Dividing the stores was good for business, creating a healthy competition between the two. In 1986 Whitie’s Pets split into two stores, serving the North and South parts of Fresno by setting up shop in the busy Shaw and Blackstone area. While the pet industry caught up, Whitie’s Pets complete pet store concept worked not only in Fresno, but it attracted pet enthusiasts from all over the Valley to shop at THE pet store.
Adapting what the department store left behind and creating something that didn’t exist at the time, the “complete pet store”. The Shafer family did all the work engineering, carpentry, everything. The former Sprouse-Reitz store at Ventura and 5th was transformed with show tanks, wonderfully merchandised displays, and a central koi pond. 1968 found Whitie’s Pets in a 7,000 foot building and a little ahead of the curve… at the time there weren’t enough products being manufactured for pets to fill that much space. The former barber shop owners and chicken ranchers could have just picked up where the Whitings left off, but Don and Sue had other plans.
It was a good location on a busy street through a tidy neighborhood, and they stayed there for 20 years before selling it to Don and Sue. The Whiting family opened Whitie’s Pets in 1943 in a funny triangular building at Ventura and Hazelwood. As the family truck loaded with all their belongings came up the street they could see the picture window featuring a perfectly coiffed poodle on one side and brightly colored parakeets on the other, over the the dancing dog were the words “Poodle Grooming!”. John Shafer was nine at the time and remembers his mom and dad’s excitement when they announced the move to the family, Fresno was a long way from Palmdale. “Pet Store for Sale” was the ad in the Los Angeles Times that caught the attention of Don and Sue Shafer.
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