Dog treats keep the disabled working

DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) - Montgomery County is putting dozens of disabled people to work and the recipe for success starts with dog treats. Eight years ago an employee of the Montgomery County Board of Developmental  Disabilities Services came up with a recipe that dogs seem to like.

Charlie Pierce helps market the company Pets & People.  "We used to do a lot of hand assembly work. As that started to go offshore even before the economy started to get tight in the Dayton area we were trying to look to keep the people with disabilities employed and in order to do that we figured out we had to take charge we started some of our own businesses, Pierce said.

Three not-for-profit ventures fall under what's called MONCO Enterprises which is administered by the Montgomery County Board of Developmental Disabilities Services. The Pets & People folks cut out the dog treats by hand five days a week.  The treats are baked and cooled then packaged and sealed.

Once the work is done at the facility on Jergens Road and the treats are packaged you can find them in grocery stores, they have been successfully sold there, and now even liquor stores are interested in carrying the product.

To generate even further interest Shelagh McGovern set up a Pets & People Facebook page. Until March 7 you can post a picture of your dog and enter the cutest dog contest.  The winner gets a case of dog treats.

McGovern said, "The advertising is free. You can't reach 14 million people for zero dollars like you can on Facebook so the ability to you tell two friends and they tell two friends is exponential. Having more people know about Pets & People means more people buy are dog treats more people are working through MONCO Enterprises.

To like Pets & People you can go to the MONCO Enterprises web site. You'll find a link at www.wdtn.com.