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Happy 1 Year Anniversary of Diablo Dog Petstore

Writer's picture: Matt HeikkilaMatt Heikkila

It's been a busy 365 days. It started with our Grand Opening Party on September 30, 2023. Actually it didn't start with that: it started about 6 months before that. Well, in a way it started 10 years before than when I opened Diablo Dog Walking as an off-leash group dog hike providing company throughout Contra Costa County. I had spent the previous year walking dogs for a company called Woofwalks in Alameda county, following a year of looking for exotic animal training jobs, on the heels of 4 years of tiger training, and previous to that 2 years of attending Animal Training School. During all of these stages I was joined by my dog Loki who passed away in 2020 at the too young age of 16.


Me with Loki: the original Diablo Dog


But the vision of the store itself began June of 2023 when I interviewed a guy by the name of Anthony for a dog walking job. He had in the previous years changed career paths from accountant to dog trainer and while he was interviewing with us for the dog walking job, the interview quickly veered into a discussion about dog training methodology and it became clear that we had similar minds on the subject of animal training. I decided immediately that I wanted him on our team, but specifically I wanted to hire him as a dog trainer, and as we built up our dog training clientele he'd walk dogs for us as well.


So the next step was figuring out where he'd do that dog training work. Some of it would be in client's homes, of course, and some would be out and about on sidewalks or in parks, but what about the rest? What about when weather didn't cooperate? We needed an indoor dog training space. So I set off on trying to find commercial space to rent. A thing happened that has only happened with my house before it. The first place I looked at was the only place I looked at (in person). It was just perfect.


725 Alhambra Before Diablo Dog

A few years back I had a partnership with a dog groomer, and found it frequently useful even for providing baths when it was muddy in winter, so I definitely wanted to find a space where we could provide dog grooming as well.


The spot I found was affordable and had a great location right off Main Street in Martinez. I was told by the zoning department that I had to sell things and since I have trouble doing anything halfway I decided that instead of selling a few hats with Diablo Dog logos, I was going to open a full blown pet store and try to be a one stop shop for pet supplies.


Once we secured the space and a loan, we got to work on getting it ready for everything we planned to use it for. For grooming, we needed significant plumbing and electrical upgrades. We needed to have the layout where we could have dogs hang out while they were waiting, where we could provide grooming, do training, have our cashier area, and a waiting area. We needed shelves, we needed chairs, we needed dividers, we needed lots of merchandise, we needed grooming tables and tubs and specialized plumbing, we needed kennels and holding areas.



Diablo Dog Now

We bought most of the stuff as needed, but we did luck into Bed Bath & Beyond going out of business and a lot of shelving becoming available for absurdly cheap. We found a local sign company called GLT signs who not only manufactured our hanging sign and installed our door decal, but printed all of the prints in our store and later printed our price board. My stepmom, Sandra Choate, who's a fantastic artist, later added an incredible custom made mosaic address sign above the door to complete the whole thing.


The pre-opening process took nearly four months and we held our grand opening party on September 30th with mostly clients and friends and staff. It felt good to introduce you all to our space. At that point we were in the middle of our 10th year of providing group dog hikes in Contra Costa County.


We had some staff changes after a few months and found our fantastic long term groomer Sydney in early 2024. We also had a great bather help us out for a few months.



Groomer Sydney on left and Bather Tanya on right

Diablo Magazine's Best of the East Bay

In July of 2024 we won Diablo Magazine's reader poll for Best Dog Trainer, Dog Groomer, and Dog Walker. We also came in second place for Best of Martinez for Dog Groomer. While the accolades are great, it's still a challenge to get word out there, but we're working on it.






In the last 365 days we provided 886 Grooms and Baths and 404 Day Training Academy services in our store and numerous on and off-leash dog walking, neighborhood services and training services from Martinez, Concord, Pleasant Hill, Walnut Creek, Crockett, Alamo, Lafayette, Moraga, and Orinda. We walked dogs in at least 16 regional parks and open spaces, and from three times as many trailheads. We sold thousands of dollars worth of pet supplies (Over half of that was to my wife and I only wish I was kidding).


We tried our best to supply the pet foods our clients told us they use for their dogs, and then supplement those with the top quality, healthiest pet foods. We really did find all those lists of the best quality dog food and just went down from the top. We also have a fun variety of dog toys including brands like Kong, Chuckit, Lambchops and Outward Hound toys. We have a number of cat foods and toys and small animal foods as well. We have cat towers and dog beds, and even some grooming supplies, supplements and health supplies. We've even worked with some local artisans like Barbered Leather to make high quality leather leashes and collars, and Ropes for Rescues, a company that makes recycled climbing rope leashes and donates some proceeds to shelters. You can see everything we offer here.


We created a commercial and put it into local theaters like Brendan Concord, Veranda Luxe and Contra Costa Cinema.





We participated in about a dozen different events downtown, such as Brew Crawls, Trunk or Treats and Wine Stumbles (not sure that's the correct name for that one). Our next event is the Zombie Brew Crawl October 12 from 1PM-4PM. Sign up. It's a blast and it was our first Downtown Martinez event last year. We have a big idea on our horizon: we will be planning a Downtown Martinez Dog Festival along with the Downtown Martinez Organization that puts on so many fantastic events.


Over the years we've also had client meetups at Pt Isabel, which is a great place for our staff, clients, and dogs to enjoy each other's company.





In the near future we will be rolling out Pet Photography. One of our most recent dog walker hires Joey has some skills and experience doing human portrait photography, so he and I are working to get ready to offer you some pet photography options. I have a lot of experience mostly doing outdoor dog photos, exotic animal photos in captivity and nature shots. We'll be able to off our pet photography outdoors, in our own little in store studio, or in your home. We'll be offering just pet portraits, or pet portraits with the whole family.



Our current event is a Raffle for Reviews with some great prizes like free services and gift cards worth up to $500. It goes until 10/5 so please send in screenshots of reviews and win some great prizes!


There have been the usual challenges and struggles of any new(ish) business but the future looks bright. Our staff is talented and eager, and we have a lot of great services and cool goods on offer. Give us a call at 925-215-0410, check out our website, or visit our store soon to learn more. If we didn't see you in the last 365 we hope to see you in the next 365 and if we did see you in the last 365 we hope to keep seeing you.


-Matt Heikkila

Diablo Dog

(925) 215-0410

725 Alhambra Ave, Martinez










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