Liz Hayden, business development specialist for the city of Hamilton, said Cheri’s Preferred Puppies is “a Main Street mainstay.”
“The store adds a sense of vibrancy to the district, and it brings many people from outside Hamilton to Main Street,” Hayden said. “So many people have fond memories of looking at the dogs in the window.”
Dalton said she liked the storefront’s neighborhood previously but even more so recently because of improvements and economic revitalization being introduced by city officials.
“They’re fixing up downtown and now the West Side,” she said. “It’s going to be a great area again. The plans that they have for this area are going to be phenomenal.”
Dalton, who said she has always been an animal lover, started collecting all types of pets when she was a child including dogs, cats, snakes, turtles, guinea pigs, ducks, rabbits and horses.
In 1986, she was looking to open a pet store while her husband was hoping to open a book store.
“I looked in the newspaper on a Friday night and saw this pet shop for sale,” she said. “I bought it on Monday morning. I was thrilled to beat him to the punch. I found the pets before he found the books.”
Dalton purchased Fins, Feathers and Fur pet store at 105 Main Street in late 1986 and renamed it Noah’s Ark. While the store thrived and even expanded its inventory under Dalton’s management.
“We had virtually every animal that’s legal to trade,” she said. “Except monkeys. We didn’t carry monkeys.”
But limited parking and a need for larger retail space saw her relocate it in early 1988 to Hamilton West Shopping Center as a full-line pet store.
In 1996, with big-box retailers entering the pet industry to sell dry goods and limited assortment of small animals, Dalton liquidated the store’s inventory and moved back to the same Main Street storefront.
She also changed the name to Cheri’s Preferred Puppies and focused the store on puppies and supplies, specifically Eukanuba dog food by IAMS at cost, as well as inexpensive collars, leashes, shampoos and bowls.
“I decided that puppies carried the whole store,” she said. “It’s been such a great decision. The traffic here increased, and then I went on the Internet and it’s just been fine ever since.”
By 1998, Dalton had specialized even further by stocking only small breeds and concentrating on non-shedding puppies. Large-breed puppies became available through special order only.
It helps, she said, that Cheri’s Preferred Puppies has become “a destination shop.”
“If you want a puppy, you don’t really have a whole lot of choices,” she said.
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