The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - The Kyle Miller Show: Katie Emanuel Of Creatures Great & Small Joined Kyle Miller

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

Katie Emanuel, Owner of Creatures Great & Small, joined Kyle Miller live on The Kyle Miller Show! The Kyle Miller Show airs live Thursday from 2:15 pm – 3 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The Kyle Miller Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible and iLoveCVille.com.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the show. I'm your host, Kyle Miller, and I'm on a mission to bring you stories and insights from extraordinary individuals who have paved their own path to success, and in doing so, transformed their lives and the lives of people in their community. Today's show is brought to you by Apex Allies, your key to slashing costs and boosting productivity. With Apex Allies, you gain access to exceptional virtual assistants at half the traditional cost, transforming how you handle administrative tasks. Say goodbye to overwhelm and hello to time focusing on business growth. Apex Allies offers you the support needed without financial strain, making it easier to prioritize what truly matters. Visit GoApexAllies.com to evaluate your business efficiency there. So, guys, I'm excited.

Today on the show, we have owner of Creatures Great and Small, Katie Emanuel. Katie, welcome to the show. Thank you very much for having me. Awesome. Awesome. We were just chatting here before the kind of the show got going and I'm an avid, I love dogs. I love, I love all animals to be honest with you. And we just had our, we just had a baby bull born on the eclipse day. So we're, we're trying to figure out different names for,

for him. And we've, we've got a couple of them down. But we have six other longhorn cattle. We have dogs. We have cats. And so I've always enjoyed animals, loved being around them. And I'm just excited to hear kind of like how you got into it as well and your love for them. Because you have a little farm as well. So, Katie, tell us a little bit about yourself.

I grew up on a horse farm in Maryland. And when we moved to Virginia, my mother took over what was formerly Berkmar Park Pet Center. Okay. And turned it into Creatures Great and Small. Okay. I grew up there, and I would train there and learn to do everything. I also showed dogs,

so the grooming was just part of my childhood. And then I went off and did my own thing. I would come home on weekends or holidays and had a career in the sciences. And anytime my mom would call and say I need extra help, I'd be there. Every holiday I'd be there. Every holiday I'd be there. And then after 9-11, I was working at NIH, and it was a little confusing. I decided it was time to move closer to home and closer to where my family was.

Okay. I took a position down here with a scientific consulting firm so I could help my mother more. It wasn't long after being there that I realized my mother could use more help. Time's running out. You only have so much time to spend with your family. So I decided to leave my career and join her.

And I have been there since 2001 full time. Or 2002, sorry. And then she passed away. And now I'm at the helm. But it has been a family business and will remain a family business if my daughter ever wants it, or if she chooses to go do other things, we'll see. I have employees who are family, but the whole basis of the business is about taking care of family.

Well, and that's so cool that you were able to, you know, go out and start doing your own thing with school and work and then realize that, hey, you know what? The most precious thing in life that we have is something that money can't buy. And it's those relationships. It's that family to be around and spend time with and i'm sure um i'm sure she absolutely

enjoyed it and it gave you a ton of um memories you know and those those things are probably the most important things that i have found because not only do you live them but you also get to remember them and you keep being able to run those memories through your head. So they're always with you. You never lose those. And so that's pretty cool. And that's one of the things that I think about whenever I'm building my business and doing the things that I'm doing is how do I get my kids involved?

How do I get my boys involved in doing work with me? So I'm sure she loved it, and I'm sure you learned a lot and enjoyed being with her. It was an adventure, and it wasn't just about being with her. Our customers are our family. So many of them have seen me grow up. They saw me go off to college. They always inquired as to what I was doing. I went and lived in Africa for a year. They would send me letters. So many of our customers are invested in my family as a part of their greater family. So it wasn't just, and I learned that after joining my mom, that Charlottesville has more to offer than just being a cool town. The people here love the local businesses, and they want to support them,

and they want to support the individuals that are a part of those businesses. Right. They want those relationships. Got it. And I love that. So once you, when you took over the business from your mom, how was that transition and going? Did you know that you would be able to like take it over and run it or was there some, some question there? Um, so we were partners for several years.

