Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Tracy, you're a pet person.
Speaker 1: Uh huh. Many of our listeners are pet people. We
Speaker 1: know because they set us pictures of their adorable animals.
Speaker 1: So if you step into any pet store today, you're
Speaker 1: kind of inundated with so many clever products to make
Speaker 1: caring for your animals easier or to improve their well being.
Speaker 1: But this is actually a pretty new industry. The idea
Speaker 1: of a pet store didn't really exist until the late
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, and that was when Victorian England started to
Speaker 1: be more and more interested in keeping animals in the
Speaker 1: home instead of as livestock were like an outdoor collection.
Speaker 1: And then from there this idea of companionship pets as
Speaker 1: sort of something to be acquired spread to the US
Speaker 1: and the rest of the world. But even so, those
Speaker 1: early shops were really about selling the pets themselves, with
Speaker 1: a few care products like that you would need to
Speaker 1: support that thing to live. So the idea of a
Speaker 1: store filled to the brim with merchandise that's engineered expressly
Speaker 1: for use with pets did not really happen until the
Speaker 1: mid twentieth century, and perhaps the most well known story
Speaker 1: of an invention intended to help pet lovers and make
Speaker 1: their lives easier is kitty litter. This one has some
Speaker 1: problems in modern thinking that we will talk about, but
Speaker 1: kitty litter, it could be argued, was what kicked off
Speaker 1: an entire new industry. So today we are going to
Speaker 1: talk about the origin of cat litter, as well as
Speaker 1: other products that many of us probably have in our
Speaker 1: homes right now. And we're going to start by talking
Speaker 1: about the man who is credited with the invention of
Speaker 1: kitty litter, and that is Ed low So Henry Edward Lowe,
Speaker 1: who who went by ED, was born on July tenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty in Saint Paul, Minnesota. When he was still young,
Speaker 1: his family moved to Marcellus, Michigan. Ed was not a
Speaker 1: good student. He'd had to repeat the fourth grade. He
Speaker 1: later attributed this to not being interested in his coursework.
Speaker 1: Ed's father was a serial entrepreneur. That's seer ial. In
Speaker 1: case you think we're about to talk about breakfast food.
Speaker 1: ED learned to value the idea of figuring out ways
Speaker 1: to make money for yourself rather than working for someone else.
Speaker 1: This was something that Ed embraced early on as a
Speaker 1: way to have money for his own purchases, and so
Speaker 1: he found all kinds of ways to generate an income,
Speaker 1: including newspaper delivery, scrap, metal sales, and pest control. And
Speaker 1: then as he got older, he worked in his father's businesses.
Speaker 1: As a young man, Ed served in the Navy during
Speaker 1: World War II, and when the war ended, he returned
Speaker 1: to Michigan and started working at his father's company in
Speaker 1: the town of Cassopolis. This was a business that sold
Speaker 1: sawdust and wood shavings for a variety of industrial absorbency uses,
Speaker 1: so things like absorbing oils, spills, and machine shops, et cetera.
