Why You Won't Find the Same Product Assortment at Each Leaps … – PetProductNews.com

Leaps and Bones co-owners Laurie Surprenant and Amy Kenkel
Brittany Fisher and Elease McConnell with rescue dog Autumn

It’s a recipe for success. Place two corporate-weary career women, longing to leave it all behind, into a small shop. Gently fold in equal amounts of business know-how and creativity. Add generous dollops of nutritious foods and a mouthwatering array of handmade bakery treats. Allow the furry set to savor. Season well with plenty of love, a family vibe and community focus, and you have arrived at Leaps and Bones, which is owned by Amy Kenkel and Laurie Surprenant, and has three locations in the state of Connecticut.
The journey began when Kenkel made the decision to exit corporate America.
“I was in hospitality management, dealing with conferences and conventions. The hours were long,” Kenkel says. “I needed to make a change.”
At the time, she and Surprenant already had one foot in the pet world. To unwind from an exhausting schedule, Kenkel baked treats for the dogs of friends and neighbors, calling on her experience as a baker during college.
“Their pets loved the treats, and we kept hearing that we should sell them,” she says. “I thought ‘Why not?’ So, we started putting together ideas, and one thing led to another.”
In the beginning, the baking took place at home. However, by 2008, the pair was ready to expand to their own brick-and-mortar storefront. Christened Leaps and Bones, the location in Windsor, Conn., comprised 750 square feet, with a spotlight on nutritious foods and those signature treats, lovingly created in a small on-site bakery.
Those early days found Kenkel working the store, while Surprenant remained in her position as a supply chain manager for a large corporation. In 2015, a family illness led Surprenant to a caretaking role. Leaving the business world behind, she was also able to focus more on Leaps and Bones, eventually coming onboard full time.
The duo’s corporate backgrounds find them uniquely positioned to operate from contrasting perspectives.
“We’ve been able to take all the things that Amy and I learned in corporate, start our own company, and run it like a small corporation while treating our people and customers like family,” Surprenant says. “We are lucky; not all family-owned businesses have that advantage.”
A second store soon followed. However, it closed three years later.
“We made a mistake and thought we could go a little more quickly than we should have,” Surprenant says. “It was a good lesson to learn.”
Leaps and Bones co-owners Laurie Surprenant and Amy Kenkel
By 2021, the entrepreneurs were ready to take that leap once more, and Leaps and Bones Too hung its shingle in Southington, Conn.
“We waited a good long time, so we had our ducks in a row before sticking our feet into that lake again, and it was a big lake, maybe an ocean,” she says.
Since Leaps and Bones Too is sited near a popular walking trail, an emphasis is placed on treats, collars and leashes, and toys.
“Foods are a big part of our sales and a vital part of who we are as a company, but we knew that treats were going to be a primary seller at this location,” Kenkel says. “We also offer a self-serve tub and drying area.”
It’s a much-used service. After a day of hiking, muddy pups can clean up before hopping into the car. The offering is also a hit with patrons of a nearby dog park.
“The dog park is only a quarter of a mile away,” she says. “We have actually had all the celebrants of a dog’s birthday party come in—the host gave every guest a dog wash that day.”
While the product focus varies by location, each store is identified by Peabody, the Leaps and Bones logo dog whose pose, like the product focus, is distinctive to each store.
For instance, a grinning Peabody savors a bone on the original logo. At Leaps and Bones Too, Peabody mugs with his little brother, who holds up two paw-fingers.
“Peabody is used as branding at all of our stores,” she says. “The eyes are always the same, and there’s always a bone somewhere.”
Peabody dons a baker’s hat for The Dog Barkery’s logo design.
The Dog Barkery opened in October 2022 and features a spacious on-site bakery. The delectable handiworks take center stage at the Treat Bar. While each store stocks a limited selection of beds, bowls, feeders, treat jars, and other decorative home goods and gifts, an expanded selection of these items is spotlighted throughout The Barkery.