Um, she died very suddenly and, uh, unexpected. Um, so it was, it was a little scary. Yeah. I had a young child at the time. She's 12 now. But how was I going to manage this with all of the demands of being a parent? Right. While my daughter has grown up there, there are demands that take you away from work. Yeah. And I'm not going to lie, I was overwhelmed.

Yeah. But you're dealing with live animals, and you can't be overwhelmed too long. You have to get up and keep going because they're still in need of all of their needs. They still need food, water, walks, playtime. They still need everything. And so being overwhelmed doesn't last long because you have to get up. Well, you say that, and I just kind of went through it personally in regards to being overwhelmed, not knowing what's going to happen next, having that I can't see past the next three feet in front of me. And then go, oh, I got to do it anyway.

So I got to start taking action. And once you start taking action, things kind of start falling in place. And so if anybody's going through depression or fear of anxiety of not knowing what you need to do or whatever, start taking that next step, start taking that, just start doing action and things will start to fall in place. The reason why the fear and all of that comes to you is because you're not taking action, you're sitting there, and so your brain just goes into all these different depths of its own mind and thinks of all the bad things that can happen to you, and it presents it to itself. And so that's debilitating.

Yes, and on some levels I was lucky because I had animals depending on me, and I also had employees depending on me, and I also had employees depending on me, and our employees are like family. They've been with us. Most of them have been with us a long time. Right. I have an obligation to make sure that they have a paycheck,

and while I'm going to be okay, I feel an obligation to my staff and the community. And what happened shortly after my mother passed away, I like to think of it being the best of what Charlottesville has. I didn't need to have a funeral because my customers came and held vigils in our parking lot. They came into my lobby and they brought food and they showed the love that this town has to offer.

Right. And they raised me up. So, um, it made it so that I could think about what that next step was. Right. And, um, it wasn't too long after once we started getting going again and figuring out we will, we will function, um, that I thought about all the things that I had wanted to do that weren't happening because my mother was set in her ways. Right. And we made them happen. We started putting in suites to make a more home-like environment for little dogs. We started expanding the daycare. We started doing all of the things that we had talked about but just weren't going to happen.

We computerized everything. We made a lot of changes to make things run a little smoother and to be able to grow the business. And so you're located right across from fashion square, right up. Um, what's the street? Berkmeyer drive. Yeah. Right on Berkmeyer on the right going up. Um, and you've, you've always been there. The, what have you noticed over since the very beginning until now, kind of like what your clients, how has the client changed in those 30 years? This is an interesting question just for me. What were they wanting back then?

Was it just a wash and a cut? Get the rags out of his coat and make him look a little shinier to what it is now? You do more custom stuff now, or you do kind of just every, you know, hey, we're going to make them look good, give them a bath? So with regards to grooming, we always had a focus on show dogs because we showed our own dogs. Okay. So we were always the place to go to for the more unique grooms. Gotcha.

If you had a Hungarian Puli, we knew how to do it. Is that the ones with the long? The long cords. Yes. So we have always been that place. Okay. But, you know, that isn't the majority of our clientele. Those are very specific clients.

The majority of our clientele don't show their dogs. They have pets that they love and they want clean and they want healthy. Right. So I would say that is still the case. What has changed as far as the grooming goes is, well, there are a lot more doodles. Okay. And doodle owners are very specific about how they want their dogs groomed. Social media has changed how we groom dogs.

