2026 RULES AND INSTRUCTIONS

ELIGIBILITY

Entrants must:

• Be a U.S. brick-and-mortar pet store with or without services OR be a U.S. brick-and-mortar pet service provider with significant retail.
• Have been open at least three years prior to contest start date of Feb. 1, 2026. Our goal is to feature only stable, solidly successful businesses as America’s Coolest. Entrants also must attest that their business is not currently for sale nor do they plan to sell it during the contest period ending June 2027. We understand that situations change, but we only choose eight winners and want to ensure we can profile each within the contest year.
• Have 10 or fewer locations.
• Have NOT previously been featured as an America’s Coolest pet business. Our goal is to shine a spotlight on as many different cool pet businesses as possible. So if you’ve won before, think of this as sharing the love with your fellow indies. You’ve had your time in the spotlight; now give others a chance to shine.

TO ENTER

CLICK HERE to create an account. Doing so will allow you to save a draft of your entry and update it later as needed. In order to be considered for the competition, entrants must complete all required fields in the entry form and submit all required materials:

1. Business history and other questions

Entrants must answer this question: “Tell us your business history,” in which you share the story of how your business came to be.

Entrants also must answer four additional questions about their business, but they can choose which additional ones they’d like to answer. NOTE: FYI, past winners answered most if not all of the questions, providing the judges with many reasons to give them high scores. If you do the bare minimum, you will not win. Here are the questions to choose from:

• What’s cool about the physical design of your business?
• What’s cool about your team? And/or how you support them?
• What’s cool about your website and any other digital tools such as apps?
• What’s cool about your marketing, including social media?
• What’s cool about your community presence?
• What’s cool about the operational or structural part of your business?
• What’s cool about your customer experience?
• What’s one out-of-the-box idea you have implemented in the past few years?

Finally, there’s an extra credit question that allows you to tell us something about your business that you haven’t yet.

2. Two to 12 color, high-resolution images of the business’s exterior. (JPEG files only, up to 20MB in size.)

3. Six to 12 color, high-resolution images of the business’s interior. (JPEG files only, up to 20MB in size.)

4. One to three color, high-resolution photos of your business’s owners. (JPEG files only, up to 20MB in size.)

NOTE: We HIGHLY recommend you have your business professionally photographed — or at least photographed by a team member with outstanding skills; entries will not be considered complete if only low-resolution (web-quality) images are submitted. Please aim for 4 by 6 inches at 350 dpi.

5. Marketing samples. Three to 12 examples of your print, radio, billboards, stationery and collateral. (Image files should be JPEG or PDF format, up to 20MB in size.)

Until April 15, 2026, you may log in to edit and submit your entry by going to petsplusmag.com/enter and clicking on “LOG IN.” If you forget your password, click on the link in the “LOG IN” page to request it.

JUDGING METHODOLOGY

Step 1: PETS+ editors will verify eligibility and rate each eligible business from 0 to 100 in six categories — story, exterior, interior, digital presence, marketing and individuality — to determine finalists.

Step 2: A panel of industry experts and previous winners will rate each finalist from 0 to 100 in the same six categories.

Step 3: Winners will be determined by combining and ranking all scores.

WINNERS

Winners will be notified in June. The businesses will be named in the July-August issue of PETS+ and featured in the magazine through May-June 2027. Entering the contest indicates an understanding that a writer will interview the business’s owner or manager and that the business has submitted high-resolution images of the business and owner(s) for publication. Winners will be permitted to use the America’s Coolest logo in their promotional materials, indicating they have been chosen as such by PETS+ magazine. There will also be certificates and trophies!

MEET THE 2025 WINNERS

Read online profiles of our 2025 America’s Coolest pet businesses, which appeared/will appear in the July-August 2025 through May-June 2026 editions of PETS+.