We were lucky to catch up with Julie Schwenzer recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Julie, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

My business partner and friend Alexandra and I founded The Muttly Crew, LLC. We are an animal-lover infotainment and clothing company. We embrace all pets but we initially put the spotlight on multi-breeds or mutts, Years ago I noticed I hardly saw mutts on mainstream media and couldn’t find products featuring a dog who looked like our beloved furry son Teddy (RIP) who was a blend of German Shepherd, Papillon, Chow Chow, and Portuguese Water Dog. Teddy was so important to me and I always put him first no matter what was happening personally. I committed to take care of him fur-ever and his love helped push me through some very tough times. I know I can’t be alone in understanding how important pets are to us. Alexandra also felt a strong connection with animals and saw some were underrepresented. As we developed our business we discovered more untold animal stories, news, and other interesting information to share on social media and our site via video, images, interviews, and articles. We help entertain and empower pet parents, rescue advocates, and more animals to find homes and better lives so all animals and their humans are represented. As we make a bigger paw print in the industry and create a new online community, we can relate to Teddy and his fur-iends who have felt like the underdogs, but personally and professionally.

Julie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My business partner Alexandra and I founded The Muttly Crew, LLC. We are an animal-lover lifestyle brand with a focus on pet-related content and clothing. We embrace all dogs and other pets but put the spotlight on multi-breeds or mutts on many of our products, namely dog and human apparel with catchy and timely slogans. We produce fun and informative editorial content and share pet news. Years ago I noticed I couldn’t find products featuring a dog that looked like our furry son Teddy. So I wanted to make a calendar with just mutts including him as a model! Alexandra and I joined forces a couple of years later and she brought her passion for fashion, love for dogs and other pets and financial industry and performing arts experience with her. In addition to my multimedia news background, I have worked in the banking industry and sales. It was a natural evolution for us to expand into creative content from stationary and clothing. We both enjoy what we do, and make it fun but in a smart, productive way while accepting our creative dysfunction, insane love for dogs, and infotainment skills. We are very happy to network with rescue and shelter organizations, content contributors, animal advocate movements, and pet-related professionals. We help the caregivers and animals that don’t get enough coverage in mainstream media or have been stereotyped because of their breed. We also help paw-rents find information and advice on topics for their specific questions on pet health, advice, training and work-life balance. And who doesn’t love a funny animal story or video?!

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Like all small businesses, we had to choose what platforms were best for us schedule-wise and where we could be free to share our creativity. We continue to build our audience organically with content we think is helpful and entertaining. We are honest with ourselves and don’t try to be humans (or animals) we’re not. Our advice would be is to start posting if you haven’t already. Don’t worry about being perfect or paw-fect. Focus on good light, clear audio and strong content that matters to you as if you were your audience. Be honest about you and your organization’s mission and have fun with it.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

During the pandemic, we were already in the midst of our contract to make our dog and cat shirts. We had a lot of delays because of strains on manufacturers to work and ship. So while we waited on our products to be completed so we would have something to sell, we didn’t stop. We jumped on our content and started interviewing, producing articles and videos. We had planned on making content for a while but when we couldn’t sell physical products, we were frustrated. Instead of dwelling on that obstacle, we pushed forward with infotainment that mattered.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.themuttlycrewstore.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themuttlyc/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkDOM0VSklfGO-3gmOM3wvA
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@themuttlycrewtiktok https://www.tiktok.com/@thefrrshow

Image Credits
all pics: The Muttly Crew pitbull pic: Scanimals.io chinchilla pic: phillychinchilly