Unleashed, the Dog & Cat Store

Unleashed is a privately & locally owned and operated company with locations in Raleigh, Cary, and Wilmington, NC, striving to provide "the best a dog can get," at reasonable prices!  We really want every dog to be as happy and healthy as ours.  Read more about our mission statement here.

 

Unleashed began February 24, 2007, at the NC State Fairgrounds Marketplace, with a table, a display stand, a garden umbrella, a girl and her dog.  We quickly expanded our little "shop" and later added our online store.  In October 2007, we were invited to the NC State Fair, and business kept growing.  Thanks to our families, our loyal customers, and our Marketplace family we had surpassed our wildest expectations for the first year!  

 

Motivated by a great year and awesome customers, we decided that we needed to be open 7 days a week.  Thus, Unleashed, the Dog Store, was born.  On April 8, 2008, Unleashed became an LLC, and we began our hard work turning a dollar store into a dog store.  It wasn't easy.  We spent 10 days just doing the floor!  The old carpet had to go, and so did 30 years’ worth of carpet glue, tile glue, and whatever else was coating the concrete floors over the years. 

 

After the floor, the rest was easy.  Lots of paint, glue, nails, screws, and anything else we could run up on our new Lowe's card.  But with the best team (thanks especially to my mom and dad) we got it done and opened our doors at Lake Boone Shopping Center on June 2, 2008!  Just over a month later we celebrated our Grand Opening and haven't had a dull moment since.  

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Ever since the doors opened, we have been blessed with such amazing, supportive, and loyal customers that business has been growing daily!  In the late summer of 2010, we were presented with an opportunity to expand our business into North Raleigh and thus began the painting and fixing up process yet again.  Fall 2010 was a busy time with getting the new location ready while still attending the NC State Fair during October and hosting our busiest party ever for Halloween!  November 1, 2010, we officially opened our second location in Stonehenge Market just in time for the holidays.  

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As owners, Amy & JP continued to work in both stores, but we couldn't do it all by ourselves.  Fortunately, we had helpful family, friends, and employees that grew Unleashed with us. 

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Amy being a UNCW alumnus and both Amy and JP having lived in Wilmington, we visited the area often.  Every time we would go to Wilmington, we would drive past the Landfall Shopping Center and talk about how great it would be if we could have a store there.  One day we were telling one of our customers turned employees about how much we would love to have a store there, but we just didn't know how it could be possible, and she mentioned that she would be willing to move to Wilmington!  We talked with her about if a few months later and she was still interested!  Our dream was about to come true!  Katie would move to Wilmington and become the full-time manager of our Landfall store, and we would get to live in Raleigh and Wilmington and enjoy the best of both communities!  And so, the work began again.  We painted, and built, and worked ourselves ragged to get the new store open by April 1st, 2012 (again with much help from family and friends!)  ​​   

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Early in 2013, we were approached by the owner of a beloved Crabtree Valley Mall kiosk that had been serving pet owners at the mall since early 2000s with a new opportunity.  She was ready to retire and wanted to know if Unleashed would like to carry on supplying shoppers with treats and more.  How could we say no?  In the summer of 2013, we transitioned the wonderful Just Dogs Gourmet into Unleashed Express!

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Later in 2013, with the pushing of a few good customers (one who actually visited us at our new mall kiosk,) we decided to take a look at opening a store in Cary.  While visiting the area on a rare "day off," we fell in love with an empty space in the Crescent Commons shopping center.  As timing would have it, Katie, who moved to Wilmington to manage our store there, felt pulled back to Raleigh, and was excited at the opportunity to open another new location with us!  So, again we found ourselves faced with more painting, more work, and a very hectic October of doing the State Fair and working on getting a new location ready.  We did it and opened our Cary store November 2013.  We also moved all of the paperwork out of our home and into an office in 2013.  ​

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With 4 locations and a strong relationship with non-profit organizations throughout NC, Amy got an idea.  Since even before the inception of Unleashed, supporting local adoption groups and shelters was always at the heart of the owners.  Unleashed was happy to host adoption events, fundraisers and more at the 3 stores, but we knew we could do more.  Events at the stores had grown very popular and Amy decided to try a community event, with a focus on rescues, at an off-site location.  Going back to our roots, we rented the NC State Fairgrounds Heritage Circle, invited rescues and local small businesses, and hosted the first Annual Spring Fling Dog & Cat Fundraiser on April 26, 2014.  It was an instant success and became a staple event for the community continuing each year.  