“Our other stores are smaller so we don’t have a lot of room for home goods,” Surprenant says. “At The Dog Barkery, we’re not just focused on the pet, but also on the human. It’s a little bit of a different niche for us.”
Many of these items offer a charitable component. For example, a boutique coffee brand, which donates a percentage of sales proceeds to rescues and shelters, is in the mix.
“We are working with other vendors whose products give back in some way,” Kenkel says.
The spacious, upgraded bakery has allowed Leaps and Bones to branch out into wholesale treats.
“Now we are actually making treats for other retailers,” Surprenant says.
When it comes to nutrition, the focus is on fresh.
“We are firm believers that, first and foremost, the better a pet eats, the better the overall well-being of that animal,” Kenkel says.
For this reason, Leaps and Bones places an emphasis on raw foods, including frozen and freeze-dried selections.
“We are small but have entire walls dedicated to frozen food,” Kenkel says.
Kibble and canned foods are also in the mix, and Kenkel notes that customers often step up to more nutritious offerings after seeing results from simple additions to these diets.
“A lot of times we will start off with making small changes with our customers. It can be just as simple as adding fresh vegetables, some goat’s milk or bone broth,” she says. “When they start to see the small changes in their dog, they might add more down the road, like freeze-dried, or ultimately going to raw.”
“We are big proponents of whatever fresh food you can get into your dog is a great thing,” she adds.
Food products are USA and Canadian sourced, and the stores focus on presenting an inventory of high-quality foods not found online or in the big-box retailers. Local businesses are often championed.
“It’s important to us to stay local as much as we can,” Surprenant says. “For example, our smoked bones, pig ears and all-natural chews are sourced from local butchers.”
When it comes to Leaps and Bones’ handmade treats, locally sourced organic ingredients, including meats and vegetables, are utilized as much as possible.
A wide range of toothsome goodies, such as birthday cakes, cannoli, pupcakes and doggie ice cream, are available, and many follow a seasonal theme.
“All of our dog bones are decorated for the holidays or different seasons,” Kenkel says. “We roll out pies for Thanksgiving season and whoopie pies for Halloween.”
All stores feature countertop displays of decorated treats, with ice cream selections in the freezer cases.
“We also have frozen liver training treats and fresh meatball training treats in our refrigerated and frozen sections as well,” she says.
The focus at each store may differ, but they all stock collars, leashes and harnesses, coats, sweaters and other pet supplies.
Products can be purchased online, with cookies and toys being the top-requested items.
While curbside pickup is a standard offering, delivery, instituted during COVID, was soon dropped due to lack of demand.
“We have created such a community with our customers, and they wanted to come in to talk and see us,” Surprenant says. “Some of our customers have been with us since we opened. We’ve seen their kids grow up, have seen them lose pets and get new pets. It’s just a great feeling to be so much a part of their family and their lives.”
Embracing customers and community as family is the keystone of the Leaps and Bones ideology, and that credo also envelops staff culture.
“We say that once hired by Leaps and Bones, you’re not an employee, you’re family,” Kenkel says. “Even if our staff members leave to start their careers, like nursing or teaching, they still continue to work for us, per diem or on the weekends. They never want to leave.”
This loyalty was put to the test when the pandemic shutdowns occurred.
“We obviously paid everybody for six weeks, whether they were working or not,” Surprenant says. “We did take the PPP [Paycheck Protection Program loan] and utilized it exactly for that—to keep our employees hired.”
When hours were reduced further, employees were given the option of collecting unemployment. None took advantage of that offering.
Kindness and authenticity are central to this tightknit atmosphere and are sought-after traits in a new hire.
“We are very open to anybody walking through the door, but we want people to own who they are and follow our simple rule—be kind to one another,” she says. “This is our ideal.”
Spirit, creativity and community involvement are encouraged, and an awareness of life outside of the Leaps and Bones sphere is essential.
“We don’t do enforced overtime. We want individuals to come to the job loving animals, wanting to give something back to the communities, and to work in an environment that is safe and diverse in terms of background, religion, sexual orientation, and what each of our employees brings to the table,” she says.