Speaker 1: There are multiple versions of the story of how he
Speaker 1: invented kitty litter. According to the most common one, cold
Speaker 1: January day in nineteen forty seven, twenty seven year old
Speaker 1: Lowe was working at his father's shop and a woman
Speaker 1: named Kay Draper came in. She had an indoor cat,
Speaker 1: but according to this story, the sand filled litter box
Speaker 1: she used for this cat had frozen. She hoped to
Speaker 1: purchase some sawdust from low to use as a litter
Speaker 1: box substrate. Okay, if you're like me, the frozen sand
Speaker 1: story immediately brings up questions, But there may be an
Speaker 1: answer if we look at the state of litter boxes
Speaker 1: at the time. One a lot of people were not
Speaker 1: yet keeping their cats indoors with the litter box, so
Speaker 1: it was kind of a new thing. Using plain sand
Speaker 1: and sawdust was pretty standard at this point for those
Speaker 1: rare houses where people did keep their cats inside, So
Speaker 1: none of those substrates were clumping. So a box that
Speaker 1: used sand or sawdust could potentially retain liquid and freeze
Speaker 1: if it were in a cold enough spot. It is
Speaker 1: very possible if it were kept somewhere like a garage
Speaker 1: or a utility room, that it could easily get cold
Speaker 1: enough in Michigan in winter to freeze. In any case,
Speaker 1: Lowe later claimed that he had a bolt of inspiration
Speaker 1: in the face of Draper's dilemma. For a long time,
Speaker 1: his father had offered bags of sawdust for soaking up
Speaker 1: oil spills in places like mechanics garages, but the company
Speaker 1: had just introduced another material that did the job better,
Speaker 1: and that was granulated clay. This was clay that had
Speaker 1: been dried in a kill to the point that it
Speaker 1: would crumble, and with all the moisture removed from the
Speaker 1: naturally porous clay, it became really absorbent. This was great
Speaker 1: at handling oil, so Ed thought that it might also
Speaker 1: work for k Draper's cat. She took a bag of
Speaker 1: it and went home. Then, according to this version, a
Speaker 1: week later, Draper was back asking for more of that clay.
Speaker 1: She found that it worked way better than sand or
Speaker 1: wood shavings, and she wanted to switch her cat over
Speaker 1: to it completely, so Low sold her another bag, and
Speaker 1: then he decided to try selling more bags to see
Speaker 1: if other people liked it. He loaded up ten sacks
Speaker 1: with the granulated clay labeled them. Sometimes this is written
Speaker 1: as or described as him using like one of those
Speaker 1: oil crayons that get used for marking things in shops
Speaker 1: and labeling it as kitty litter. And then he tried
Speaker 1: to get a local pet store to carry these bags,
Speaker 1: and the store was not interested, so Low asked if
Speaker 1: maybe they would be willing to give them away to
Speaker 1: customers to try, and those ten customers were the start
Speaker 1: of his new business. Uh I didn't find any claims
Speaker 1: as to the number of how many of that ten
Speaker 1: returned to the store asking more of the clay litter.
Speaker 1: But according to a story that Low told many times,
Speaker 1: enough of them wanted more that he figured out how
Speaker 1: to launch a division of the family business around it.
Speaker 1: Another story came up in a newspaper from nineteen fifty five.
Speaker 1: That article, published in the Kalamazoo Gazette, was all about
Speaker 1: how low had expanded his business beyond cat litter. But
Speaker 1: that article also includes this excerpt, which makes it sound
Speaker 1: like a lot less of a scrabbly spur of the
Speaker 1: moment idea quote. Lowe's kitty catering all started because some
Speaker 1: friend of his wife's asked him to crawl under the
Speaker 1: front porch in the dead of winter and get sand
Speaker 1: for her beloved cat's box. I got it, but I
Speaker 1: did a lot of thinking afterward. I knew there must
Speaker 1: be a better product than sand for that job. There was.
Speaker 1: It was a clay once used to filter impurities out
Speaker 1: of petroleum products. Low and his chief assistance, Tony Friesel
Speaker 1: and Bob Bollett started bagging it by hand. We called
Speaker 1: it kitty litter at the time. We had to almost
Speaker 1: give it away. Now there is a big demand we
Speaker 1: have about ten men strip mining the stuff for us
Speaker 1: near Perry, Tennessee, and it's all packaged automatically. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if that's really supposed to be Paris, Tennessee, where
Speaker 1: there is some mining in the area. But Perry is
Speaker 1: what it says in the article. Yes. In a nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty five version of the story that appeared in the
Speaker 1: La Times, the details were once again a little different.
Speaker 1: This one stated quote in nineteen forty seven, a neighbor
Speaker 1: asked him for a cat box filler. She had been
Speaker 1: piling ashes in her cat box and was tired of
Speaker 1: a house full of sooty paw prints. She asked for sand.
