when choosing what food is best for their pet.
The one thing I always say to a customer is to ignore all marketing claims and fancy packaging and turn over the bag to read the full composition of their Pets Food. The composition cannot mislead you or lie to you.
Before when I would have been selling dog food I could not be 100% honest with the customer in front of me because unfortunately where I was working did not stock a food that was packed with freshly prepared meats and easily digested carbohydrates.
By all means it was not the worse food on the market but the shop did not stock a food I was 100% confident in, I knew there was better foods produced in the US and UK and that was my main reason for starting Fetch Your Pet Needs to develop a Pet Food I was 100% confident in, that used human grade ingredients, never used meat derivatives or cereals only fresh produce.
A food that you could hand to the customer and ask them to read the composition label and know that there was no ingredients in there to be concerned about.
What have been the most difficult and rewarding elements of starting and running your own business?
When I was starting out and telling friends and family I had left my job and was starting out with Fetch, a lot of them were nervous for me, they were only concerned I guess to make sure I was making the right decision.
But I always had a confidence in me that it would work because I could see dog owners were searching frantically for a high quality food that used natural ingredients to improve their dog’s life be it that they just wanted to improve the quality of the food they were eating or that they were desperate to get control of an allergy that their dog suffered from with the food they were using before.
Every week we have customers from Laois and all over Ireland coming to us desperate to cure skin or digestive allergies and to date we have been able to help each and every one of them.
A woman recently came into the shop, she originally contacted us two weeks ago about her Bichon Frise that has been suffering with severe skin sensitivity for over a year.
It had got so bad that half of the body was completely stripped of hair and the skin raw red and oozing from so much scratching. We recommended he went onto Nourish Rite Grain Free Salmon, Trout, Sweet Potato and Asparagus and to supplement the food with Holistic Hound Golden Paste which is a Natural Anti-inflammatory and Antibiot
The Bichon had become aggressive over the past few months due to the frustration and pain of the skin, this was due to an allergic reaction to the grains and low-quality meat that was in his previous food.
After only two weeks with a simple change of diet his skin has completely healed, no more itching and the coat has already started to grow back. These type of success stories are what makes all the stress of running your own business worthwhile. I am blessed to be able to improve both the pet’s life and the owners.
How did you choose Mountmellick?
Fetch Your Pet Needs originally started out online in May 2016, delivering throughout Ireland with An Post but as the business began to grow we were receiving many calls from different counties where the pet owners wanted to come visit us to see the food for themselves, let us meet their pet and discuss their nutritional needs face to face.
This is when I went on the search for a shop premises. I have lived in Mountmellick for three years myself and the community has always been great. It is a lovely town, well-kept and people are always looking out for each other.
Having searched through endless rental ads I finally found a unit in O’Connell Studios, just off O’Connell Square in Mountmellick and I fell in love with it from the pictures alone.
Ronan and Pat Culleton have transformed what used to be the old Shields Bakery into modern units yet they kept the rustic feel and atmosphere by finishing all the buildings in stone.
I knew it was the perfect place for Fetch, our Nourish Rite Natural Range fits in perfectly in the studios.
You’re a year in business now but you’re expanding your shop. Tell us a bit about that?
Yes we are a year in business in Mountmellick now and we have had to build onto the shop to allow for the extra stock we are now holding, we have expanded our Natural Range over the last 12 months and are continuously working with our manufacturers to bring out New flavors of Nourish Rite.
We also stock raw dog food now which will be available to buy from the Shop in Mountmellick once the building work is completed.
To celebrate the extension to the shop and 1 year in business we have a big event coming up on the 9th of June from 1pm to 5pm we will have lots of special offers, natural cupcakes for the doggies and humans too.