Okay. Because there are a lot of clients that follow other people's dogs online. There are a lot of animals that have their own Insta accounts. Taylor Swift's cat? Taylor Swift's cats definitely are online. And so over the years, what has happened more recently is people are bringing us their favorite dog on Instagram or Facebook and asking us to make their dog look like that. They want their dog to look like the famous one they saw on social media, which sometimes

happens and sometimes doesn't. If sometimes they bring us a picture and it's not the same breed or same hair coat, we can't necessarily make that happen. Sometimes structurally the dogs are different. As I was telling you before we went live, sometimes the anatomy of the dog online doesn't match the anatomy of the dog that we have. And we can't physically make that happen without sending them to the vet for surgery so um that has made for a few challenges but um with boarding i will say things have changed dramatically okay yeah get into this people used to never bring their own food. Okay.

And we welcome them to bring items to make their pet feel more at home. Right. But it is no longer I'm bringing one toy or here's some food or some treats. People are packing up a lot of things for their pets. They're bringing furniture and they want to make sure that their pet doesn't miss any of the luxuries of home. Their foods are a lot more complicated. As a matter of fact, yesterday we were talking about refrigerator and freezer space because I don't know that I have enough anymore. The dogs that came in yesterday filled my employee refrigerator with all of their food. So it's gotten a lot more dramatic in what they're bringing in.

The requests, we have never charged for extras. We always felt like the extras were a part of taking care of a pet. But the extras are definitely growing. Last weekend, and even right now, there's one dog I have to cook for. So that has changed. Oh, wow. I am cooking rice every day. And last weekend, I was cooking chicken.

So with that, when you're having them boarding, what's the typical customer, how do you guys work? Do they come in? Do they drop them off during the day? Do they drop them off for vacations? What's the longest that you've had dogs? How does that work? So we've had a few really long-term clients that have boarded their pets for six months at a time. Okay. Those dogs get really special attention because they're with us for a long time.

They become like family. So we have one client that travels overseas every year for a large stint of time. And while their pets are with us, we try and make it as homey as possible. Right. Their cat used to become one of our house cats, would stay in a cat run for maybe the first couple days while he readjusted to being back with us.

Yeah. And then we would let him out and he could meander about our cat area as one of our house cats. Okay. So that he didn't feel like he was in prison for a long time. Yeah. And their dog used to come up into our grooming room and I'd definitely do things on weekends with him to try and make him feel like he wasn't left behind.

Right. But I would say the average person leaves their pet with us for their vacation, summer vacation, and, of course, for weekends when they go on a jaunt. Okay. Because we're doing a—we'll be out of town for a month, and so me and my wife right now are trying to figure out what are we going to do with, you know, our dog? Like Chip, he's an amazing, he's amazing border collie slash Australian cattle dog mix. Super, like I can let him outside. He like the

guy doesn't have a leash. I let him outside. He goes out, uses the bathroom, and comes and sits at the door for 30 minutes. And he'll tap on the window and be like, I'm ready to come back in. That's the type of dog he is. And he runs through the fields and stuff. So it's like, how would I... We're thinking about this. How do we take him being that's his lifestyle and then transition them into you know you know a kennel for possibly a month because we can't take them so a lot of our daycare clients when they travel they are they probably make the best adjustments because the dogs are so used to being with, and we do silly things for our daycare dogs. We'll do paw painting. We'll do all sorts of weird events with them.

We'll hold pool parties with them. And because they're so used to being in our facility, and they're used to going for walks out the front of the building, used to going for walks out the back of the building, when they're left, they don't even know that anything has changed. So they don't need any adjustment period. Dogs that come and see us once a year, they sometimes do have a struggle. We do have one dog who suffers from anxiety right now, and they're planning their boarding. He's been coming every couple of days, twice a week, so that he can adjust to my staff, being in the facility, going for walks with us, and he's doing really well. So I have no doubt that when he actually makes the adjustment to an overnight stay, he's going to be fine. Okay. Okay. The, it's interesting cause I'm,

I'm just trying to figure out what, what we're going to do. And that's, that's some of the concerns. Uh, he doesn't really have much of a diet other than just, he doesn't get too many treats. He just gets the regular regular food um but obviously you know you were just talking about some of the special services and amenities that you guys are providing i think that's pretty cool um do you feel like that like gives it more of a home and they they reduce the stress like they have that blanket or if they have those toys and it does yeah it does they like to have things from home. There's no doubt. And then there are some dogs, they couldn't care less.