Speaker 1: He suggested the absorbent clay quote more to get rid
Speaker 1: of her than anything else. So that sounds very different.
Speaker 1: But from there his story was its more or less
Speaker 1: the same as the one in which he said he
Speaker 1: labeled the ten bags of clay himself and took them
Speaker 1: to a pet store. Then one more story, which appeared
Speaker 1: in the Washington Post in twenty fifteen. That version states, quote,
Speaker 1: one day in nineteen forty seven, his father received a
Speaker 1: sample shipment of a new clay product, but he was
Speaker 1: already loyal to a different brand, He would have nothing
Speaker 1: to do with this order of clay and left it
Speaker 1: in their storage garage. It sat around until one of
Speaker 1: Edlow's acquaintances, Kay Draper, asked him if he knew of
Speaker 1: any good absorbents for pet waste. So, according to this version,
Speaker 1: the problem was not a frozen box of sand or
Speaker 1: ash footprints. It was silica dust because Draper's cat was
Speaker 1: tracking the dust all around the house, and Lowe suggested
Speaker 1: that she could use the fuller's earth that his dad
Speaker 1: had not been interested in using. So, regardless of which
Speaker 1: of these stories is accurate, and it's possible none of
Speaker 1: them is actually how Low's invention happened, Kitty Litters start
Speaker 1: did not last long. Ed started driving around with stock,
Speaker 1: taking it to pet stores and attending cat shows as
Speaker 1: an exhibitor, and then over the course of several years,
Speaker 1: his business grew to the point where he actually needed
Speaker 1: a warehouse in a distribution process as a wholesaler. He
Speaker 1: acquired that warehouse from his father's company. In a nineteen
Speaker 1: forty nine write up in the Delaware County Daily. There's
Speaker 1: an interesting writeup that cites another man that we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: Robert Follett, who I think was called Bob in the
Speaker 1: article that Tracy mentioned just a moment ago, and this
Speaker 1: article mentions him as being Lowe's partner. The men are
Speaker 1: listed together in that nineteen forty nine write up as
Speaker 1: originators of kitty litter. It's a bit unclear what happened
Speaker 1: to that relationship, but the two gave a joint statement
Speaker 1: to the paper at that time saying quote, all we
Speaker 1: need is good business, science, write, promotion, and the cooperation
Speaker 1: of a few million cats. The cats definitely seemed to cooperate.
Speaker 1: Kitty litter was available in supermarkets by nineteen fifty four
Speaker 1: by the time that nineteen fifty five article that we
Speaker 1: cited earlier was written, so just a little more than
Speaker 1: eight years after its invention, kitty litter sales were expected
Speaker 1: to top one point five million dollars. Even so, it
Speaker 1: was still a new enough product that ads continued to
Speaker 1: explain what it was. One in nineteen fifty five stated quote,
Speaker 1: kitty litter is a specially produced material which provides a
Speaker 1: new and better solution to a problem confronted by owners
Speaker 1: of cats. In short, it does away with the daily, unpleasant,
Speaker 1: messy sandbox routine. Unlike sand, it dries and deodorizes, and
Speaker 1: unlike sand, it is not harmful too or pets, and
Speaker 1: it's inexpensive. Lo soon recognized that if people were willing
Speaker 1: to spend money for kitty litter, they were probably willing
Speaker 1: to spend money on other items for their cats. And
Speaker 1: we'll talk about how he expanded his business based on
Speaker 1: that idea after we pause for a sponsor break. In
Speaker 1: the mid twentieth century, cats were not generally pampered in
Speaker 1: the ways that are very commonplace today. Once cat later
Speaker 1: caught on quote, we made a list of every conceivable
Speaker 1: item a well groomed cat could use and rated them
Speaker 1: as to importance. We keep our cats at the local
Speaker 1: veterinarians and test each product on them first to determine acceptance.
Speaker 1: Lowe also cited one particular cat as the true determiner
Speaker 1: of whether a product moved forward from testing to production.
