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<p>HANOVER TWP. &#8212; Valentine&#8217;s Day has gone to the dogs &#8212; literally.</p><p>The holiday of love has increasingly spurred consumers to spend more on their furry friends over the last few years. Brenda Bartlett, owner of Village Pet Supplies &amp; Gifts in Hanover Township, can attest to that fact first hand.</p><p>She said her business has steadily grown since she started it 14 years ago, and the store began offering more Valentine&#8217;s Day selections in the past few years due to customer demand.</p><p>&#8220;People spoil their pets more and more each year, treating them like they would their children,&#8221; said Bartlett. &#8220;That&#8217;s made a huge difference in our sales each year.&#8221;</p><p>She said holidays spike her sales about 20-30 percent during the year, and she has to staff her store with more employees to meet the demand during the holiday seasons.</p><p>A recent survey from The National Retail Federation said consumers will spend less on Valentine&#8217;s Day this year &#8212; from an average of $146.84 in 2016 to an average of $136.57. Nearly 20 percent of those planning to spend money during the holiday of love will spend it on their pets.</p><p>Valentine&#8217;s Day gifts for pets accounted for $681 million of the $19.7 billion spent in 2016.</p><p>Bartlett said Valentine&#8217;s Day is definitely more of a &#8220;treat holiday&#8221; for pets, much like candy is the most popular choice for humans, according to the National Retail Federation.</p><p><strong>A side business grows</strong></p><p>Keith and Amy Augustine also know this to be true.</p><p>They started The Lazy Dog Cookie Co. as a side business in 2001, making gourmet, all-natural treats for pampered pups. Sixteen years later, the Wyoming Valley natives are shipping their homemade treats across the United States and Canada and to large distributors like PetSmart, Whole Foods, Bark Box and more.</p><p>&#8220;It started as a side business for Amy, in the kitchen of our house,&#8221; said Keith Augustine. &#8220;In 2007, I quit my job of 11 years and joined in the business.&#8221;</p><p>Amy Augustine started making the decadent dog treats for her friends while working as a microbiologist. The pair signed up for a farmers market when they lived in York, Pa. and the cookies gained in popularity.</p><p>&#8220;We had local pet stores carry the products, and it grew over time,&#8221; said Keith Augustine. &#8220;We bounced around a little bit with my job working for Heinz (Ketchup Co.), and everywhere we moved we built a customer base.&#8221;</p><p>Keith Augustine said the pair attended a national dog trade show in 2003 when they lived in Grand Rapids, Mich., and the company&#8217;s success blew up overnight.</p><p>Keith Augustine is a member of the Greater Nanticoke Area Class of 1990, and his wife graduated from Hanover Area in 1989. Now the pair live in upstate New York, and their 13,000 square foot facility is located in Ballston Spa, N.Y.</p><p><strong>Time to spoil Sparky</strong></p><p>He said Valentine&#8217;s Day products have become increasingly popular over the last few years, and the company just released two new products this year to meet the demand &#8212; the &#8220;I Ruff You&#8221; Pup-Pie and the Strawberry Smooches flavor of their popular Mutt Mallows, a soft-baked cookie treat for dogs.</p><p>&#8220;Valentine&#8217;s Day has every year become more popular for pet owners to spoil their animals,&#8221; said Augustine. &#8220;It used to be just Christmas, and Halloween became number two (in popularity). Definitely Valentine&#8217;s Day is the third most popular time. Anything pink and red is on the radar for pet owners.&#8221;</p><p>In case you were wondering, a Pup-Pie is a round dog treat cut into wedges that&#8217;s made to look like almost like a sweet pizza. Augustine said Lazy Dog was one of the first companies on the scene to make what Keith Augustine calls &#8220;humanized items for pets,&#8221; like dog treats in the shapes of cupcakes and cannolis.</p><p>And pet parents are really responding to the treats that are good enough for humans to eat.</p><p>&#8220;We started shipping Valentine&#8217;s Day orders before Christmas,&#8221; said Keith Augustine. He said Christmas is a huge holiday for pet stores, and the limited time available to market Valentine&#8217;s Day products after Christmas can be tricky to organize.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s good for us, the increased demand for Valentine&#8217;s Day products, because there&#8217;s usually a lull right after Christmas,&#8221; said Keith Augustine. &#8220;It&#8217;s really helped (sales).&#8221;</p><p>But it&#8217;s not just the holiday season that sends pet parents into a spending frenzy.</p><p><strong>It&#8217;s recession-proof</strong></p><p>Consumers spent an estimated $62.75 billion on their fur-babies in 2016, according to the American Pet Products Association. And that spending didn&#8217;t skip a beat during the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009.</p><p>Bartlett said Village Pet Supplies &amp; Gifts has experienced continued growth since opening, and her business did not feel the effects of the recession &#8212; not even a slow down in sales.</p><p>&#8220;We specialize in food for animals with health problems,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Even if people were cutting back everywhere else, if their pets have an allergy, they need that specific food. The recession did not affect us here.