Mountain Dawg to Close it's Doors on April 30th, 2017

To the Grand County Dogs, Cats, Reptiles, Small animals and their owners.

My name is Tracie Martin and my husband, Jeff, and I opened our pet supply store and dog daycare, Mountain Dawg Outfitters, in June of 2002 in Fraser...almost 15 years ago. Mountain Dawg has been a positive addition to the town of Fraser and to the pets and pet owners of Grand County. It is with very mixed emotions and a heavy heart that we are announcing that we are closing our doors this April 30th. This is a business decision that we did not come to lightly.

We have agonized over this decision for a couple of years. The pet supply industry has seen an explosion of change in the recent years and many of the independent, brick and mortar stores are closing down. In our case, there are several factors leading us this route: Online pet supply sales have nearly doubled in recent years, Murdoch's moving in 1/2 a mile away from us creating close competition, the housing crunch left many of our seasonal customers looking to live in other towns or leaving their pets behind, there are 4 vets in the county that sell some supplies plus 2 groomers and 2 other pet supply stores within a 40 mile radius and both Safeway and City Market carry pet supplies, as well. The competition has just become too great for our little store to operate out of the red. So, we have decided to close our doors before we start to lose money. It is the hardest business decision we have ever had to make in our adult lives.

We are so very proud of Mountain Dawg Outfitters. We are very proud of the products we sold, the dogs we cared for, the customers and pets we aided and loved. There are dogs we have known from 6 week old puppies through adulthood and to their last days before crossing over the Rainbow Bridge. We lead people on a healthier path for their dogs and cats and kept over 200 dogs safe from harm in our daycare. We have had the pleasure of employing a handful of pretty fantastic humans, too. Mountain Dawg afforded me the ability to become a stay at home mom and be available to our 2 young daughters for the past 9 years (mostly, as I did a whole lot of behind the scenes work and did not keep regular hours but did work at my shop). Mountain Dawg gave my 2 daughters a place to run around and have fun and watch as their mom was both a stay at home mom and a career woman. It provided a safe and friendly place to raise a few of our loving dogs. We are so grateful we have had these 15 years to be a part of Down Town Fraser, Colorado in a positive way. We have been very blessed with a business we were passionate about that also allowed us to earn money for dance classes, swim classes, cowgirl camps, an occasional vacation and other activities that children should be a part of in their young lives.

We would like to thank our customers, old and new. We especially want to thank the ones that have been and stayed loyal to us all these years. We would like to thank them for their patronage and for trusting us to provide the best pet supplies available to us. We want to extend a huge THANK YOU to those friends I have met through Mountain Dawg and to those friends that have supported us all these years. We will miss seeing your faces and the wags of your dog's tails more than you will ever know. We intend to stay in the county as we run another dog related business and love it here. Our intentions are to look ahead to a continued and bright future and create another business where we are positively influencing the lives of the people that visit here, as well as, the lives of the lucky ones that call this place home. So, this letter is not really a goodbye but rather to acknowledge the end of an era and send a Fare Thee Well to those we got to know as "customers". Our shop will remain open until April 30th. We will operate normal business hours from 9am-6pm until the last week of April and then we may stay open for some extended hours. We will be liquidating everything and trying to give customers additional savings and some time to stock up before we close our doors. Stop in this month to save and say fare thee well! Thank you Grand County for a great run!

Sending you all much gratitude,
Tracie and Jeff Martin
Mountain Dawg Outfitter's Pet Supply and Dawg Daycare