How Two Veterinary Pros Launched a Purpose Driven Pet Store
COURTESY OF WILLOW TREATS
By QUINN PROPST
Ward Media Staff Reporter
Willow Treats, a pet store in Port Orchard, isn’t your average pet shop – it’s a health-first haven where every product is handpicked by a veterinarian with your pet’s wellness in mind.
Opened in 2023 by veterinarian Dr. Amanda Smith and longtime animal hospital practice manager Angela Williams, Willow Treats was born out of a simple but persistent problem: the vet-recommended products they advised clients to use were often hard to find locally.
With decades of experience in veterinary medicine, Smith and Williams created a space where pet owners can find trusted solutions for common issues — from anxiety and mobility challenges to dietary needs and behavior support.
“Our main goal was to try and provide a resource for a lot of the things that I found we were talking about with families in the exam room as potential solutions for whatever issues they were having, but (products that) weren’t readily available,” Smith said.
“We were finding that we were commonly sending people to various different websites, to try and look for things because they just weren’t stocked in our community,” she said.
They opened the store to offer those products they felt the community needed—everyday pet items like food and treats, but with a special focus on unique, vet-recommended products that help with specific issues like behavior or comfort.
An example of solution based products they carry are products that help with mobility challenges that aging dogs often struggle with. One such product is called a help ’em up harness, which has a handle that owners can use to help their dog up. They also carry Dr. Busby’s toe grips, which are a silicon band that you can put on the dog’s nails to improve their traction.
“So as they’re getting weaker, they may have a harder time on slick floors, but this helps them to kind of grip the floor a little bit better, so that they can move better on those floors,” Smith said.
One common behavior issue they see in cats is inappropriate urination. To help address it, they offer a range of targeted products—like various litter box styles and litter attractants designed to encourage cats to start using the box again.
“I choose to put things into the store through the lens of, do I think that this is truly a healthy and safe option for this animal,” Smith said.
There are products that Smith and Williams will not stock because they are not a safe or good choice for pets. People will still come in and ask for those items and they may choose to purchase them elsewhere, but they don’t want to sell something and later have to treat a pet for an issue caused by that very product.
Smith and Willams have known each other for years. They first worked together as assistants at an emergency clinic in Poulsbo, then reconnected later after Smith returned from vet school and they ended up working at the same practice.
Smith opened her practice Willow Tree Animal Hospital in 2020, with Williams involved from the very beginning, helping plan and shape it from the ground up.
Willow Tree Animal Hospital is a fear free practice, which means that they consider the emotional wellbeing of an animal as equally important to their physical wellbeing.
“There are lots of things that we end up talking with folks about in terms of how to manage problem behaviors, or how to help their dog feel more comfortable in different situations, or manage anxiety concerns, because lots of dogs have anxiety concerns coming out of COVID where everybody was really home bound and they didn’t maybe get as much socialization as they otherwise would have,” Smith said.
The main motivation was to make helpful products—like supplements or calming tools—more accessible, since those options weren’t easy to find locally.
Williams’ favorite part of running the pet store is building deeper connections with clients. At the vet clinic, she usually sees pets when they’re sick or in for routine care, but at the store, she gets to interact with them in a fun, low-stress environment. She loves playing with the animals, chatting with their owners, and helping them find solutions.
Smith also values the connections the store creates.
“It’s connecting with people because my day at the vet clinic is really super scheduled,” she said. “You just don’t get the opportunity to talk to as many people as you would like. So it’s so nice to see clients just popping into the pet store to say hello and to help people who are not our clients, too. It feels good to point them in a positive direction for their pet.”
Both Willams and Smith enjoy being able to guide their clients toward products that will actually work for pets. They have seen many families—especially those on tight budgets—spend hundreds on items that didn’t solve their pet’s problem, only to end up at the clinic later.
The store offers a chance to steer people in the right direction from the start, whether that means recommending an effective product or advising them to see a vet instead. And if they’re not clients at their clinic, they’ll refer them to other trusted veterinarians in the community.
“Also, some of that is being able to educate on why we don’t carry some products because they may be a negative reinforcement item, and so we don’t want to inflict pain on that pet to make them stop behaviors,” Williams said. “Instead we try to guide them in different directions to try and correct that behavior.”
Because the store is veterinarian owned they are allowed to sell prescription diets for dogs and cats. Most people have to order special diet pet food online because veterinary offices often do not have the floor space to carry the big bags of food.
“Usually the way we do it in the vet world is we hand them a small bag and then write them a script to go online, but now we can sell those in Port Orchard,” Williams said.
“Part of the problem that we were seeing in some in vet clinics was that we would put these dogs on a prescription diet for whatever their disease was, and then it got too cumbersome for owners to continue to order it, and so they would try and find a different food that wasn’t necessarily going to fit that disease process,” Williams said. “So the health of the pet was not improving because they didn’t stay on the proper diet. Now we can offer that. It’s local, and then they can just run, pick it up.”
Some of the pet food vendors they work with offer frequent buyer programs. For example, customers can buy six bags of refills and get one free. The vendor tracks everything, making it easy to manage and giving customers extra value through built-in incentives.
In the future, Williams and Smith hope to hold more after hours educational classes at the store. Topics may include behavior issues, pet health and even continuing education for local veterinary staff.
“We want to be a part of the community in whatever way that we feel like we can help serve the community,” Smith said.
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