Speaker 1: Though there was a group of cats cared for by
Speaker 1: a veterinarian, there was also a cat at the low offices.
Speaker 1: Those offices were run out of a home that had
Speaker 1: been converted to business use, and that cat, a red
Speaker 1: Point Siamese named Impi, got to test and approve a
Speaker 1: lot of the innovations that are probably in your home
Speaker 1: if you have a cat. Mp tried out cat toys, catnips,
Speaker 1: scratching posts and cardboard scratch pads, and other potential products.
Speaker 1: By the mid nineteen fifties, thanks to IMPI's hard work
Speaker 1: as a tester, Low had introduced his own dry shampoo
Speaker 1: for cats, flea powder disposal trays, and something called a
Speaker 1: kitty castle, which was not a multi tiered cat condo
Speaker 1: like the name seems like it might be. It was
Speaker 1: a small, cozy, decorated box for a cat to curl
Speaker 1: up in. All of this was apparently in line with
Speaker 1: Low's own adoration of cats. A reporter in nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: five claimed to have been riding in a car with
Speaker 1: Low when a stray cat wandered in front of the vehicle,
Speaker 1: and said that quote Low came to a quick halt,
Speaker 1: hopped out, and escorted the feline across the road. By
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five, sales of kitty litter and cat accessories
Speaker 1: through Low's company hit one hundred million dollars. At that time,
Speaker 1: his Low's branded kitting litter had twelve point six percent
Speaker 1: of the market share. Tidycat had surged passed it to
Speaker 1: twenty two point five percent, but that still put ed
Speaker 1: Low on top. Because he also invented Tidycat, it was
Speaker 1: launched as a supermarket brand, while he kept Kitty Litter
Speaker 1: as a brand for specialty pet stores. But he was
Speaker 1: also willing to spend money on research and promotion. He
Speaker 1: started spending a reported four million dollars each year in
Speaker 1: research and development alone. That budget was used to both
Speaker 1: develop new products and refine the cat litters that the
Speaker 1: company already sold from the time competitors entered the market
Speaker 1: with their own versions of kitty Litter, Ed worked diligently
Speaker 1: to make sure his outperformed any others. This included building
Speaker 1: a research facility that employed a full team to test
Speaker 1: litter for oder management, absorbency, and weight. He also built
Speaker 1: a cattery with a full time population of one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty cats to use all of the products while
Speaker 1: they were monitored and cared for by a team of
Speaker 1: veterinarians and behavioral researchers. In that La Times article we
Speaker 1: cited already, Ed stated that all of his expenditures and
Speaker 1: the expansion of his product line were parts of a
Speaker 1: long term business plan with massive goal stating quote Low's
Speaker 1: will not be sold. Low's will go on forever. Low's
Speaker 1: will become a billion dollar company. We know that we
Speaker 1: can't become a billion dollar company as a cat box filler. Surprisingly,
Speaker 1: five years later, he sold the company. On September thirteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety, the New York Times ran a brief statement
Speaker 1: about the company changing hands, which read quote Edward Lowe Industries,
Speaker 1: the maker of kitty litter catbox Filler, agreed to sell
Speaker 1: its marketing and manufacturing operations to an investment group. Terms
Speaker 1: of the sale were not disclosed. The buyer is a
Speaker 1: group led by the Good Capital Company of New York
Speaker 1: and night Spreads Incorporated of Chicago. Philip L. Smith, the
Speaker 1: former chairman and chief executive at Pillsbury and General Foods,
Speaker 1: will become chairman of the new company, which will be
Speaker 1: known as the Golden Cat Corporation. Edward Lowe, who invented
Speaker 1: kitty Litter in the nineteen forties, said he would retire
Speaker 1: from day to day operations, but retain an equity interest
Speaker 1: and be a director of Golden Cat. Later on, it
Speaker 1: was revealed that Lowe had sold the company for two
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars plus stock in the new company. It
Speaker 1: was eventually acquired by Ralston Purina before being purchased again
Speaker 1: by Nesley. Preceding the nineteen ninety sale of the company.
