Mequon's The Feed Bag earns national recognition

 

The Inaugural Pets Plus Magazine 'America's Coolest Stores' lists Mequon's The Feed Bag Pet Supply as one of the 11 coolest pet stores in the country.

Owner Mark Haslam says someone, he doesn't know who, nominated The Feed Bag as one of the coolest stores and Pets Plus Magazine followed up.

"It's kind of a new award out there in the country." said Haslam. "They're trying to find stores that kind of meet everything from working with the community to providing excellent service to customers to providing different new exciting products. The whole entire umbrella of being a responsible pet store."

The Feed Bag has been feeding Ozaukee County pets since it opened in Grafton in 2003 and then moved to Mequon in 2010.

"For an independent store to be recognized in this way, it shows the amount of hard work that we've put in over the years in not only making our space look nice, choosing the right products, choosing the right services," said manager Connie Roller. "But also the ethics and integrity it takes to run a family owned business."

One of its most unique aspects is the indoor doggie swimming pool in the back.

"One of our dogs," said Roller. "Just comes and enjoys it. Enjoys it in a nice clean, safe place."

Haslam says the pool is great for older dogs too.

"We have a lot of senior dogs that maybe, walking them down around the block because of the pounding of the pavement. Here they can exercise in the pool, keep up the muscle tone without having the stress on the joints." he said.

 It also specializes in fish and aquarium sales. Haslam says that part of the business took a dip when huge TV's became popular but it is picking up again.

"I kind of joked about competing with the 52-inch TV," he said. "Well, that's kind of what we are competing with. The 52-inch TV takes up more space. But we're seeing an upsurge in people getting back into the aquatics world and really enjoying the calmness, the soothing."