east valley
Volume 4 Issue 34 Mesa, AZ
March 6, 2021
Mesa woman’s new business delivers food to pets TRIBUNE NEWS STAFF
F
IN THE BIZ
rom a 25-year career as a 911 operator for the Arizona Department of Public Safety, Anna Baum has started a new career as a small-business operator that’s a kind of UberEats for pets. The Mesa woman owns a franchise for Pet Wants Gilbert North, a mobile pet-food delivery that specializes in small-batchproduced healthy food and treats for dogs and cats. Her new gig – serving virtually the entire Valley – is giving her a chance to exercise what she learned in her pre-DPS career as a food-service manager as well as an opportunity to own her own pet again without feeling guilty about leaving it alone while she works. “I grew up with dogs, cats, horses, cows, chickens and goats,” Baum explained. “I was never without a faithful dog until my last two died a little over two years ago. Due to my long hours as a 911 communication manager with DPS, I did not get another dog. I felt it was better to wait until I retired.” Now the owner of cat – which she said “acts as close to a dog as a cat can get” – Baum delivers food ordered online from a 7-year-old Cincinnati, Ohio, company started by two women who began making food for their dog after discovering large producers’ food actually made their pet sick. Besides selling multiple blends of dog and cat food that the company says contains high-quality proteins and never Public Notices ............... page 2 © Copyright, 2022 East Valley Tribune
uses added sugar, fillers, animal by-products, corn, wheat, soy or dyes, Pet Wants also sells healing salve, calming balm, antiitch spray and paw wax. Along with having a job that doesn’t require the long hours of 911 operator, Baum said her fooddelivery service fulfills another post-retirement goal. ”I wanted something that was interactive with the community doing something I loved,” she said. “I found Pet Wants and it was exactly what I was looking for. I could interact with the community in a capacity I had a passion for – animals and health and wellness.” She undertook training last month “on the various kinds of pet food, ingredients and how supplements can be helpful, the various kinds of afflic- Anna Baum, pictured here with her cat Lucy, operates a mobile tions pets can have and pet food delivery service. (Special to Tribune) how food can make such a tomers make the right choices when they big difference in how pets behave and how peruse the various kinds of food offered on long they live. Pet Wants’ website. “I practice preventive care for myself so “I can work with them and share inforit was a natural fit to extend that to talking mation with them that will help them make about good food for your pets,” she added. informed decisions about what kind of That training enables her to help cus(USPS 004-616) is published weekly
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