Old Dog, New Tricks: A Ship Time Announcement

Hello and Happy Spring to all you wonderful followers and patrons of Stray Dog. We feel so very lucky to have had your support and encouragement over the years. (Can you believe it has been almost 30! )You truly make our tails wag and we want to thank you for your business, your patience and your loyalty as we navigate the pains and pitfalls of our ever growing small business.

As many of you know from experience, we have been struggling mightily these last few years with our production schedule. It started early on in the pandemic, as was the case with many businesses in the home decor domain, when order volume increased just as governmental health restrictions made it impossible to operate at full staff. And since then we have been “chasing our tail”, trying desperately to keep up with demand.

Our wacky, one of a kind designs are all artisan made, as you well know, and the intricacies and details that make them so unique and lively also make them extra time consuming to produce, paint and pack. That being said, it is really not our intention to have our lovely customers wait for months and months on end for their orders to arrive. Yet that has happened far too many times in the last year or two. And for that we are so sorry and embarrassed and also so completely thankful for, and amazed by, your gracious understanding and patience. We truly do have the world's best clientele.

While we will never ever be a “click and ship” company we sure do want to see the Dog run a little faster again. So, with that goal in mind, Billy and I spent late February and early March in San Miguel plotting a new, and hopefully improved, shipping schedule with our workshop team. We cut some items that seem to chronically clog up the production cycle and have categorized the rest of the line into four tiers depending on their fabrication time estimation.

This scheme is most definitely developmental and there are sure to be some snafus as we get it up and running but we are very hopeful that it will, at the very least, give you a clearer understanding of your expected delivery date when you place an order. Also, do know that these divisions are dynamic, depending on stock in Mexico. For example, the Artichoke lamp is classified as a DOG DASH item right now but as our back stock depletes it might move to the DOG TROT or DOG WALK tier, etc. It is our goal to eventually have a sprinkling of our best sellers permanently available in the DOG DASH section but we have a good bit of catch up work before we get to that stage of our plan.

Again, while we are wildly grateful for all the love and steady stream of orders, we are also keenly aware of the subsequent production bottleneck and promise you that we are doing our damnedest to teach this old dog some new tricks and get this issue rectified.

We thank you for loving the strays of the world and walking with us on this journey.

With gratitude, 

Jane Gray Pritchard 
Stray Dog's Co-Founder & Designer