Melissa Floyd – Mrs. Toad’s Depot: Love for exotic animals turns into a business in Perry

Five years ago, a love for exotic animals grew in Melissa Floyd’s heart and during that time, her love developed into a passion to share with the community. In November 2016, Floyd and her husband, Jeffrey, along with their business partner/manager Gordon Hogestyn, opened Mrs. Toad’s Depot in Perry.

“We have lived in Perry now for 13 years,” said Floyd. “My husband worked at Tolleson Lumber Company and he’s now at Robins Air Force Base. He is the behind-the-scenes guy for the shop with keeping up with our Department of Agriculture licensing, etc. Before opening this business, I was a stay-at-home mom.”

Floyd and her husband adopted special needs children, twin boys, when they were 6 months old and will be 12 this July. One day five years ago, she said their son, Davis, wanted a frog and that’s when his love for exotic animals was sparked.

“We came across the store called Rats and Snakes in Perry; they are now closed,” said Floyd. “Here you have a pet store with the objective to sell and have this family come in wanting to purchase a frog for their son. But instead of selling me anything that he wanted, the owner, Paul Lord, took the time to educate me with honesty and integrity and to explain to me for my 6-year-old child that he didn’t need a red-eyed tree frog. It was not a good beginner pet; they require a lot of care and it’s one that sleeps all day. It was not the ideal pet to start when you never owned a reptile before.”

Floyd said she left there without buying anything but left as a customer for life because the owner had honesty and integrity instead of focusing on the almighty dollar. Two weeks later, they got an African fat-tailed gecko and continued to patronize Lord’s store. Not long after, Floyd and her family began to venture into the reptile shows across the states.

“We started going to these shows and my love grew even more for these animals, so then the kids started coming with me,” said Floyd. “My one son, Joseph, has autism and cerebral palsy. So over the years, he has had a lot of extensive therapy, but what really brought him out of his shell is when he went to the reptile shows. He wanted to use the barcode scanner because he was absolutely fascinated with it. Well, in order to use it, we had to teach him how to use the point of sales system on the laptop and in order for him to ring up a customer using the barcode scanner, he would have to give them their change or run their credit card. So, we taught him the whole thing. But in the end, you have to look at your customer and thank them for their business. A child with autism will talk to you all day long without looking at you; there’s typically no eye contact.”

“Through his (Joseph) desire to use a barcode scanner and ring up customers, he learned to help,” said Floyd. “People were ever so graciously patient with him. He really blossomed. With all that traveling every weekend to the shows, I was then ready to settle closer to home so that I wasn’t gone all of the time and didn’t want to miss any of my sons football and soccer games, which is when we kind of talked about opening the store.”

Floyd said she went back and forth debating whether to open up a store. In her mind at times, she thought it would be overwhelming, but with encouragement from Lord and a determination to bring the city of Perry what it has not had in a long time, she finally decided to open up the store.

“Now, we don’t sell puppies or kittens,” said Floyd. “But when people come in and ask, we always refer them to FOPAS (Friends of the Perry Animal Shelter). We do have some toys and treats for dogs, but it is a small line. Again, we offer exotic animals from lizards to snakes to toads, frogs and much more. We not only offer the most well-known exotics, we offer some that people may not even heard of like Australian blue dumpy frogs and panther chameleons, which we like to explain to the customers that the Valspar’s commercial is not accurate (she said laughing). We also offer fish, soon to have saltwater, and bunnies, ferrets, chinchillas. And last, but certainly not least, we are the only pet shop in middle Georgia that offers handfed birds. You will not find another private or national store in the area that offers these birds.”

“Our main purpose and goal is to educate first, then proceed with the sale,” said Floyd. “We want to offer that variety and knowledge we have to share. With Gordon, he has way more knowledge and experience in breeding than I do with exotic animals. But what we find is some people are not aware of the extensive care of these animals. What’s sad is sometimes they are so adamant to buy the pet that sometimes they end up losing it because they didn’t take proper care. For example, with some of the geckos, they have to have heated lamps. Well, with that, they need big tanks like a 20 gallon. If you put them in a 10 gallon, they can get overheated. We are here to help and are excited to grow with the community.”

Mrs. Toad’s Depot is open Monday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Floyd said they are in the process of creating their own webpage but have a Facebook page where people can stay up to date with the store.

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