&#8221;</p><p>According to <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-2/pdf/spending-on-pets.pdf" target="_blank">a study from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics</a>, Americans kept spending money on pet food at 1 percent of total expenditures between the years of 2007-11, despite the recession. By comparison, Americans&#8217; spending on dining out experienced a huge decrease during that same time period.</p><p>She said the growing idea of people treating their pets as children has not only helped her business but also the health of pets living in American households today.</p><p>&#8220;People are more informed and shop smarter for their pets now,&#8221; she said. &#8220;They keep the safety of their fur children in mind &#8230; My business grew about 15 percent last year. Most businesses look for that 3 percent increase. Words cannot express the joy I feel.&#8221;</p><p>Village Pet Supplies &amp; Gifts carries products from The Lazy Dog Cookie Co., and Keith Augustine said small businesses and pet boutiques are an important focus for the business.</p><p>&#8220;When we come to Pennsylvania to visit family, we like to visit the local pet stores,&#8221; he said.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">The Strawberry Smooches flavor of the Mutt Mallows made by The Lazy Dog Cookie Co. are a new product this year made especially for Valentine&#8217;s Day. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/web1_5261654-MM-Starwberry-Front.jpg</photo0><caption0>The Strawberry Smooches flavor of the Mutt Mallows made by The Lazy Dog Cookie Co. are a new product this year made especially for Valentine&#8217;s Day. </caption0><photoCredit0>Submitted photos </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/web1_lazy-dog-family.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Wyoming Valley natives Keith and Amy Augustine, shown with their fur family, started The Lazy Dog Cookie Co. in 2001. The company ships wholesale to large and small businesses throughout the United States and Canada. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/web1_lazy-dog-family.jpg</photo1><caption1>Wyoming Valley natives Keith and Amy Augustine, shown with their fur family, started The Lazy Dog Cookie Co. in 2001. The company ships wholesale to large and small businesses throughout the United States and Canada. </caption1><photoCredit1>Submitted photos </photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/web1_ruff-you-pie-330.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">The Lazy Dog Cookie Co. &#8216;I Ruff You&#8217; Pup-Pie is a new product made especially for Valentine&#8217;s Day. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/web1_ruff-you-pie-330.jpg</photo2><caption2>The Lazy Dog Cookie Co. &#8216;I Ruff You&#8217; Pup-Pie is a new product made especially for Valentine&#8217;s Day. </caption2><photoCredit2>Submitted photos </photoCredit2></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/web1_TTL021217VillagePets2.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Brenda Bartlett, owner of Village Pet Supplies &amp; Gifts, poses for a portrait in the pet treat aisle of her pet store in Hanover Township. Bartlett says treats are the biggest seller for pets during Valentine&#8217;s Day. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo3>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/web1_TTL021217VillagePets2.jpg</photo3><caption3>Brenda Bartlett, owner of Village Pet Supplies &amp; Gifts, poses for a portrait in the pet treat aisle of her pet store in Hanover Township. Bartlett says treats are the biggest seller for pets during Valentine&#8217;s Day. </caption3><photoCredit3>Sean McKeag | Times Leader </photoCredit3></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/web1_TTL021217VillagePets1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Four-year-old Lacy peeks from behind the counter at Village Pet Supplies &amp; Gifts in Hanover Township on Friday. Lacy, an Australian Cattle dog mix, has the job duty of &#8216;purchase inspector&#8217; at the pet store. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo4>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/web1_TTL021217VillagePets1.jpg</photo4><caption4>Four-year-old Lacy peeks from behind the counter at Village Pet Supplies &amp; Gifts in Hanover Township on Friday. Lacy, an Australian Cattle dog mix, has the job duty of &#8216;purchase inspector&#8217; at the pet store. </caption4><photoCredit4>Sean McKeag | Times Leader </photoCredit4></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Valentine&#8217;s Day isn&#8217;t just for spoiling humans</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Sarah Hite Hando</p><p>shando@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p><strong>LEARN MORE</strong></p><p>For more information about The Lazy Dog Cookie Co., visit the company <a href="https://www.facebook.com/lazydogcookies/" target="_blank">Facebook page</a> or <a href="http://lazydogcookies.com/" target="_blank">lazydogcookies.com</a>.</p><p>For more information about Village Pet Supplies &amp; Gifts, visit the company <a href="https://www.facebook.com/villagepetsupplies/" target="_blank">Facebook page</a> or call 570-735-5905.</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Sarah Hite Hando at 570-704-3945.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

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Don’t forget your furry friends: Valentine’s Day big for NEPA pet store sales