It may come as a surprise that Glenn Close — legendary on-screen bunny-boiler (Fatal Attraction) and Dalmatian-skinner (101 Dalmatians) — is a dog lover, given her history of playing characters who wouldn’t win any awards from PETA.
But in real life, the Oscar-nominated, Tony-winning Close is a dog lover with two terrier mutts of her own, Bill and Jake. She writes about them on her blog at FetchDog.com, a new dog-friendly — nay, dog-obsessed — Web site based in Portland that launched last month. “I believe that dogs teach us kindness, loyalty, responsibility and unconditional love,” she says in an interview printed on that blog, “Lively Licks,” which will feature profiles of dogs and “the people who they have so successfully trained.”
Close’s husband, David Shaw, who has a home in Scarborough and a camp near Prouts Neck, is managing partner of Black Point Group, a major FetchDog funder. Both Close and Shaw are part of “Team Fetch,” which has its home base on Fore Street, in an office that teems with employees’ canines on a daily basis.
“Portland is a great dog-oriented town,” says FetchDog president Gretchen Kruysman, explaining why the company chose to make its home here.
FetchDog is both a catalog of high-end, natural products for dogs, hand-picked and tested by the company’s employees — and their dogs — and a community networking site, replete with expert resources for dog owners. There’s even a “Breed Selector” quiz that helps match you with your perfect dog companion. And FetchDog members can post photos and testimonials on personal pages once they register. It’s for people (especially women) who are “emotionally connected to their dogs,” Kruysman says. “It’s a complete experience for a dog owner.”
If you’re wondering if this town is big enough for two pet stores with “Fetch” in their names, don’t fret: both parties say they’re working it out. Kruysman says that FetchDog has no intention of building a physical store. We hope there’s no catfight.
