Next To Nature

Next to Nature is a very special store. It is staffed by animal lovers who have a wealth of information they are very willing to share regarding anything and everything – their products and animals. I am a long-​time regular customer (both locations are great), and I rely on them very much to help me find special foods for the old sick cats I rescue. They have found things that my kitties will eat and keep down, when there has been nothing else they can eat due to their nausea from old age cat diseases.
I love their selection of toys, all carefully chosen for their cat safety, appeal, and they use locally made organic products such as their catnip toys. They are a conscientious group of animal loving people.
They also have a foster and adopt-​out cat program, where you can go and see the kitties right in the store in a spacious play room behind glass, and even go in the room and pet and interact with them to choose your new kitty. I have one of these adopted cats and she is awesome, having been very well cared for in her previous foster home. Since then I have found out about and prefer Whisker City in Shoreline for rescue/​adoption, a no-​kill feline rescue shelter whose cats are much more in need, since at least half of these cats are old, many with abuse, neglect and abandonment issues – really some sad cases of animal cruelty. These cats (including the younger ones without issues) don’t have the great exposure that Next to Nature’s kitties do, so are less likely to be adopted. The Comfort for Critters program
I represent donates comfort blankets to Whisker City.
The kitties at Next to Nature WILL be adopted due to their excellent head-​start at great foster care homes and the great exposure Next to Nature gives them – good for them! I give charity blankets and all kinds of cat supplies to them for their foster care program.
I just love everything Nature to Next does, and all they represent. And it’s just a great overall store for high quality pet supplies!

I love this place, and so does my dog. The staff are super friendly, helpful, and knowledgable about the foods and products they stock. After much hunting in many stores, I finally found the perfect harness for my pup, and Eric, the manager, spent a lot of time showing me how to fit it properly. Everyone asks where I got it and I am pleased to recommend this store and the people who work there. It’s fun to go in and say hello and check out the cats, too. Eric went to great lengths to help me find dog food my allergic dog can eat. Great parking and easy location, too. I hope they stay in business forever.

Special orders? No problem. Great local pet store, we go no where else for our supplies.

I bought some Christmas items here for my dog. The collar didn’t fit her so I was going to exchange it. I brought it in and was told they didn’t exchange clothing items or sale items. Since when is a collar clothing, she had never wore it. Ridiculous. For the $ 6 this pet shop just lost a good customer. Steer clear of this place as they are not consumer friendly.

I’ve been to both Next to Nature locations (there’s another one in West Seattle with a cute, grumpy cat lookalike that I love to stalk around the store). I went to this one looking for Orijen food, a dog food that came highly recommended to me. Unfortunately, they stopped carrying this brand (All the Best pet care in Edmonds still carries it), but the salesperson happily gave me various samples of their best-​selling dog food. She seemed really knowledgeable, I didn’t think it was possible for someone to know so much about dog food and dog nutritional needs across varying life stages.
My dog is an asshole. He literally would starve himself rather than eat kibbles, so my family and I have made a habit of cooking him rice, ground beef, and carrots, and occasionally sliced pears (his favorite fruit). WTF right? I don’t even cook for myself. So needless to say, I was very grateful to walk away with a plethora of samples, since he’ll likely reject a few, if not all. I was very impressed that the staff were very friendly and eager to help, despite me walking away with no purchase at all that day. Can you imagine the dirty look you would get if you were to go to a department store and ask for several different samples while making no purchase? Side note: The store was very clean and well organized the day I visited it.
My diva dog refuses to eat anything that normal dogs would like, but somehow, he goes NUTS for the all-​natural dental bones (shaped like little toothbrushes) that Next to Nature carries. He would play with it all day, as if trying to see how long he could exercise self-​control, and then devour it at the end of the day (sometime the next day). Inspired by this rare success with my dog, I’ve also bought the chicken breast jerky. I cut up little pieces of the jerky and mixed them in with his kibbles, and… Hallelujah! My dog finally ate dog food, we can now stop cooking him daily meals.
I recommend Next to Nature for their yummy, all-​natural* products that even the pickiest eaters would eat and for their exemplary customer service.
*I’m not well versed in the quality and standards of all-​natural pet food, so I only quote the labels when I say «all-​natural.»

A truly great local business that has high quality food and pet supplies, and an employee attitude to match. Love Next to Nature!

