Saving dogs leads to business idea

I don’t have a dog but if I did I would get a little one from the pound. It makes me sad to know the fate of most animals that end up there. I found a link to Terrapass, an article I recently wrote about, from a company called Earthdog. Earthdog makes quality hemp collars for dogs.

The founders are a husband and wife team, Dave and Kym Colella, with fourteen dogs. Yep, I said 14 dogs. And these dogs have a role in the company – they are used in photos and advertising, and provide inspiration and use of their names. When Kym met Dave she had just two dogs. She says “i like to say dave was a normal dog lover. i think at the time i believed i was too but apparently there was a fanatic lurking just below the surface.” When the couple moved from New Jersey to Nashville, they realized there was a huge homeless dog population. Kym got involved with the Nashville Humane Society and within two years had fostered over a hundred dogs at her house, while these animals recovered from a sickness or the mother had her pups, until these animals could be adoptable.

Earthdog was founded over ten years ago, as a result of this foster care the couple was doing. Kym was constantly looking for dog collars and she found the choices were very limited. She “felt a bit crafty” and decided to make her own. She put some of her collars on the foster dogs she was returning to the shelter, and several people looking to adopt the dogs found these collars to be wonderful. Then one of the humane society workers quit to manage a new dog shop in Nashville. She asked to buy some of the collars from Kym and that was their first order. The collars are named after the dogs.

Earthdog is run at Kym and Dave’s home. The company has grown so much though they were forced to move from their original house to a much larger compound, so they can continue to be with their dogs while running the company. The company offers many more items than dog collars, too. They have dog toys, greeting cards, t-shirts, ornaments, stickers, etc. And 10% of profits go toward kody’s fund, a non-profit organization which funds spay and neuter programs.