Benefits include paid time off, a 401K plan and store discounts.
Once onboard, new hires spend two weeks shadowing and training with a supervisor or lead associate within the store. In-depth, online manufacturer training is also utilized.
“Every one of our employees is as equipped as their supervisor, manager or us as owners. There is no fear of knowledge in our stores,” Kenkel says. “That starts the foundation of our customer service.”
This outstanding experience begins when shoppers enter the store, where they are greeted and offered assistance. However, staff respect the wishes of those choosing to browse on their own.
“We take pride in knowing when to leave the customer alone, or when they are lost and need help,” Kenkel says.
When that time comes, Leap and Bones’ knowledgeable emissaries are at the ready.
“Our people have the knowledge to talk to customers with understanding and compassion,” Surprenant says.
“Customers feel like they have a personal shopper when they walk into our store,” Kenkel adds.
For these reasons, referrals to Leaps and Bones are commonplace, including from local big-box retailers and veterinarians.
“Anybody that doesn’t have a specialized person in-store to deal with certain issues, for instance, pancreatitis or cancer, will send people to us,” Surprenant says. “Amy is a certified pet nutritionist, so that helps not only in our biscuit recipes, but also in the food recommendations.”
Aside from nutritional advice, shoppers enjoy conversation about their pets—not only with staffers, but with other shoppers.
“We take that time,” Kenkel says. “Over the holidays, when we’re really busy, our customers are happily waiting in line at the register, chatting and showing pictures of their pets to the other people in line.”
The business’s owners value employee feedback, and at the conclusion of every shift, staffers sit down together to review the goings-on of the day, and to discuss tomorrow’s game plan.
“That’s how we wrap up every day. We encourage ideas, no matter how small,” Kenkel says. “We never wanted to act like a corporation and treat our people the way we were treated, and if we were to close our doors tomorrow, we did exactly what we set out to do.”
With Leaps and Bones branching out into the world of wholesale, the business has brought on dedicated staffers for the job. Many of these individuals are young people with special needs, hired through a works program administered by the state of Connecticut.
“We work with the kids and train them to punch or decorate cookies, or bag them, and other things as well,” Kenkel says. “Hiring people that are differently abled comes with a whole new set of lessons and understanding for us. It’s a great feeling.”
Leaps and Bones stores are dedicated to helping to meet needs throughout the local community.
“We work with several different charities throughout the year,” Surprenant says.
This involvement includes donating foods, medicines or other needed supplies to local rescues and shelters. Customers take part in these efforts, often through food drives that benefit food pantries assisting local residents who may be struggling to feed their pets.
“We let the customers know we are collecting food for an organization, and most of the work is done with Manchester Animal Control,” she says.
However, any worthy cause is considered.
“If a charity reaches out to us, we reach back to try to understand what they are doing and if it is viable for us,” Surprenant says.
“You name it, we have done it or provided something to be given away,” Kenkel adds. “We are lucky that our community supports us and we want to give support back.”
Homeless pets are offered a paw-up through adoption days.
“We give cookies to dogs that are adopted,” she adds.
In store, events such as photos with Santa, serve to generate funds earmarked for local charities.
“The in-person events are most popular,” Kenkel says.
The wildly popular “Hocus Pocus” gatherings feature animal communicators, “Hocus Pocus” biscuits, treats for people, artwork and other goodies. Proceeds benefit local rescues or other charitable entities.
“At one ‘Hocus Pocus’ event we had a shelter there selling dog blankets, a candy apple lady, we’ve had face painters, and really good people who specialize in animal communication,” Kenkel says. “We like to incorporate the whole family aspect into it.”
“We’re trying to hold them every couple of months,” she adds.
The grand opening of The Dog Barkery this fall brought more than 300 community members to mingle with local dignitaries, city staff and members of the local business community. Revelers sampled food truck cuisines, and children delighted in face painting.
“It goes back to the community,” Surprenant says. “It’s bringing others into the fold. We want people to come and have fun, to bring their kids or their pets or both. There’s plenty to do.”