Speaker 1: It seems as though Edlow's personal life got a little
Speaker 1: bit complicated. The year before his interview in which he
Speaker 1: said he would never sell the company, he and his
Speaker 1: children had a massive falling out. He had four kids,
Speaker 1: and all of them plus three of their spouses, had
Speaker 1: been working for the company for some time, and in
Speaker 1: the early nineteen eighties they started to claim that his
Speaker 1: behavior had become erratic. Low grew up poor, and once
Speaker 1: he was successful, he beat up for lost time by
Speaker 1: spending his money as he wished, sometimes on relatively impractical
Speaker 1: things like at one point he bought an entire town.
Speaker 1: But his kids claimed that he had become more than
Speaker 1: just impulsive, and they attributed the behavior to alcohol misuse.
Speaker 1: Low in response denied those accusations and accused his kids
Speaker 1: of trying to steal the company from him, and he
Speaker 1: fired them all. So this whole family was estrange for years,
Speaker 1: but they did eventually make up. After he sold the company,
Speaker 1: ed started the Edward Low Foundation in Big Rock Valley, Michigan.
Speaker 1: This is an organization that offers education and seminars for
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs that are past the startup phase and need to
Speaker 1: build their existing business. Ed died in nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 1: but the foundation continues. In addition to its original mission,
Speaker 1: the Foundation now also leads programs to research the best
Speaker 1: ways to manage land stewardship. In the last several decades,
Speaker 1: there has been increasing concern about the long term viability
Speaker 1: of clay based cat litter. According to the American Veterinary
Speaker 1: Medical Association, as of twenty twenty four, there were seventy
Speaker 1: three point eight million cats kept as pets in the US,
Speaker 1: and while not all of them are indoor only cats
Speaker 1: with litter boxes, a lot of them are. And that
Speaker 1: has made cat litter a multi billion dollar market. But
Speaker 1: where is all that clay coming from and what happens
Speaker 1: to it after it's used. Well, there are eleven states
Speaker 1: that have open pit mines that extract clay for cat litter,
Speaker 1: and that clay is a finite resource. And there's an
Speaker 1: additional issue. Seventy five million tons of Fuller's earth, which
Speaker 1: is the clay used for cat litter and other absorbent
Speaker 1: applications was mined in twenty twenty four. According to the
Speaker 1: US Geological Survey, that clay gets us once and then
Speaker 1: thrown away, which would theoretically mean that it was returning
Speaker 1: to the earth. But usually these clays have been treated
Speaker 1: with chemicals to help them clump and resist odor, and
Speaker 1: things like fragrance have also been added, so all of
Speaker 1: that is just going into the nation's garbage jumps. Per
Speaker 1: a twenty fifteen Washington Post article about it quote, the
Speaker 1: rise of commercial cat litters may even explain why indoor
Speaker 1: cat populations grew so quickly, to the point that felines
Speaker 1: have overtaken canines is America's most popular pet. At the
Speaker 1: same time, cat litters made consumers dependent on a supply
Speaker 1: chain that converts a natural resource to waste. Aside from
Speaker 1: environmental concerns, one of the lasting legacies of the invention
Speaker 1: of cat litter is that it helped expand the number
Speaker 1: of households that were willing to keep cats as pets,
Speaker 1: and that opened the door to other inventions. The next
Speaker 1: one is brief because there's not a whole lot of
Speaker 1: information about the enter readily available. But on January eleventh,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, a man named Frank L. Crow filed
Speaker 1: a patent for the first cat tree. His patent, which
Speaker 1: was granted on November twenty fifth, nineteen sixty nine, starts
Speaker 1: with the following quote disclosed herein is a cat tree
Speaker 1: embodying a plurality of cat landing stations or platforms carried
Speaker 1: by a sectional pole adapted to be mounted in a
Speaker 1: vertical position in a selected room of a dwelling, with
Speaker 1: a base engaged against the floor to hold the tree
Speaker 1: against rotation, with a spring loaded plunger engaged against the ceiling,
Speaker 1: and with the platforms covered with a rough textile material
Speaker 1: which provides a scratching claw sharpening surface. Crow's patent notes
Speaker 1: that his invention is designed to solve two primary problems,
Speaker 1: cats ruining furniture by clawing it and cats climbing the curtains.
