twitter facebook instagram linkedin tiktok

Share

twitter facebook instagram linkedin TikTok

March 1, 2022

Meet Jillian Mclellan, End of the Leash Pet Boutique


End of the Leash (EOTL) is a locally owned, women & Veteran & Military Spouse owned pet boutique where you can find all kinds of pet supplies. They provide their Ottawa Valley community with a high quality, wholesome, and extremely personal experience.

EOTL is Co-owned by Tina McNish and Jillian McLellan; they are vastly experienced and professional in the industry, having a combined experience in the dog training and pet industry of 30+ years. This experience will give customers a personal, knowledgeable visit each and every time they enter the space.


Tina, locally born and Raised in Pembroke, is part of a Multi-generational Military Family and now Military Spouse. Jill is a Veteran originally from Sydney Cape Breton. This combo gives you a good old east coast hospitality with the charm of a truly local experience.


Question: How are you supporting other local businesses?


Answer: We currently have 74 brands and 60 of them are Canadian. Of those 25 are local, veteran-owned or small. For instance, we stock Gunbelt Collars, Old Dawg Treat Co., and so many more.


We love collaborating with other businesses! We collaborated with JP Waxington Candle Company to make a dog candle, and we worked with a military spouse who makes cute chinchilla stuff to make bigger sizes so we could stock them for cats.


We also purchase our services from Canadian businesses whenever we can. Our internet is with NRTC, our insurance is from Co-operators, and our accountant is local. We also buy our cleaning suppliers from Sanisol - they are locally owned and operated. When we built the brick-and-mortar store in 2021, we hand-made everything in the store with local materials.


Question: What social and environmental practices are you proud of?


Answer: All of our staff are all women, all former military or military spouses. We have a partnership with Employment Ontario to take on staff with special needs, and we provide flexible work options that work for staff with different abilities - stocking shelves, sweeping floors, doing computer work. The minimum wage in Renfrew County is $15, but the cost of living is $17.25, so we raised all of our wages to meet that. We raised all of our pay tiers rather than just the lowest. We also support staff development. They come to use with various levels of knowledge with animal training, nutrition, etc., so we support their training, and we subsidize any courses they find that they want to go to.


We recycle everything we can. We get a lot of boxes from our suppliers that we reuse, and we get a lot of pallets that we donate for building projects.


We love to support the community, and we donate and partner with other organizations to raise money for charity. We are donating approximately $500-1000 per month. We've supported the SPCA and Bell Let’s Talk raising money to create positive change for people living with mental health issues. We are passionate about supporting mental health supports and have supported the local grief support line and the Robbie Dean Counselling Centre. We also do service dog training and started a non-profit Watch My Six Service Dog that trains psychiatric service dogs, mostly for veterans who have PTSD, but also for first responders, RCMP officers, and kids with autism. We run obedience courses through the store to raise money for the non-profit.

Prince's Trust Canada is collaborating with LOCO BC to deliver Buy Local and Sustainable Business Planning workshops for members of The BuyVeteranCA Directory.


To learn more about these workshops visit https://www.princestrust.ca/en-CA/Veterans-Military/Sustainability-Hub/BuyVeteranCA-Workshops