Woman of the Week: Jacqueline Prehogan

by Karolina Weglarz

Driving around from pet store to pet store, with a hockey duffle bag filled with dog mannequins, Jacqueline Prehogan had one mission on her mind: get her name and product across and find a buyer and distributor willing to invest in her business.

Prehogan has always been an animal lover. While working as a chartered accountant, she began thinking of creative ideas to incorporate her love of animals and flare for business into something she was passionate about.  After adopting her rescued Puggle, Bella, last November, she realized that finding the perfect winter coat for her new pup was impossible: “I hated everything I saw,” she says. And after a trip to the Global Pet Show in Orlando, Florida, she realized there was room for a new type of product and began to look seriously at starting her own brand.

Today, she runs and designs Canada Pooch, her own line of pet apparel. Though only in its first season, she says the response has been unbelievable: “We’re the most popular dog coat out there, and were selling out of stores before the temperature dropped below zero!” Recently, she was a part of Woofstock, and says that there were very few dogs that left her booth without a jacket that fit them.

The coats are perfect for winters and designed to keep your pet cozy, comfortable, and stylish on city walks or country hikes. Materials used to make each coat vary based on the different type of coat, but are usually made of woven nylon or cotton canvas. They’re fleece lined, waterproof, and filled with faux down.

“Being a vegetarian and a huge animal lover, I could never be involved with a business where any animal is getting hurt. This is why all our products are cruelty-free in every possible way,” she says.

Inspiration for these coats comes from human fashion and things she would personally like to wear, such as outdoorsy, practical, and clean looking products. Though Prehogan designs everything herself, she has recently hired an experienced designer and plans to work collaboratively to bring her visions for spring and next winter to life.

Entrepreneurship isn’t something new to Prehogan. While completing her undergrad at Queen’s University, she was president of Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship (ACE), an organization dedicated to teaching and igniting young Canadians to create brighter futures for themselves and their communities. There, she started a marketing and consulting group and built a business incubator, which gave her the experience needed to venture out into creating her own business.

Even with all this experience under her belt, there have been many obstacles she has had to overcome to get to where she is today, including getting her business off the ground and the design process itself.  Gaining credibility for yourself, she says, is difficult at the start, especially with a seasonal product. She encourages to keep pounding the pavement and to keep looking for that one break that will get everything started.

In the design process, sizing becomes a challenge. Though she has developed a standard size and a sizing system, which makes the coats adjustable, she still goes around to local parks and asks friends or random strangers if their dogs can try on her samples, to see how they work on actual dogs.

Prehogan is already planning her spring collection, which will launch in March and feature rain coats for pooches. She is also currently designing her first brand of winter boots, and already starting to think about designs for next winter's coats. Harnesses, a more comfortable alternative to the traditional collar, are also a product she is in talks about creating.

This is her job and a half, and she’s worked harder at this than any other job in her life. But though its time consuming, it’s what she loves and feels like it’s her purpose. One of her favourite parts of the job is getting emails and photos from customers of their dogs in her coats, telling her how much they love her product.

Canada Pooch apparel retails from $37.99 - $54.99 and is available in pet specialty stores across Canada and online at www.canadapooch.com.