Making the World a Little Less Shabby, One Dog at a Time
By John Stephens
Published: Thursday, December 31st, 2009
Ask Sierra Madre entrepreneur Sandy Lewis-Duvall why on earth she would chose to start another new business in the middle of a recession, and she just smiles. “I’m crazy,” she says while standing at the entrance to The Shabby Dog, her newest venture tucked away in a quaint shop along Montecito Avenue.
“I knew it was risky at the time,” said Lewis-Duvall of her decision to branch out and start the high-end dog boutique and product line, “but you can never do just one thing and expect to succeed.”
Indeed Lewis-Duvall, who cut her teeth in the fitness industry writing and producing promotional videos for the Suzanne Somers Thighmaster in the early 1990s, is no stranger to a diversified portfolio of business ventures. She has owned Sierra Fitness for the last 15 years, during which time she has started and sold a number of businesses in the area including Sierra Juice Company in Kersting Court and a spa now owned by the Center for Wellbeing.
But even for someone with such a rich history of business endeavors off the beaten path, this latest venture may seem somewhat unexpected.
The flagship product of the new line of canine essentials is a hands-free leash system which features a matching leash and bracelet, both fashioned out of equally durable and fashionable Italian leather. With this ingenious system, what could easily pass for a functionless, broad bracelet for the ladies in fact doubles as an anchor for a dog leash, leaving the dog owners hands free and fingers unstressed. And if the owner isn’t in the mood for a bracelet, the leather leash can loop over on itself to form a traditional leash, with attachment hooks located at two different lengths along the leash, making its length adjustable or able to be attached to a fence post while you run into the store for some more dog treats.
Originally, the idea had been to design, produce and market her line of fashionable and functional hands-free dog leashes on the internet in what would be an online store for high-end dog products from a variety of manufacturers. “But as I started looking around,” says Lewis-Duvall “I saw all these products and thought to myself, ‘I can do better!’”
And thus, The Shabby Dog – as a one-of-a-kind brand for all things a truly pampered pooch could desire – was born.
And the attention has been very forthcoming. That Shabby Dog’s hands-free leashes have been the pick of the litter across a wide variety of media outlets this holiday season as the nation searched for the perfect gift for their perfect dog. Lewis-Duvall has appeared on NBC’s “Today Show” and CBS’s “Early Show”, as well as in the pages of Pet Edge Magazine and the National Enquirer. And following a hugely successful product launch and showcase at Pet Fashion Week in New York City earlier this fall, Lewis-Duvall and her prized pet models are slated to appear on an upcoming broadcast of the Rachel Ray Show on the Food Network.
“We’ve got a great PR company working for us out of New York, but a good PR company really isn’t worth anything if you don’t have a great product,” says Lewis-Duvall while showing off some of her store’s other products. And the homegrown efforts poured into every aspect of The Shabby Dog’s product line are certainly to be credited for much of the line’s success.
That, and the humor.
Take, for instance, a line of doggy beds designed with the celebrity-minded pet in mind. There’s “The Bennifer”, the “TomKat” and the “Branjelina”. ‘Nuff said.
Even more exciting for lovers of humor, their pets and this newspaper, is a line of comical T-shirts for man’s best friend designed by none other than Tom Gammill, the comic genius behind the perennial page three comic strip, The Doozies. A television writer for such shows as Saturday Night Live, Seinfeld, Futurama and The Simpsons, Gammill has been training at Sierra Fitness for years. When he found out about The Shabby Dog, he knew he had to be involved.
“He just started bringing me these hilarious comic drawings of dogs.” said Lewis-Duvall. “At first I didn’t know what to do with them, so I sort of put them away in a drawer. Then one day I realized we had to put them on T-shirts.”
The comics, which mirror the drawing style of the Doozies, include such quips as “Fleas Navidad” and “My other leash is a Gucci”. And there are already plans in the works to put these and other forthcoming comics onto other dog products such as food bowls and leashes.
It may be a difficult time for many businesses and families across the country, but for many, the simple pleasures a pet can bring are more than enough to forget the woes of the world. And for those people, there isn’t enough they can do to thank their pets for the joy they bring into their life, but The Shabby Dog is certainly a good place to start.
The Shabby Dog is located at 31 East Montecito Avenue in Sierra Madre, just one block north of Kersting Court. Their website is located at, you guessed it, www.theshabbydog.com. Online you can check out videos from their recent Pet Fashion Week show as well as all their recent television appearances and press.
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