Pet store has animals covered from head to tail
DOVER-FOXCROFT — Since opening more than a year ago, Head to Tails Family Pet Store proprietor Liz Martin has worked to provide local pet owners with all their needed supplies, saving them a trip out of town, and potential pet owners with additions to their homes. Fish, reptiles, small mammals and birds are available and with all the necessary educational information to ensure everyone is happy after leaving the store.
“It was June 15, so just a little over a year now,” Martin, standing behind the counter while her 6-month-old kitten Luna explored the surface, said about being in business for 15 months.
“We’re putting more new supplies on the shelves as we can,” she said. “We are trying to get in things in town (customers) would have to travel to Bangor for or Skowhegan or Newport. Those are the items we keep, items to save the travel. The whole main goal of opening the pet store was to help people out” with a fun, knowledgeable and affordable location the entire family can enjoy.
Observer photo/Stuart Hedstrom
FURRY AND SCALY PETS AND SUPPLIES — Head to Tails Family Pet Store owner Liz Martin holds store mascot Miss Cupcake while her kitten Luna looks on. The Dover-Foxcroft pet store carries small pets, all the needed supplies as well as dog and cat supplies.
Martin said customer service is what she likes best about Head to Tails Family Pet Store, “I love dealing with the people in the town and of course who doesn’t love animals. I have had animals around my whole life and here I am working in it.”
Having a store of her own has always been a dream after growing up around animals. “When I was a kid, probaby fifth or sixth grade, my family owned our little pet store,” Martin said about the former establishment in Cornville. “It was out of our home, my dad built off the garage and it was kind of out in the country.”
She worked at a pet store in Skowhegan during high school and then at a similar business in Bangor while in college. Martin’s family moved to Dover-Foxcroft in 2015 and “I said ‘I think this is the community I think where we can make it happen’ and here we are.”
“Fish has been our top seller since we opened,” she said. “A lot of people were closing their tanks down cause they hated that travel to Bangor so now with us open a lot of them are putting their tanks back up and coming in.”
Head to Tails Family Pet Store carries all the needed supplies for various fish species including betta. “A lot of people they don’t want to set up everything, but having the bettas there’s just bowls, room temperature water,” Martin said. “They don’t eat much so they’re very easy to maintain and they’re very hardy.”
“We also carry the furry critters, we have guinea pigs, hamsters, rats, chinchillas, rabbits, once in a while we will get a ferret in and of course all the supplies for those,” she added. “We have a reptile room and we have a wide variety of lizards and snakes and a tortoise.”
“We have a small array of bird stuff,” Martin said. “We carry dog and cat supplies.”
Head to Tails Family Pet Store has a row of bulk food bins for various types of animals. “I carry all my seed, so all food for birds and small critters I sell it by the pound,” Martin said. “It kind of makes it a bit more unique than having to buy a big bag and having it go bad. So I thought that was a little different and more convenient for the people in the community.”
Observer photo/Stuart Hedstrom
REPTILE ROOM — Owner Liz Martin picks up a tortoise in the reptile room at Head to Tails Family Pet Store in Dover-Foxcroft. In addition to the tortoise and snakes, the business has fish, small mammals and a few birds and all the necessary supplies.
The store also carries reptile foods, such as crickets and mealworms, as Martin hopes this will have save these pet owners a trip out of town and support communitywide shop local efforts.
She said she wants pet owners to know how to fully take care of their animals. “The biggest thing is educating people before they get a pet because a lot of people don’t know the ins and outs of animals,” Martin said, saying this has been very rewarding for her.
She said some people may think that pet rats are gross but “they are actually one of the most smart, social, lovable pets you can have.”
Martin has a pet rat Miss Cupcake, who along with Luna serves as a store mascot, and she said during last fall’s Dover-Foxcroft Halloween BooNanza she conducted a rat presentation to allow attendees to meet the animals. Martin said some at first refused to even hold a rat but at the end were heading home with a new pet.
“For every animal that goes out the door there is a handout, a flyer that is a good educational tool,” she said. “There’s a lot more to it than just putting a snake in a cage.”
Head to Tails Family Pet Store is located at 64 East Main Street Suite H in Dover-Foxcroft. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday to Friday and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For more information please call 564-7773, go to http://headtotailsfamilypetstore.webstarts.com/ or the business Facebook page.