Alex Fees: I’m Alex Fees for Small Business Television, SBTV.com. We are on location in Baltimore at the 2009 Pet Industry Spring Trade Show. It is brought to you by H.H. Backer Associates, publishers of Pet Age magazine.

Lori Dotterweich is with us here. Lori you got a lot of products when I talk to you about here. First of all, let’s talk about Buy a Toy, Save a Life, that’s this right here.

Lori Dotterweich: Yes, they are based on out three rescues that we rescued from the humane society locally.

Alex Fees: Okay.

Lori Dotterweich: And it tells that story of the rescue on the tag and the picture of the real of the real dog. And we donate 20% to rescue, 10% locally and 10% nationally.

Alex Fees: So somebody buys this pillow then, some of that money goes through world helping and individual animals, is that right?

Lori Dotterweich: Right. 20% of our profits will go to Pet Rescue. Yeah because we want to make a difference as well.

Alex Fees: The overall name of your company is what, a mutt’s life?

Lori Dotterweich: A Mutt’s Life, yes.

Alex Fees: Okay, what is that? What do you do?

Lori Dotterweich: We manufacture the toy lines, we have three toy lines, we have the rescue line, the Naggin And Waggin which when you press on, they nag and the man at the third line called mutts a ball and it’s a tennis ball and rope toy for big tough dogs.

Alex Fees: I’m going to demonstrate Naggin And Waggin for our SBTV.com viewers. Did you leave the toilet sit up again? Are you ever going to stop for directions? You’re not wearing that outfit, are you?

This is the wife version of press me, here me nag, Naggin And Waggin. And here we have the husband version of Naggin And Waggin.

Not another chick flick. Are you ever going to let me watch the game? I don’t need to stop for directions.

Again, this is the husband version of Naggin And Waggin.

Tell me about these.

Lori Dotterweich: These are a great new line that we just started. We get a lot of—we’re in Lake Tahoe, we have a story as well so we get a lot of big tough chewers in our store, big dogs so this is a great line, it’s a really, it’s tougher than the regular tennis ball and dogs love tennis balls.

Alex Fees: And then I noticed that these are all varying squishiness.

Lori Dotterweich: Yeah, this is going to be a newer one that we’re going to use a floatable toy.

Alex Fees: Oh really?

Lori Dotterweich: So we want one that’s just tough for tough for tough chewers and then a floatable one for our retrievers.

Alex Fees: So back to this buy a toy, save a life program.

Lori Dotterweich: Yes.

Alex Fees: How did this idea come about?

Lori Dotterweich: We’re big, we own a store as well and we’re very, very big in the rescue, we do events all year to benefit our local humane society and it’s just a tragic problem, millions of dogs get put down every year, needlessly and so I think if we were more educative 40% of dogs in rescue are pure bred. So you can get your pure bred if you like a pug or a lab and it’s just about education and we want to help the rescue as well.

Alex Fees: Okay, so somebody purchases that pillow then, of course, you know the money goes to an individual animal.

Lori Dotterweich: It will, it will go just—it will go to the pet rescue organization.

Alex Fees: Oh I see.

Lori Dotterweich: Which will in turn help save lives.

Alex Fees: But with this pillow, again, you get details on a specific animal in the program right?

Lori Dotterweich: Yes. No this is our—this is based on our three rescue dogs that we rescued from the humane society and then tells the story of their rescue, they all had tragic stories and then the best dogs in the world.

Alex Fees: And what kind of dogs are these?

Lori Dotterweich: They are all mutts. She is a golden border collie mix, we believe. The Guinness one, we believe is a shepherd mix.

Alex Fees: Okay.

Lori Dotterweich: And bear is a bear mix. We don’t know if he is but he looks just like a little bear cub. So yeah, great dogs.

Alex Fees: All you guys got a blog site?

Lori Dotterweich: Yeah, the website is amuttslife.com.

Alex Fees: amuttslife.com

Lori Dotterweich: Right, right and they may also have a retail of site which is amuttslife.net for people to buy.

Alex Fees: Thank you very much.

Lori Dotterweich: Thank you very much.