People like their dogs. They can’t seem to spend enough time or money on them. It doesn’t matter how much of a pain they are to walk, feed, and entertain, people still will do almost anything for their pets.
It doesn’t matter that dogs are fairly simple creatures. They would be happy with just a warm place to sleep and something decent to eat. And dogs don’t really care about fancy food. They would eat raw beef or rabbit guts before eating some fancy treat. But people don’t know this. Or they just don’t care.
There has been a disturbing rise in the amount of designer foods, treats, and clothing on the market, often sold by boutique pet shops that cater to people with just a little too much money.
Now, of course, robbery and theft are immoral and illegal, but there is nothing wrong with taking advantage of people by selling them a product that they don’t really need. This is where you can step in.
Go on the internet and find a recipe for dog biscuits. Make some in your kitchen. Play around with the recipe. Tweak it a bit. Add your own twist. Color it and maybe add some artwork that correspond to a local popular sports team. Also, change your designs and coloring by the season. Red and green treats around Christmas. Purple, pink, and orange around Easter. A dark orange around Halloween, etc.
Be sure that you only use ingredients that are going to be dog friendly – no chocolate, for example. Eat it yourself, first, and if you survive, share one with your dog or friend’s dog, if his owner consents.
The plan is to come up with a reasonably decent tasting treat that dogs will enjoy. But dogs have pretty low standards when it comes to taste, so almost anything will please it. You also want to make them somewhat healthy. You don’t want to give the pets diabetes with just a few treats, or worse, kill them outright. So don’t deviate from the standard dog biscuit recipes too much. Find easy recipes pretty easily by searching online for them or by buying a book.
Once you have figured out how to make the recipes, you need to figure out both a price and how you will sell them. Walk around to your local pet stores, especially the boutique stores, and see what they are charging for designer dog treats. Figure out how much it is going to cost you to make a batch. Factor in the cost of the ingredients, the amount of time you will be running your oven and other appliances, how much electricity you will use, what you pay for electricity, your time, and the expense of getting them into the shop. Then you need to figure out how much you are going to sell them to the store for, keeping in mind that they will need to make a profit reselling them. For example, if your designer dog treat is going to sell for $1 a biscuit, the store is going to want to keep at least 40 cents of that sale. So you will make 60 cents a biscuit. Will you be able to make the biscuits for less than 60 cents each and will you be able to make enough money to make it worth your time?
You probably can. There wouldn’t be so many designer homemade biscuits on the market if you didn’t. You can buy the ingredients in bulk. Go to a wholesaler like Sam’s Club. Or, try something different. Buy your ingredients from a store that sells fresh organic foods. That way you can claim that your treats are not only homemade, but also organic.
Reach out to your local pet stores and boutiques to see if they will buy some from you or, at least, allow you to sell them on consignment. Also, setup a website. Buy a domain name that matches what you are selling. Send free samples to dog rescue operations with your business card and information on where they can buy your product. This will help you to build up a positive reputation in the community.
Baking is fairly easy and something that anyone who can follow basic instructions can do. If you can sew or knit or make other crafts, make other products for dogs. In addition, don’t forget that cats are now America’s favorite pet. Use the same techniques that you can use to make and sell dog biscuits and other products to do the same for cats.