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Later that year, we were presented with a potential new location that we couldn’t help but consider. Although we weren’t necessarily looking to expand, this space had intrigue, charm, and sentimental value. In fact, it was our runner up when we looked for our very first location over 7 years prior! The space itself hadn’t changed much over the years, but the surrounding area had changed quite a bit, and for the better. As the months went by, we found ourselves frequenting the shopping center restaurants and talking about the possibilities. We decided it was only fair to consider other spaces too, but all the signs kept pointing towards this former “runner up” space. Eventually we couldn’t ignore the signs and decided that fall 2015 would be the perfect time to open up the 6th location of Unleashed in Downtown Raleigh, at City Market (across from Moore Square.) We immediately got to work painting and filling the store with all of our dog’s and cats’ favorite things. Grand opening was September 4th, 2015!

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Less than two years later, in 2017, we were approached with yet another opportunity that we couldn't walk away from.  We got a call from the director of a non-profit organization, AniMall Pet Adoption & Outreach Center, a 501(c)(3) founded in 2008.  In addition to donations, they were supporting their mission, "to save the lives of homeless animals" by operating a retail store at Cary Towne Center.  While they were great at saving lives, over 10,000 and counting, they were struggling with the retail store.  A mutual customer recognized that our two missions aligned and passed along our information.  They reached out and "Unleashed at AniMall" was born.  We took care of all of the overhead and operations of the retail store and allowed the non-profit organization to devote their energies to saving more lives. 

Read more in the article in Cary Magazine: https://www.carymagazine.com/features/teaming-up-for-the-animals/​

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Shortly after taking over the operations of AniMall at Cary Towne Center in the fall of 2017, we embarked on our next big adventure.  With 7 busy locations, we decided it was time to take the next step in improved operations, inventory management, and low prices.  Since the very beginning we had always talked about how nice it would be to have our own warehouse and self-distribute, and we felt like 2018 was the right time to finally do it.  On January 1st, 2018, we began fixing up our new distribution warehouse.  We hired an awesome warehouse manager, and moved our offices, and our wonderful office staff to the warehouse.  Since opening the warehouse, we are happy to report that our original warehouse manager is still with us and after many promotions is currently the COO of Unleashed.  

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With warehouse and distribution operations up and running, we jumped on another opportunity.  We happened upon an amazing space in one of our favorite places- historic downtown Wilmington.  Finkelstein's Music Co had decided to reduce their size and rent out part of their historic 1800s building right at the corner of Market St. and Front St.  Complete with cobblestone streets, a short walk to an amazing riverfront with view of the USS NC Battleship, and a local, friendly landlord, we couldn't believe the opportunity!  The 1800s building did come with its challenges, and we had to get creative with the 3-story space.  We are excited about the transformation of the second floor to a meeting space/community room that has since hosted puppy yoga, goat yoga, pottery classes, training classes and more!  After a soft opening in June, we celebrated our Grand Opening in downtown Wilmington in July 2019!

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In 2019, a deal to open an IKEA at Cary Towne Center Mall fell through and the mall's remaining anchors exited.  It then became evident that the mall was set to be demolished, and we got to work securing a new location to move our Unleashed at AniMall partnership.  While we were sad that our store would eventually be demolished without anything we could do about it, we took this opportunity to honor the many customers requesting an Unleashed presence in Durham.  We also had an opportunity to grow our second location in North Raleigh into a larger space 2 doors down, which would allow us to house adoptable cats.  

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Despite the challenges of 2020, we moved forward with our plans.  We moved our Cary Towne Center Mall location to Parkway Plaza, on University Dr. in Durham and were open for business there on November 18, 2020.  (See pictures of kids stocking shelves: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17m1s9gHRK/.)  Just a few days later, an amazing team of hard-working employees, family and friends, came together after hours to move our North Raleigh location at Stonehenge to our new bigger location two doors down without interruption.  We opened the new location on November 22, 2020.  (See some pictures of the new store getting set up with help of the Phinney kids: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1EWGeDvDKC/)  AniMall chose to come with us to the North Raleigh location and installed cat condos, and a cat room complete with inspection and permission to house adoptable cats in store.  In 2021, the executive directors of AniMall decided to close the organization and turned over the cat condos and adoptions at our store to one of our employees who operates her own rescue, Velvet Acres.  While we were sad to see AniMall go, we are happy that Velvet Acres is still operating and bringing adoptable cats and kittens to our North Raleigh Store!   

  

As if moving two stores in November 2020 wasn't enough, we also were connected with another opportunity.  Owners of a beloved, independent pet supply store in Southport, NC contacted us about carrying on their store while allowing them to retire.  We visited Zeetlegoo's Pet & People Store, a "Neighborhood Favorite" that was founded in 2004 and decided to expand our coastal region.  After a quick transition from Zeetlegoo's to Unleashed, we opened in Southport in January 2021.​

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In the summer of 2021, we upgraded our Crabtree Valley Mall kiosk into an in-line storefront growing our assortment visibility. 