Speaker 1: He notes that his cat tree is a decorative accessory
Speaker 1: as well as a function, and that it can be
Speaker 1: matched with any decor. I have thoughts on this that
Speaker 1: any cat person that owns a cat tree might be
Speaker 1: having as well. We'll talk about it on Friday. The
Speaker 1: application that crofiled touted the ease of assembly and how
Speaker 1: much this tree could be customized to fit the space
Speaker 1: and needs of a cat, including the addition of dangling
Speaker 1: toys to the platforms. The platforms, per Crow's design, were
Speaker 1: intended to be replaceable, so you could update worn out
Speaker 1: pieces without having to buy a whole new cat tree
Speaker 1: each time it showed wear and tear. Crow also wanted
Speaker 1: the placement of the platforms to be thoughtful to enable
Speaker 1: rapid movement by a house cat from one to the other. Quote.
Speaker 1: The invention is characterized in that the cat landing stations
Speaker 1: or platforms are of crescent shape or equivalent non circular configuration,
Speaker 1: and are arranged and angularly displaced steps succession, such as
Speaker 1: to facilitate ascent and descent from one platform to a
Speaker 1: six platform. A preferred shape being a crescent shape developed
Speaker 1: by a scalloped cutaway of one side of a circular
Speaker 1: platform so as to attain a maximum aesthetic effect in
Speaker 1: the assembly and cass rejoiced. Coming up, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about another invention that became hugely popular very quickly,
Speaker 1: in helping people deal with pet messes. Dog people were
Speaker 1: coming for you. But first we're going to hear from
Speaker 1: the sponsors that keep the show going so the last
Speaker 1: inventor we'll talk about today was like the first, we
Speaker 1: talked about, a man of many inventions who did very
Speaker 1: well for himself in the pet products industry. In nineteen sixty,
Speaker 1: Alan Simon opened a chain of stores in Brooklyn called
Speaker 1: Puppy City, and like most modern pet stores, these sold
Speaker 1: food and pet accessories and also offered grooming services. But
Speaker 1: then in nineteen seventy, Simon decided he didn't just want
Speaker 1: to sell pet products. He wanted to invent them, and
Speaker 1: he invented a lot of them. But one of his
Speaker 1: original set of inventions became hugely popular and really served
Speaker 1: as the corner stone for a new business, and that
Speaker 1: was the Wei Wi pad, similar to the way sand
Speaker 1: was supplanted by kitty litter. Alan Simon had noticed that
Speaker 1: while working in the pet retail business that the newspaper
Speaker 1: that people often used to keep accidents off the floor
Speaker 1: while house training a puppy was not all that effective.
Speaker 1: In an interview he gave in twenty nineteen, he said
Speaker 1: the dogs would urinate on the newspaper. So one day
Speaker 1: I got the idea of using a hospital pad, and
Speaker 1: we chemically treated a hospital pad, and I came up
Speaker 1: with a seven pack and we had a TV ad
Speaker 1: for ten seconds. It was free house breaking Wi pads
Speaker 1: with every purchase. So it went from a seven pack
Speaker 1: to a fourteen, to a twenty five, to a fifty,
Speaker 1: to one hundred, and then it went to like twenty
Speaker 1: five million dollars in we Wei pads. Simon's invention did
Speaker 1: make cleanup from housebreaking puppies a whole lot easier, and
Speaker 1: soon it was used for a lot of other things too.
Speaker 1: People use these absorbent pads under litter boxes, under food
Speaker 1: and water dishes, in carriers, and the list goes on.
