Deep in the back of the Pet Gallery, a one-room pet store on O and Wisconsin, a voluptuous Italian woman with pale blue eye shadow and a thick accent pulled me aside. “In Italy, we like dog but we don’t dress them up like dees!” she said, gesturing towards the store’s merchandise, a look of confusion on her face. “Here, they are too pre-ppy.”
Although Pet Gallery doesn’t carry anything that has a Polo insignia and a collar to pop, one glance around the store is enough to tell me what the woman was talking about.
The floors were covered in an array of pet beds, some with fluffy pale pink plumes, others with bed frames fit for a miniature Marie Antoinette, or a dog of that name. There were pet parkas, pet leg warmers, pet nightlights, “Shhh puppy sleeping” door tags, dog umbrellas, and an array of organic dog treats. Prominently displayed on a shelf near the register were bottles of Barkundy and Meowlot, wine for dogs and cats made by Bark Vineyards.
The woman, an employee of the store, continued to mumble and gesticulate as she stood next to me.
“Did you say you carry Prada?” I asked, unable to decipher her charmingly mangled English. She looked to the ceiling, frustrated, eagerly searching her mental database, and replied “No, but we do have Burberry and Donald Pliner.”
The Pet Gallery, indeed, is no Wal-Mart of a pet store. And that is owner Woody Nelson’s intention.
“I wanted a place that wasn’t like PetCo and PetSmart. I wanted to have things that people needed for their pets everyday, but also things that are special.”
In addition to carrying Burberry, Donald Pliner and Gucci dog bags, Nelson is renowned for his specialized collars, which D.C. dog owners purchase for their dogs to wear to the Bark Ball, the see-and-be-seen yearly fundraiser of the Washington Humane Society.
Nelson also carries an array of hand-crafted mugs, picture frames, treat jars and aprons—which he paints himself—among other objects, which he commissions from artists all over the United States and Europe.
“A lot of these artists had never thought of doing pet art before. That’s how we keep the art unique,” he said.
In addition to commissioning pet art, artists working specifically for the Pet Gallery can be commissioned to paint, take portraits of, or sculpt busts of your pets.
What first drew me to the Pet Gallery, though, was not its merchandise but Nelson—who can often be seen sitting outside his store, his platinum blonde hair offset by his consistently all-black wardrobe, petting his sheep dog Jerry Lewis. Artistic, quietly self-assured, with blonde hair and a collection of black turtlenecks—it wouldn’t be a stretch to call Woody the Andy Warhol of pet store owners.
Unlike Warhol, however, Lewis isn’t interested in courting young party-going celebrities.
“I’ve had 15 year olds, dressed like Paris dresses, come in and ask me “Do you have a bag like the one Paris has? But people like Paris Hilton do not represent good pet owners. She’s always losing her pets. If someone is going to represent animals, it’s someone like Betty White [Golden Girls], or Mary Tyler Moore—she’s been in the store. She’s a great advocate for animal rights.”
When asked whether he favored cats or dogs, Lewis replied, “I don’t like to voice an opinion on that.”