This isn’t the closest pet store to me, and it isn’t the most convenient to use as it is out of my normal shopping corridor. That said, I have used NTN for a few years now as I always found the staff nice and helpful, the products lines of good quality, and as they are an active adoption spot.
Sometime around January, something must have changed insofar as ownership or management and my experiences have just been getting worse and worse.
Although friendly, the staff seems somewhat «checked out». What I mean by this is that if you need to go beyond the basics of store directory and checkout, the helpfulness and knowledge just dwindles. For instance, I ran out of a particular flavor of dry food I’ve been getting from them for over a year. They were out, so I asked when it would be back in stock. They had no idea, but maybe on their next stock delivery. They couldn’t tell me when that was, didn’t seem to have the ability to look that information up, and instead finally settled on «sometime next week». I came back next week, same story. No idea about the products availability, when their stock was delivered, etc. I asked about they specifically ordering it for me then. Couldn’t do that, but would put me on a list to reserve a bag when it came in. It never came in and they never followed up on it. A few weeks later, I was looking for a specific toy that I know they carry. They had one left in stock. Again, same experience: no idea when they were getting more, no ability to check when stock delivery was happening, no ability to special order, etc.
Each time, I have resolved my issue by going to a close competitor of theirs and just ordering direct, and for no additional mark-​up over what I expected to pay. Which makes me wonder why, if their competitor has no issue filling my needs, why I just don’t completely switch to them.

First of all, NTN staff has always been more than helpful anytime we came in. I feel that their face to face customer service is great.
I guess what I didn’t appreciate was the fact that they stopped carrying our preferred dog food. The sales person gave me the 411 on why, even gave me a free 5lbs bag of the new one to try, but honestly I believe that my dogs didn’t like it as well and that was the only food they have ever had.
I emailed the company and told them about my dilemma but got no response from them. That is basically why I give only 2 stars.
Luckily we found our brand up the street.

I like the fact that Next To Nature has cats available for adoption in their stores. If you don’t see them, they’re probably hiding somewhere! Please ask to see who’s in need of a great home!

Great little pet supply shop located in downtown Edmonds just east of the fountain circle. Lots of good quality, natural food and treats for dogs, cats, and birds, a good selection of toys also.

really friendly folks, and very helpful.
also cheap organic dog treats! I love this little place.

I just came from Next To Nature, there was a boy and a girl, working the counter, the girl had copper colored hair, and she was so good, what great customer service she gave me, I wouldn’t even bother to give a review if it wasn’t for her, she made sure that I got my name added so that I could get my 13^th bag of cat food for free, she smiled, and what a great experience! The boy was nice too, but this little gal really went all the way in the matter of customer service! She is a keeper there, folks!

Very convenient store in the heart of downtown Edmonds. Nice and helpful people. Some of the doggy treats are cheaper than other stores, that’s why I’ll come here. Dog food same or a little bit cheaper than other places.

We love this store. Lots of parking, convenient location, great selection of high quality foods for both cats and dogs and a very helpful staff. We’ve been going here for a few years and recently adopted one of the cats they were fostering. The staff has an amazing knowledge of kitty behavior and with the shelter they work with was very thorough in ensuring that our chosen kitty was a good match for us, our children and our giant dog.
We buy everything for our pets here, bones, treats, toys, collars, supplements, you name it. It’s nice to find everything in one location. Highly recommend.

A great little pet supply store located in the heart of downtown Edmonds. Lots of parking, friendly staff and super animal friendly. We regularly bring our dogs to the store and the dogs have even been known to steal a random dog treat out of the bulk bin without so much as a peep from the staff.
They have frozen bones and food in the back and a great selection of high end dog and cat foods. Prices can be on the higher side, but you get what you pay for. Box treats can be found other places cheaper, but other items match or are better then other high end pet stores like Mud Bay.

I like the look and feel of this pet store– very natural– hence the name :)
My puppy loves their natural bulk treats, and they are very affordable.
I love all thecats roaming around as well.
Nice convenient location, perfect for my puppy and I to drop in on our walks.
Some stuff is a little pricy– but you are paying for quality food that is healthy for your little 4 legged friend.

Other then being convenient I’m not impressed. The staff they hire are a bunch of dimwits I don’t think any of them there really care about animals or customers they all seem to be behind the counter and visiting. I swear anytime I go in there to buy something it rings up at a different price and I have to say something.

Okay so I have shopped this store for a few years now and had been impressed with both the qualitiy of their food selection and variety of toys and other products. I had a really bad experience recently though that has made me have to find another place to shop. We have 4 cats and just added a puppy to our mix. With the addition of him, and in an effort to try things out and keep in stock on chew toys, squeekers and training treats, I found myself there on a weekly basis. On one of my visits the manager recommended a toy that had several squeekers in it as my dog is addicted to them. I got it home and in a flash my puppy had ripped through and was chewing on one of the squeekers of which could have choked him or worse, blocked his intestines if swallowed. Upon further inspection, the fabric of this toy was so fragile just running my fingernail across it would cause it to deteriorate, which to me seemed very unsafe. I took it back and told the manager, thinking she would be equally concerned only to have her rudely deny me any kind of exchange and tell me that they do not take responsibility for their fabric toy products. This was not posted anywhere in the store and was never mentioned to me when I was making the purchase. I was shocked by her negative response considering I was a regular customer and have spent alot of money in her store to have a $ 15 toy be worth more to her than keeping me as a consumer. So Sadly, even though they have a great selection, there is more to be said for customer service in my book.