Providing education to the pet community is another avenue to that connection, and Wellness Wednesdays videos cover a range of subjects.
“Every Wednesday we do a little snippet of training on our social media platform,” she says. “It can be as simple as a reminder to provide extra hydration in the summer months, or to take care of a dog’s paw pads when it gets cold outside. It’s all those little different things.”
In August, Rawgust provided daily raw-feeding tips.
“We just want to make sure that our customers, no matter where they purchase their pet food, are buying something good,” she says.
Brittany Fisher and Elease McConnell with rescue dog Autumn
Over the course of her career as a Manchester Animal Control officer, Elease McConnell has seen it all.
“We field routine complaints: roaming dogs, barking dogs, bites, welfare checks,” she says. “When we impound an animal, we are responsible for coordinating a meeting with the pet owner, or if the pet owner is not known to us, we advertise the animal according to Connecticut law and place them up for adoption, if they are suitable for placement, and meet with families for rehoming them.”
Aside from these tasks, the 23-year animal control veteran is also a strong advocate for education within the pet community.
“Educating the public is something we typically do,” she says. “You need to educate your community in order to better your community. For me, that’s part of the job.”
This commitment includes ensuring that families in need are able to properly feed their pets, and that’s where the shelter’s food pantry comes in. A collaboration with Leaps and Bones furthers that aim.
“When Leaps and Bones receives food bags that are ripped or damaged, I’ll pick them up, and we give the donated foods away to those in need,” she says. “I’ve been doing this for at least 20 years.”
The benefits extend beyond providing much-needed sustenance to pets.
“It’s also a great way to help animal control officers barter with the public to get adequate medical care for a pet,” she says. “If we go out to a house and the dog isn’t rabies vaccinated or licensed, and they are requesting a food donation, I can ask that the owners pay it forward by vetting their pet at the bare minimum—a rabies vaccine and licensing. It’s a great barter system.”
A care sheet listing local brick-and-mortar veterinary offices is provided during these visits.
As the foods donated by Leaps and Bones are high quality, McConnell often earmarks these nutritious offerings for pets experiencing specific issues.
“Leaps and Bones has specialty foods, and when I have a customer that I know has a dog with, for instance, skin allergies, I put the food aside for that individual,” she says. “Once a pet is on a clean food, it helps their vet figure to out what the allergen is. It’s nice to be able to say this is why you feed a better food.”
McConnell’s personal visits make these determinations and recommendations possible.
“With field calls, we are getting eyes on the pets in our community,” she says. “The donations are a good collaborative effort supporting the pet community and a local business through word-of-mouth.”
As a pet owner to 8-year-old chocolate Labrador Dyson, McConnell has been a Leaps and Bones customer from the beginning.
“I remember going to their house to buy treats when they first started their business,” she says. “It is truly awesome to see two people go from working out of their house to opening a first store, then a second, then a third. I love being able to support a small business.”
“The dog biscuits are fantastic, so fresh, and a lot of people buy their doggie birthday cakes,” she adds.
Canine indulgences aside, McConnell is further impressed by the aura surrounding the Leaps and Bones family.
“They care about their employees as much as they care about the patrons and their pets,” McConnell says. “I think that’s awesome.”
Laurie Surprenant: Our customer service and affordable products for pets.
Surprenant: The online retailers.
Surprenant: Politics are becoming too much a part of the food and treat portion of the pet industry—the paid studies, and how those studies are being announced by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). They are going after boutique brands that aren’t carried in the big-box stores. They have lobbyists, it’s political in nature, and it’s disgusting.
Surprenant: An interesting one is plant-based and insect-based proteins. There are some out there, and they are going to continue to grow as a market segment.
Amy Kenkel: Anything all natural, like flea and tick products that don’t contain chemicals. Also, anything pro-earth is really taking off.
Kenkel: We would like the next 10 years to be about growth, profitability, community, and beating those big-box and online stores because we bring something to the table that they can’t. Every Leaps and Bones store has its own unique feel and community, and we want to continue to grow that way.
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