That is definitely a more individual thing. But for some dogs, having something from home. We have one dog that comes to us regularly. He likes to cuddle in his blanket. And the first thing we do when we check him in and get him set up is wrap him in his blankie. And he loves it. Like that makes his day.

That he's getting wrapped in his blankie. And he'll eventually come out of his blankie, but he wants to know that he looks for it. He's like, where's my blankie? Can you wrap me in it now? So, you know, every looks for it. He's like, where's my blankie? Can you wrap me in it now? So, um, you know, every dog is different, but, uh, I think it does help some of them adjust. You have any, like any heartwarming stories or anything that's like really, you get attached to

some, some of these dogs, like, man, this is a really, really unique dog. That's pretty cool. I get attached to a lot of them. Yeah. I mean, last week, I think my whole staff was in tears at the receipt of an email that a very good client had passed away. And it wasn't like we lost a client. We lost an animal that we all genuinely love. Right. And looked forward to seeing and saw regularly. We saw this dog a lot more than his vet saw him. So we do get attached to them. We get attached.

So many of them pick their person at our facility. So some of the dogs get really attached to me, and then some of them get attached to some of my staff. Right. Some of them prefer men versus women. And when you get those that make it clear that you're their person while they're with you, it's hard not to fall in love with them just as much as they're falling for you. You know, you want to acknowledge their feelings too.

And the dogs that pick you, we have one that comes for daycare and she plays in my grooming room just fine until my PM staff gets in. Yeah. When my manager shows up at 10 o'clock, this dog loses her mind and cannot play with another dog anymore until Liz acknowledges her. She loses her mind. She goes crazy. She's like, I have to be acknowledged by Liz and then I can go back to doing other things. But if she doesn't acknowledge me, my life is over. So Mabel is a favorite, and we all adore her. But if she doesn't get that acknowledgement at 10 o'clock, we're all in trouble. So you said PM staff. Do you have somebody that stays on premises 24-7?

No, I do not. Okay. But I do have staff that comes in later so that we're not working 12-hour shifts. Gotcha. Gotcha. The, you know, telling you that I did when I was in high school, I did the dogs. I was the guy that would take them out and go out and throw the ball with them and play with them and stuff. And so I noticed all the different personalities.

And there's this one dog that, like you said, you get attached to this dog would just come up to me and like push me into the chair and then just come put his paws on me and then just put his head on my shoulder. And all he wanted to do was be scratched. And so it's unique. But you know, all of them are different. They all have, you know, different things. It's dogs, it's cats. What other animals do you guys work with? You name it. Yeah? What's the most unique animal?

We have boarded everything from snakes to sugar gliders, definitely a handful of lizards. I do have employees that like the odd creatures. So they like to spend a lot of time with them. I'm not going to lie. I am not a fan of snakes. Yeah. But I do have staff that love them.

And I do always make sure I have people that are willing to do these things. Because I don't know how well I feel about handling snakes. But the sugar gliders make weird noises. They make very strange noises. We do a lot of birds and rabbits. And we just had a rabbit with us over spring break who we would let loose. He'd run around our office and come around into the lobby. He had a lot of personality.

Liked attention and wanted to get into stuff. A little mischievous. So I think the weirdest animal is probably the sugar gliders. Yeah. They're strange. Yeah. It's just interesting. And, you know, being in Charlottesville,

I don't think of anybody having, I know a buddy of mine who has a McCall. And then I have, and that's pretty much it. I know a couple guys that have snakes but like sugar gliders and it gets into that it's like sugar gliders are weird um we do a lot of birds so we also have birds we have resident birds we have a resident African gray who was a rescue. And they provide us with a lot of enjoyment and we enjoy taking care of them. So the birds, I like to hear them sing. I like when we have birds in the house because I love hearing them sing. Yeah. That's interesting. With how do you deal with medical emergencies and things like that that happen?

