Woof Purr has everything you need for that special pet in your life

By Tim Goodwin - Dec 31, 2013 | 0 comments

Kim Beers is either strangling an unruly piece of fabric or creating one of her signature fleece items for Woof Purr Studio, her dog and cat toy business focusing on safe and natural products. We’ll leave that determination to CSI.

Your cat would be quite frisky if it lay in this pile of catnip pillows.

Imagine how much fun your dog would have if it got anywhere close to this table.

Kim Beers uses her super human strength to braid the final part of a colossal dog toy in her workshop at home.

When Kim Beers first started making pet toys, it was because she didn’t have a lot of extra money.

No, she wasn’t so strapped for cash that she couldn’t afford to supply her own pets with fun pieces of fabric to bat around the house; instead, Beers did it as a way to still give thoughtful gifts one Christmas. She was a recent University of New Hampshire graduate with a high volume of student loans to pay back.

“I made some for Christmas presents because I was so poor,” said Beers. “I had a ton of people who said I should sell them in stores, and I’d be like, ‘no way.’ ”

But the more Beers thought about it, the more she wanted to try making toys to sell. After doing some research and learning how harmful some of the mass-produced toys for pets can actually be, Beers made the decision to begin her own business. It took a number of years to get it right, but now Woof Purr Studio is a sought-after manufacturer in the dog and cat world. And no, that is not a new planet in our solar system, just a phrase we used to describe pets and their owners.

“It was trial and error in the beginning,” said Beers.

It all really began in 2006, and after many variations, Beers has settled on a toy collection that fits just about any pet demographic. She wanted to make the toys safe and simple, but also last for a long time despite the constant chewing and pulling.

“Basically, I needed money to make income and pay back my student loans,” said Beers.

The larger focus of Beers’s business is centered around dogs. That is probably why the woof is first in the title. The poor kitties out there must feel so jealous.

“It’s mainly because cat toys last forever,” said Beers.

Unlike most businesses which seek customers to consistently purchase more of their product, Beers wants her toys to last. While it limits her sales in the short term, it leads to faithful customers that keep coming back in the long term. They’ve also spread the word about her toys.

“Now I have this big network of customers,” said Beers.

Leading up to Christmas, Beers was swamped with orders. People love their pets, and what Beers is making, so it is little surprise that requests for new items pour in right before the stockings are filled. It’s one of her busiest times of the year, although anytime from late summer until the holidays is when Beers spends the most time in her workshop – much like jolly old St. Nick in the North Pole.

“I try to work a little bit each day,” said Beers. “In the summer is when I really have to start making toys and buying a lot of my supplies.”

Using tennis balls, milk inflaters, squeakers and fleece, Beers has toys for dogs of all shapes and sizes. There is the colossal, which is made purely of braided fleece and is ideal for homes with more than one dog because it provides the perfect setup for a tug-of-war battle due to its length and durability. The udderrrly tuggable uses the old milk inflaters, fashioned with a tennis ball and squeakers, to give your four-legged friend either another option for tugging battles or something to carry around and make tons of noise with. The squeaky recycled tennis ball fleece braid is just how it sounds, a braided fleece knotted on each end with a tennis ball and squeakers in the middle.

“The main thing that matters most for dog owners is that they are durable,” said Beers. “And I hit on something with the fleece because it’s stretchy and it doesn’t unravel. Now I won’t use anything but fleece.”

There are a couple of other simple fleece options, as well as the knotty squeaker, designed for smaller dogs. And for the feline in your life, Beers creates a wide variety of catnip loving pillows, as well as the knotty kitty candy.

Everything Beers uses is washed in seventh generation laundry detergent. Since there are no regulations for pet toys, a lot of the dyes and paints used in mass-produced products can be harmful to your pet. And as a pet lover and owner of two cats, Bear and Luna, Beers wants her toys to be fun and safe.

“Mine can get soaking wet and you don’t have to worry about anything,” said Beers.

She gets her tennis balls from the Racquet Club of Concord after they have been discarded, or from Penn Sports in Arizona if they fail the company’s appearance or bounce tests. The fleece, which is used because it does not tear apart with a simple bite, is all purchased on clearance and stored for whenever she needs it. Beers typically buys shopping carts full on Black Friday each year, but this fall she saw a great price and jumped on it – and it turned out to be the right choice since the Black Friday sale didn’t happen this year. Isn’t it great when things work out that way.

“They’re just fleece, so you can just throw them in the wash,” she said.

All the work is done in her Concord apartment. Much of her living room has been converted into a workshop filled with piles of fleece, pre-made toys and a special device for getting the right hole in the tennis balls, but that is super top secret. So don’t ask. Beers even taught herself how to sew.

But it has taken Beers quite some time to find the right market. She did mostly wholesale for a while, but was not selling enough. There was also a time where she rented a table at various craft fairs, but was just not finding her intended audience. In turn, she was selling her product at a price that was not allowing her to pay anything on her student loans.

“I wasn’t even covering costs really. I was basically only charging what people would pay,” said Beers. “Then I basically doubled the price and people still buy them, if not more of them.”

After trying Etsy and eBay, Beers now uses Weebly for her website, woofpurr.com, and sells most of her toys there, at the Warner Fall Foliage Festival and other pet friendly fairs, as well as Sandy’s Pet Food Center on Airport Road, and to co-workers.

While it may seem like Beers must spend all her time making pet toys to meet the growing demand, that is far from the case. She works full-time as an environmental scientist at the New Hampshire Public Health Lab and also has a part-time job on the weekends.

“It’s hard to keep up with the demand when I work seven days a week,” said Beers.

But despite her day-to-day responsibilities, Beers ensures a toy will be shipped within 48 hours of the order, and customers even get to pick out the perfect style of fleece.