First of all, thank you for visiting my shop. My name is Michelle and I am very happy to have found Etsy and learned so much in the process. Let me share with you how it all started. A friend of mine adopted a black Persian and started volunteering for the cat rescue she adopted Jade from. Before I knew it, 2 years later she was managing a rescue and had an established PetsMart location. She was always bouncing ideas of me since I tend to be her business minded friend. The idea came about to start doing local adoption events which would stretch the rescue above and beyond the normal weekend PetsMart adoptions. She drafted me into helping and away we went.

After a few of the shows, having cat in cages sitting on plastic banquet tables we were brainstorming on how to make the cats more comfortable and of course more adorable. The goal was to make the cats less stressed, happier, and more playful so that future adopters would see our rescue and want to adopt a cat into their forever home. During the brainstorming process we came up with the idea of a hammock in the cage. This meant the cat would be up off the ground, not lying scared in the litter box and at eye level with the potential adopters. So we started sewing and before I knew it the rescue was using hammocks in cages every weekend at PetsMart, and at all the events. The cats, kittens, and people loved them. Customers started commenting on the hammocks and asking if they could buy the hammocks from us. Were we selling them? Wow we never thought of that, a fundraiser to support the rescue!!

And then the brainstorming process started again. Most cat and dog owners do not have cages at home where they could hang these hammocks for their animals to enjoy. This lead to the idea of the wooden stand. I was tasked to develop a stand that would hold the hammock and the pet. I designed a few different ones and gave them to some of the volunteer fosters with the rescue to see if the cat and dogs liked them in their homes. It was a success!!! After a few weeks of testing we identified which design was strongest and animal proof. We also learned during testing that this was no longer just a cat hammock but a pet hammock. In the homes dogs were jumping into these hammocks just as often as cats were. One of the volunteer fosters even found her bunny lying in the hammock. All pets loved them!!

I decided to open a business called OC Pet Hammocks as a fundraiser for the rescue. For every purchase online, in person, or at an adoption event a percentage of the profit is donated to the rescue. This has proven to be a wonderful experience full of learning, accomplishments, and of course self-satisfaction knowing that in the end we are all helping animals far and wide to get out of shelters and find forever homes.

OC Pet Hammocks is currently a side hobby for the volunteers of the cat rescue and we continue to create, build, sew, and ship the items from our homes. We are currently located out of Southern California and are having a great time on this adventure of entrepreneurship.