I'm sure there's incidents that have happened being in business for 30 years. There are a lot. Recently, over Christmas, I had to call an owner and have him come back before he left on vacation. I was concerned his dog, and it was at closing. It was 5.30, and I was calling to track him down. And I had to tell him either he came back and got his dog and took it to the emergency vet or I was. And they thought about it and weren't sure. And I said, I think time is of the essence. The dog had, I took the dog out for an evening walk and he fell.

And I checked his gums and he had no gum return. So I did call the owner right away. They opted to have me wait with the dog so they could take the dog to the vet. And it turned out he has a tumor that had ruptured. Luckily, it was caught early enough that he was able to be saved. And while the tumor is still there, they've stopped the bleeding. And we don't know how long he'll be with us, but he's with us today and he seems to be pretty happy. But that was a life and death decision. We've had

diabetic cats that have, when you're dealing with insulin, we've had them where their insulin drops and they have to be rushed to the vet immediately. Sometimes in those cases where it is really immediate, I am out the door with the animal on the way to the vet while my staff is tracking down the owner. Gotcha. Those sorts of things can't wait a second. Right. And so we did have a situation a couple years ago where I bolted with the cat, and my staff tracked down the owner and got them in touch with me on my cell phone while I was already at the vet. So you treat all these animals like they're your own.

I try. And you're going to do the best that you can for them. I try. I just feel that from you, you know? So we do try. We are human. Right. So I'm not going to lie.

We are human. Right. No. And that's the hard part about running the business, right? We want to make everybody happy. We want to make, we want to do a good job. And we try our best to do a good job. But sometimes things happen and we have to overcome that.

And I just wish people could be understanding of that, you know? Yeah. We're dealing with, these are people's children. Yeah. And as far as they're concerned, these are their children. Yeah. And there's a lot of emotion attached to that. So when there is a sick animal, that can be very distressful.

Yeah. It is distressful for us too. Right. But we do understand that it can be very upsetting. I will say in the last few years, people have brought in more animals that had more complications. These aren't things that I don't think people would have boarded 10 years ago. And a lot of other facilities won't board. Okay. So, um, I need to evaluate whether or not we are still willing to do some of these things. Right. Um, because, uh, we do have several clients whose pets are in hospice care and that means while they're with us, we know that things could happen.

Right. And we have these conversations when they drop off. But that is an emotional roller coaster that so far we're all willing to do. But, you know, it takes its toll on you. With all the bad parts there, what do you think is the most rewarding part of running the business? We are part of a family. Yeah.

We're not just my family. We're part of a greater family. I know when you're getting married, you're making your reservation with me so that you can go on your honeymoon. And when you're going to the hospital and having your baby, you have my cell phone to call me after hours so that I can meet you so that your dog isn't with us any longer than it has to be. So that's probably the best part. We're not just, the dog is part of my family, it's part of my staff's family,

but we're part of a greater family. Right. You're there. It's not just business. You are family. Hey, we want to take care of you. I mean, it is a business, but you are there for the people to make sure that dog, that, that cat, whatever animal gets the best care that they can possibly get what in your absence.

It is. Um, I love that I'm a part of a community. So that's, uh, that's the best part of being in business is being a part of a community. Yeah. Yeah, that's so cool. That's so cool. With growing the business and doing that and being in it for 30 years, seeing the changes, do you plan to expand? What's your plans in the future with the business? That's a good question. We're kind of at a precipice.

Right. The facility that I'm in was, the ownership changed a couple years ago. Okay. And it is now under new management, which in commercial real estate, it's a wild place. Right, it is. So it comes with a 40% increase in my rent. And there are some changes that have taken place that I need to figure out what we're doing. Right. So whether or not we grow, I don't know. I'm looking at new facilities, um, looking at new properties to move to. Right. Um, I'm also looking at potentially I've reached out about buying where we're at. To be honest, there's a lot of memories in the building I'm in.