Speaker 1: Their utility in so many uses helped boost their steady
Speaker 1: adoption among people with pets. Simon often gave interviews to
Speaker 1: the press in which he summed up his impressive business
Speaker 1: history succinctly, but also making it clear that he had
Speaker 1: achieved a lot. And a quote he gave to DuJour
Speaker 1: magazine while talking about the launch of the newest business,
Speaker 1: he said, simply quote, I manufactured and invented over two
Speaker 1: hundred products, including the original and world renowned we Wei
Speaker 1: pads and the Alan Pooper Scooper. Over the years, we
Speaker 1: grew into one of the largest manufacturers in the pet industry.
Speaker 1: To manufactur make sure we wee pads, Simon founded a
Speaker 1: new company called four Pause, which also made the other
Speaker 1: pet products that he invented. He held so many patents
Speaker 1: for various items. One of the interesting things about a
Speaker 1: lot of his patents is that they are completely void
Speaker 1: of the florid language and over explained design and function
Speaker 1: that we often see in patent application documents. Most of
Speaker 1: them follow a very simple template style of writing, with
Speaker 1: a very basic name for the invention, and then a
Speaker 1: description and a claim that basically add up to just
Speaker 1: look at the pictures. They didn't all go that way.
Speaker 1: One particular invention was an improvement on an automatic pet
Speaker 1: food dispenser, and it had a lot of supplementary writing
Speaker 1: to explain it. It started out by explaining the pet
Speaker 1: food dispensers that preceded it by noting quote. A typical
Speaker 1: device of this type includes an elongated serving tray which
Speaker 1: is adapted to rest on a flat surface, such as
Speaker 1: the floor. A hollow storage container is secured to the
Speaker 1: tray at once end of the tray and is raised
Speaker 1: above the bottom wall of the tray. An opening is
Speaker 1: provided in the bottom wall of the storage container to
Speaker 1: permit a dry or liquid pet food placed inside the
Speaker 1: container to drop down into the serving tray by force
Speaker 1: of gravity. As the pet consumes the food from the tray,
Speaker 1: it is replaced by fresh food from the storage container.
Speaker 1: But to Simon, the problem here was that you couldn't
Speaker 1: take the apparatus apart, and as his patent application goes
Speaker 1: on to explain, loading it was a messy process. His
Speaker 1: dispenser could be taken apart, and it had a screw
Speaker 1: top lid for filling the food reservoir. These kinds of
Speaker 1: auto feeders are still common today. I have one. In
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, he received a patent for a new
Speaker 1: type of cat litter scoop. This is simply called scoop
Speaker 1: for cat litter, and the claim section simply reads the
Speaker 1: ornamental design for a scoop for cat litter as shown
Speaker 1: and described. So this is more like what I was
Speaker 1: talking about. How there of them tend to be like?
Speaker 1: None of that's none of that's spending time writing a
Speaker 1: long descriptions. This cat scoop is unique because it has
Speaker 1: prongs on its underside, so the part that would touch
Speaker 1: the litter boxes, you're scooping, presumably to help dislodge any
Speaker 1: clumped material that might stick there. One from two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight is simply called dog toy, and the claim
Speaker 1: and description are almost comedically brief. They read quote the
Speaker 1: ornamental design for a dog toy as shown and described.
Speaker 1: Figure one is a front view of the dog toy
Speaker 1: in accordance with the invention, the rear view being identical
Speaker 1: there too, and figure two is a top plan view
Speaker 1: of a dog toy according to the invention, the bottom
Speaker 1: plan view being identical there too. The toy that's not
Speaker 1: really being described here is a ball. It's common enough
Speaker 1: to find in a pet store today. It looks like
Speaker 1: a round knot of multiple strands of some kind of material,
Speaker 1: presumably plastic. I had to say presumably, because that's not
Speaker 1: outlined in the patent doesn't really say. Another that he
Speaker 1: applied for in twenty ten, but which wasn't issued until
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen for some reason, was a bristled grooming glove.
