Today we’d like to introduce you to Mikayla Cavaness.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I grew up in the Troy area and went to Triad until… I dropped out. That part used to embarass me but it was actually a foundational moment that helped create everything FPC is today because it allowed me to enter the dog industry early.
By 14, I was already working in my mom’s grooming shop, obsessed with dogs but I was also an awful employee for her and had never worked anywhere else a day in my life. I was overly confident and wanted to create my own way in the dog industry so I went straight into a serious dog training and behavior program covering police dog training, narcotic detection, service work, and more. Oh, and did I mention I don’t currently use any of the methods I was taught in school?
After school, I got a reactive German Shepherd who changed everything I thought I knew. The methods I was taught weren’t working so I went back to independently studying and relearning everything. Suddenly this wasn’t just a potential career anymore. It was personal. I needed care I could trust for my own dog, and I kept hitting the same wall: people who didn’t understand behavior, methods that weren’t backed by science, environments that stressed dogs out instead of supporting them. I knew exactly what to do next.
Our area needed better dog care and I was going to be the one to build it so I just went for it.
I found a building on Craigslist. A former vape shop in Troy. I walked through it and knew this was where Unleashed, now Fetching Pet Company, would be born.
Then I went to my mom’s best friend’s house and gave her a presentation at her kitchen table. I needed $2,300 to open. I had a list: first month’s rent at $800, a grooming table, a dryer, a few basic supplies. That was the whole pitch. She said yes and it took me two years to pay her back. Oh, and the landlord threw in some paint and old floors. We were rockin’ and rollin’. How I opened this place with only $2300, I have no idea.
My parents, friends, and family showed up with paintbrushes and muscle and helped turn that former vape shop into Unleashed. I showed up at local grocery stores and asked if they’d slip my flyers into customers’ bags. They said yes.
Thank you to this community for believing in the vision before there was much to see.
We opened with a full grooming schedule and daycare dogs already booked. Some of those dogs still come in every single week.
To make it all work, I moved back in with my parents and lived on Tyson frozen precooked chicken and broccoli with sriracha. Basically every meal. Microwaved in my basement room. LOL.
I worked 12 to 14 hour days, six days a week. I built our systems, our approach, our entire culture around one belief: dogs deserve to be understood for who and what they are, not just managed. Science-based, enrichment, force-free care isn’t a buzzword here, it’s been the whole foundation since day one in 2017.
No one expected a high school dropout microwaving chicken in her parents’ basement to be now known by dog care professionals around the world, featured on industry podcasts but here we are. This place was born because I believed our dogs deserved better. But it exists today because I have an incredible team and an amazing community behind us who believe it too.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not even close. We’re nearly ten years in, and I only just hired my first manager. I covered every single shift myself. For the first nine and a half years, I worked insanely long days because there was no one else to do it. I opened this place at 22 with no idea how to manage a team or run a business, so on top of learning dog behavior, I was learning everything else as I went too usually the hard way. Haha. Then COVID hit, and on top of everything else, my building went into foreclosure under an awful landlord. I had zero purchase history, no gross profit history and I had to figure out how to buy the building anyway or risk losing the space entirely. It wasn’t a straight line from vape shop to where we are now, it was a decade of figuring it out as I went, proving myself over and over, and refusing to quit.
As you know, we’re big fans of Fetching Pet Company. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Firstly, I’m a small part of this company now, we are a team of 9 amazing, hardworking pet care professionals. Fetching wouldn’t be what it is without my coworkers. We’re a force-free, science-based grooming and daycare business built around private grooming and individual time during daycare. We call it our One-on-One Commitment. We don’t use “enrichment” or “science-based” as marketing buzzwords; they’re the actual core of what we do here. What I’m most proud of is that through the ups and downs, we’ve never compromised our foundation to grow faster or cut costs. We’ve evolved to be better, but we’ve never given up on our original purpose. I want people to know that when they bring their dog to us, they’re not getting a service, they’re genuinely getting a team that prioritizes their dog as an individual.
What was your favorite childhood memory?
One of my family’s favorite stories to tell is that I was terrified of water as a kid but the one time it didn’t matter was when I jumped into a creek to save a puppy. Looking back, it’s almost funny how convenient that turned out to be for my career choice.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://fetchingpetcompany.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fetchingpetcompany/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FetchingPetCompany