I've worked with my mother there. I grew up there. My daughter has grown up there. My husband helps me there. It's a real, my sister worked there. It's a real family unit. Right. So I don't know what my future holds.

We definitely are looking at all options. Okay. And I don't like the idea of just raising prices for the sake of raising prices. I always try to keep my prices as low as I possibly can. Right. Because I do know that I also serve, while I serve a lot of wealthy customers, I serve a lot of clients that are not as fortunate.

Right. And I do believe that they have the right to own pets just like anyone else and they benefit from it. So I try very hard to keep my prices as low as possible. Yeah. And that's where the family comes in. That's why you're a part of that. That's why you get the email and said, hey, the dog passed away. I know you guys enjoyed it. The involvement, the community. And that's what this show is all about, is to bring people that are doing great things in the community, that are helping

people better their lives. That's why we're here. So we can interview amazing people just like yourself, doing great things to help people. We do have one program that I'm really proud of. We have a pay what you can program. Okay. So we don't want any client, because they've hit a tough time, to feel like they have to abandon their pet or the care of their pet.

We don't want them to have to think about taking their pet to the shelter because they've hit a rough patch. And we definitely don't want their pet to suffer on their care. So we do have a program where, and some of our regular clients contribute to it, where customers who hit a rough patch can pay what they can. Got it. And hopefully we can get them through that rough patch

and the animal doesn't notice a difference. And I'm really proud that we have this and we've done this because we have several customers who have used it. And what happens is when they make it through that tough time, they're even more grateful for you. So that is something I'm really proud of. My staff, we all take that very seriously. And how do they get involved? How do they say, just send you an email and just say, Hey, listen, I'm, this is where I'm at. How does

that work? Um, well, usually we get a call from a customer that says they want to cancel an appointment and it's someone who's been pretty regular. Right. And I asked them what's going on and they just say, well, we're, we're just counting our pennies right now. Right. And I ask them what's going on. Yeah. And they just say, well, we're, we're just counting our pennies right now. Right. And, um, sometimes they share more and sometimes they don't and that's okay. They're, if they want to share what's going on, I'm all for it. And if they don't, I'm okay with that too. Right. Um, but if I, I let them know that we do this, and if this will help them get through their patch, we're happy to do it. And the people who have taken advantage of this have been very grateful, and we're happy to offer it. Not only does that create the care, I mean, it's like that, it's karma.

What you do will come back to you tenfold. So that's your, hey, I'll help you out, I'll help you out, I'll help you out. Because maybe they come back and they even donate to the program. You know? And the full circle. So we try really hard to raise awareness of local shelters and their needs. We constantly receive donations and take them to the local shelters. So we are constantly accepting donations, and we will make sure they get to where they need to go, cat food, dog food.

And currently we're accepting donations for the Shelter for Help in Emergency. Okay. So we have a bin out front for anyone who wants to bring things by for the women at the Shelter for Help in Emergency. Okay. Awesome. And then, again, tell everybody, tell the listeners kind of where you're located again, exact address, how they find you.

Do they find you online? 3036 Berkmar Drive. Big sign out front that says Creatures Great and Small. Yeah. You can find us on our website, www.creaturesgreatandsmall.net. You can find us on social media. We do have a fairly active presence on Facebook and Instagram. Okay.

Cool. Well, guys, Katie, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing everything that you guys do over there. I think you do, from just hearing what you do, and I can just feel it coming from you, how much you care about it. I think it's awesome. Thank you for having me. That you're doing all of that. So, guys, go check her out, Creatures Great and Small, 30-3... 3-0-3-6.

3-0-3-6, Berkmeyer Drive. Guys, that's what we have for today's show. Look forward to next week where we talk to more business owners and entrepreneurs doing great things throughout the community, and we will see you then. Thanks.

Thank you so much.