Speaker 1: As the name implies, it is a glove with spines
Speaker 1: on it to groom and animal using a pet motion,
Speaker 1: so sort of a glove and a brush had a baby.
Speaker 1: Simon's version because others had invented similar things, but his
Speaker 1: had a closure band around the risk to keep it
Speaker 1: securely on the groomer's hand. This and the others that
Speaker 1: we mentioned are just a handful of the hundreds of
Speaker 1: designs and inventions that he came up with and manufactured.
Speaker 1: From the start of Four Paws, Simon was able to
Speaker 1: grow the company to a business that made thirty million
Speaker 1: dollars in revenue each year. It also acquired other companies
Speaker 1: that made pet products, including Cosmic Pet and Mustang Pet Products. Then,
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety seven, he sold Four Paws to Central
Speaker 1: Garden and Pet for fifty five million dollars. In twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: Alan Simon launched a new venture, Pet Products dot Com.
Speaker 1: This was an online aggregator that connected small local businesses
Speaker 1: like his first pet store, to customers online. The company
Speaker 1: also has directories so people could find veterinarians in their area.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons the company cited for its business
Speaker 1: approach is that while large online retailers had driven a
Speaker 1: demand for consumer convenience, when it comes to pets, people
Speaker 1: still need a local resource they can turn to for
Speaker 1: care and community, and there was a recognition that some
Speaker 1: of those small local businesses were going to struggle if
Speaker 1: there was not a way for them to simultaneously have
Speaker 1: online sales offerings. Watching interviews with Alan Simon and they're
Speaker 1: a number you can find online. He was very obviously
Speaker 1: a straightforward New Yorker. Uh. He has exactly what you
Speaker 1: think of in your head when you think what does
Speaker 1: a guy from New York sound like. He reportedly was
Speaker 1: very generous. He gave both to charity and just to
Speaker 1: individuals who needed a hand. He is also quoted as saying,
Speaker 1: with determination and hard work, anyone, even a kid from
Speaker 1: Brooklyn like me with a learning disability, can be successful
Speaker 1: and make their dreams come true. Alan died on January sixth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. It kind of seemed like he worked
Speaker 1: right up to the end. And that is our discussion
Speaker 1: of pet products today. I have listener mail, sort of.
Speaker 1: I tried to read this listener mail and I cried
Speaker 1: too many times. So you're going to get an abbreviated,
Speaker 1: abridged description of a listener mail from our listener erin
Speaker 1: and I just wanted to acknowledge Aaron, your email is beautiful.
Speaker 1: I am sorry for your loss. That's literally all I
Speaker 1: can say, because I keep falling apart. So just know
Speaker 1: that I have read your letter and it touched me deeply.
Speaker 1: Then Aaron says, thank you so much for all you
Speaker 1: do to entertain and educate. You keep me company on
Speaker 1: my runs and my way to work. It makes me
Speaker 1: miss my history classes at college. When I dreamed of
Speaker 1: being a teacher, life had other plans. As a pet, Ta,
Speaker 1: I give you Sailor, my dad's dog, but he loves
Speaker 1: me best. He's a nine year old Standard Schnauzer that
Speaker 1: loves to play catch, can jump straight up and down,
Speaker 1: and is just a good boy. Thanks. This dog so cute. Listen,
Speaker 1: Schnauzers can be so much because they are very high energy,
Speaker 1: and I think Sailor is the same. But they also
Speaker 1: are some of the sweetest, silliest dogs with just the
Speaker 1: most beautiful little faces. So thank you, thank you, thank you, Aaron.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I could not read your email too much
Speaker 1: for my little heart, but I really appreciate you sending it.
Speaker 1: If anybody else wants to send an email and make
Speaker 1: me cry, it isn't that hard, but I beg you
Speaker 1: be gentle. You can do that at History podcast at
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio dot com. You can also subscribe to the show
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a
Speaker 1: production of ihe art Radio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.