Q&A: Pet Cabaret Owner on Working with Pigs, Degus & Dogs

The Pet Cabaret is a mecca for Roslindale area pet owners, with personalized service, and an awesome color scheme - and of course, dogs, cats and even African wildcats get what they want from the locally-owned pet shop.

Roslindale resident Lisa DiPietro, co-owner of Pet Cabaret, answered some questions from Roslindale Patch about dirty dogs, cats named Mickey Mouse and a dog named Panda.

Patch: How long has the Pet Cabaret been in Roslindale? 

DiPietro: It’s almost 10 years, 10 years going into 2013. We opened in December of 2003.

Patch: What is your favorite part of owning a pet store?

DiPietro: I think that it sounds so trivial, but it is so much fun. It’s so much fun to see all the different dogs and all the animals that come in. Coming in we’ve had pigs to degus, to African wildcats, to chinchillas. We’ve had a zooful of animals walk through the door. It’s kind of amazing. It’s totally cool when I think about it. It’s like free entertainment every day. And the opportunity to learn about all types of different things. It's an exceptional opportunity every day to learn, it’s very cool, very cool.

Patch: The Pet Cabaret has expanded through the years, changing to a larger location, then adding a room for training. How do you see the business growing in the future?

DiPietro: I think in the future we are not interested in being a multistore chain; We've never been interested in that kind of size. In the future we see ourselves as getting better at what we do in terms of offering more personalized customer service. That’s more important than having a ship in every port.

Patch: I was in the store and saw you specially ordering food for one customer - does this happen often? You can't be making money off ordering specially for one customer. 

DiPietro: Yes, it happens often, is the short answer. When you do that, it’s kind of an issue of having the right distributer in place. Once you have a relationship with them, if they carry that line of food, it’s not that big of a deal. Sometimes we have to order very special stuff for remedies, that’s when the personal customer service issues coming in. We really go to the wall to help somebody and their animal.

Patch: For shop pets, there is Giacomo the cat, and Panda the dog. How did you choose to adopt them? Is it paradise for Giacomo to live in a pet store?

DiPietro: Giacomo comes from the MSPCA, and we have a very rigorous criteria – we look for the rattiest animal in the shelter. He was very sick and pushed back in his crate, and had an eye infection. His name was Mickey Mouse at that point, and we had a cat that was name Topo, which is the word for mouse in Italian, we were looking for another cat. We thought it was just Topo all over again.

Panda is from a little place in New Hampshire. Panda is the first animal we ever purchased. I would never do that again, I would only adopt. She was again an animal that came to us after we lost a very dear dog, Marley. I think we were just bereft. But we love her dearly and she’s a good little dog, and a good employee. Her filing leaves a little to be desired.

Patch: The Pet Cabaret offers puppy classes? What's the age range? Are all dogs accepted? 

DiPietro: We offer puppy classes up to five months of age. After that we begin to offer basic obedience classes, and more advanced classes. We want socialization with young pups. We have very small Maltese pups up to English mastiff puppies. The classes are one hour classes, once a week, but after the New Year will be twice a week. It’s a study in controlled care.

Patch: Why is the business called the Pet Cabaret? Is there dancing? Are you fans of the musical?

DiPietro: (Laughing) Tremendous fans of the musical. We were batting around names, it didn’t feel great about naming it something you’d expect like Roslindale Pet or Village Pet. One of those ‘oh, gee. Isn’t that creative.’ We were in a phase and had just bought 'Cabaret' and were watching it a lot. And a buddy of mine, asked what kind of feeling did we want to give the place? We wanted a fun, theatrical feel – and one day on my way to karate class – he suggested it being called Pet Cabaret. That was it. Other Lisa (Schlossberg) was skeptical at first, but then after she saw the initial artwork, and the ideas that we could percolate off it -she was totally sold.

Patch: The Pet Cabaret offers self-washing stations for humans to wash their canines. What was the dirtiest dog you've ever seen?

DiPietro: That’s a good question. Certainly we have the parade of skunked dogs, that’s been pretty impressive. Lately, it’s been super skunky. The dirtiest dog we ever seen may be Gracie the golden retriever who took a dip in a perpetual mud puddle in the Arnold Arboretum on the Peters Hill side. When they go in there there’s something spectacular that doesn’t come off fur easily.

Patch: Is there anything else you'd like to add about the Pet Cabaret?

DiPietro: I say this repeatedly, we have really good customers, we have the coolest, kindest, funnest, customers that people can have - I think that’s why we’ve been able to last 10 yaers. We really appreciate the support that people around us in the Roslindale, JP, West Roxbury communities, and now out to Dedham and Milton. I feel a responsibility to the community, and we'll try to hold up our end of the bargain as well as customers supporting us. We try to hold up our end by giving them good solid choices and advice. We just want to see small businesses in this area thrive