With Saturday, March 8th being International Women’s Day – this year, I decided to do something special to commemorate 🎊

Each week, I want to share with you a different woman business owner that I know – celebrating their individuality and contributions to the lives around them. A series of solidarity, because honestly, how do you contain the magic that women bring to just one day…

Meet Diane OKeefe – Co-founder and Co-owner of Ulti-Mutt, the ❤️ behind the business:

Ulti-Mutt started as a way to provide my own training clients with products that helped to meet pets’ needs better and on the pet parent side, be cost effective, easy to use and long lasting. Dave and I started the business about 4 years ago as restrictions were starting to loosen up from Covid. We started with just making our Snout Rollers- a slow feeder toy made of medical grade PVC that is adjustable to the difficulty level your pet needs. Originally they were just one offs Dave was making for me in our garage, but over time we started getting people asking where they could buy them. By focusing on improving the lives of dogs and standing by our products, instead of just selling cute stuff. We have built a community who trusts us and we take their feedback seriously. Our commitment is always to pets, but also to people. We believe all beings deserve to be treated with kindness and given what they need to thrive.

~ Diane

If interested, you can find her Snout-Rollers here:
https://inspirecanine.myshopdot.com/

Hi Paula, I know I will be seeing you on Saturday with Edith but wanted to give you a running report on her visit to the vets last night. I got there quite early ~4:15 for a 5pm appt. I waited in the car with her for a good while (15mins) to help her and her arousal level. I would say she was in orange when we arrived and was able to have her dunk some feet into Green/yellow. There were a lot going on outside the car and she was able to at least sit and just look. She was very good about waiting in the car once I opened her door, she let me change her leash patiently etc. She was also very patient about getting out of the car but the blacktop was hot and so I had to move her quite quickly to a shaded area. We stood there for 10mins and she was very good. She basically sat and watched her little world go by. She didn’t take any kibble from me but she was happy to sit. Once it was time for her appointment I went into the waiting room area where there was one other person with a cat. Edith was interested and pulled on her leash a little but no barking etc. She then sat by me until it was her turn.  She was very unsure about the scales but we took our time and she slowly walked on after following me. Once in the room I let her sniff everything. A dog was barking in the waiting room and she barked a couple of times and then she actually did OSR with me. She was very cautious with the Vet tech but I explained to her not to push Edith and to take everything slowly with her so we first put her on the table and let her have a sniff etc and did a little OSR although at this point I think she was genuinely scared. I let Edith know everything I was doing-“Up” “off”, “Help” etc. When the Vet came I again explained that we just needed to go slowly and inform Edith everything that we were doing. The vet was my old boss so she was very understanding. Edith was scared but slowly she relaxed. I had been practicing with Edith a lot at home with saying “eyes” when looking in her eye, “ears” “teeth” etc, etc. And after telling the vet, she let Edith know everything she was going to do, and you could physically see Edith relax slightly. She was such a good girl.  I am sooooooo proud of that little lady!!

Hi Paula! Just a quick update. My niece is hanging with the girls this week due to an unexpected summer camp mixup. When Lily came over we started by doing the usual process (having Lily come thru the front door, clover in crate) and it was apparent very quickly that clover remembered her. Once clover was calm and relaxed in her crate, we let her out on leash and then soon after let her be off leash. She has been as relaxed with Lily as she normally is with us. She’s not doing appeasement behaviors, she’s mostly doing her own thing and saying hi when she wants to. They’ve been snuggling today

Merry Christmas and again, thank you for all you do. We appreciate you so much!  And by the way, this is huge, my brother surprised us again and came in yesterday when I got home from the sniff spot. This morning Ava was manic with her toy and I did OSR and she just laid down on the couch and chilled after that. AMAZING!!! 

Good morning Paula, I wanted to let you know that Norman is my boy and I am so, so proud of him. Saturday he took himself off to have a snooze in our bedroom (which he never does-he normally follows me around) and then when he woke up he came running in the living room to where we were sitting and looked for me, jumped up on the sofa gave me a kiss and promptly laid down next to me and fell asleep again. He is becoming so much more relaxed and happy 🙂