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

But two challenges that aren’t taxing DFS, believe it or not, are the current economy and international unrest. DFS has seen booming sales. “When the war in Iraq started, we thought, like other catalogers, I’m sure, that our business would slow down while customers were distracted by the news,” Smith recounts. “But our phones rang off the hook that week! We were so busy we had to put people on overtime. I don’t know why that was.