Focus on: Business Strategies Twenty years of steady growth and smart acquisitions have propelled Doctors Foster & Smith to the top spot among pet-supply catalogers.

By Reported Donna Loyle

In addition to the six titles, DFS has four Web sites: DrsFosterSmith.com, PetEducation.com, LiveAquaria.com and eTropicals.com. All Web operations are administered from the Wisconsin headquarters, and 25 staffers now work on Web design and print catalog creative.

Web sales account for a whopping 35 percent of sales. Interestingly, the doctors credit the failed online pet-supply merchants such as Pets.com with driving pet owners into the e-commerce space. Although the big dot-coms failed, DFS was able to hang in and capitalize on the new sales channel pioneered by its now-defunct competitors.