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

1998-99 DrsFosterSmith.com and PetEducation. com are launched.

2001 The doctors buy Pet Warehouse, an Ohio-based cataloger of pet supplies, and LiveAquaria.com. The acquisitions make Doctors Foster & Smith the nation’s largest pet cataloger.

2002 They buy Hornbeck’s, a bird supply cataloger, and eTropicals.com, a merchant of live aquatic life. Corporate-wide annual sales reach $156 million.