 

Not too long after that we were presented with another great opportunity.  Another beloved local pet store had owners ready to retire.  We met with the owners of Other End of the Leash; an independent store which opened in 2013 and became embedded in the local culture of downtown Durham.  This charming store was located in an early 1900s building that has served as a cornerstone to the Brightleaf District for roughly a century.  We agreed to take good care of their customers so that the owners could retire and the pet owners of downtown Durham (and the owners of Other End of the Leash themselves) could keep buying great products for their pets.  On February 18, 2022 Other End of the Leash posted to their social media pages: 

"It’s official. LeAnn and I are retiring at the end of the month. But wait… there’s more. Unleashed, an independent pet store that started in Raleigh is taking over the space. Owners, JP and Amy Phinney, are committed to thoroughly researching products to make sure that they only offer the best available. We are so happy that Downtown Durham is going to continue to have a cool local pet store to serve your needs. Please stop in to welcome them to the neighborhood.

We will miss seeing you all and we appreciate you all so much. I am firing up the oven on Saturday for one last batch of Bacon/cheddar treats. Please stop in to say Goodbye.

Much love, Diane and LeAnn"

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We worked closely with the owners during the transition and officially opened as Unleashed on March 2, 2022.  By summer of 2022, we opened the self-serve dog wash for dirty pups of downtown Durham!  

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In Spring of 2023, after 9 successful years of hosting Spring Fling at the Fairgrounds, we decided that we needed a larger, more accommodating space and we moved our popular annual event, dubbed "the biggest animal event of the year," to Koka Booth Amphitheatre, where it continues each spring to this day.  Check out the Spring Fling website and socials for details: https://linktr.ee/k9springfling

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Meanwhile, we were loving our in-line store at Crabtree Valle Mall and were excited to grow it even more by moving to an even larger in-line storefront in the summer of 2023.  We are loving the extra space that has allowed us to offer more great products for pet shoppers, but even more exciting, we now host adoption events and foster showcases at the mall!  You could meet your next pup at Crabtree Valley Mall!  

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In the fall of 2023, we opened another mall location in Durham's Streets at Southpoint Mall.  This time we skipped the kiosk and went straight to an in-line store.  Find us on the 2nd floor between Macy's and Nordstrom.  And if you want to see the family at work, check out the Phinney boys transforming the space: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1C1LWUdcUY/

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2024 brought some challenges to the old building that our Southport store was in, and we made a couple of decisions.  The first was to adopt Artemis and Diana, resident hunters, and the second was eventually to move 0.3 miles away into the Tidewater Plaza Shopping Center.  We worked hard to move the store seamlessly without any closure and open in time for Christmas!  You can see pictures of the Phinney boys installing the new floor and more here: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Egj23Jovu/.  You can visit Artemis and Diana, who are now happy to "hunt" for treats from our customers.  

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On the personal side, throughout these years, we also expanded our family.  When Unleashed was founded in 2007, we had one dog, Benny.  Shortly after founding the business, while still running a booth at the flea market, we adopted another dog, Mr. Vixen.  As our cat business grew, we decided that we needed some official cat product testers, and thus in 2010 headed to Wake County Animal Shelter and adopted two adorable kittens, Wesley and Buttercup.  With our four furry babies, we already considered ourselves a "mom and pop" store, but we became a more traditional "mom and pop" with the birth of our baby boy, Walter, on January 1st, 2012.  Almost 2 years later, we welcomed our second baby boy, Henry, on December 23rd, 2013.  A little more than 2 years later, on April 3, 2016, we welcomed our 3rd human baby, a little girl named Eleanor.  About a year and a half later, we added a puppy, Lisa Mousie Grace, adopted from All Breed Animal Rescue of the Carolinas.  Fast forward to April 27, 2021, we welcomed our 4th human to the family, George.  We have a full house, full hearts, and never a dull moment.  

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We work every day and love what we do.  Every time a customer gives us a personal testimonial about how we have helped their pet (recover from the worst skin problems, stomach issues, allergies, and more), or even how much their pet loved a toy they got from us, it makes it all worth it.  When we hear that a dog or a cat was adopted from one of the adoption events at our stores or because of Spring Fling, we almost tear up.  

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Every day we are grateful for our journey and for the customers that continue to support us and make it all happen.  We wouldn't be here without our customers and our staff, and we can't say thank you enough.