If you’ve tried to visit the Drs. Foster and Smith website recently, you already have your answer. The site redirects straight to Petco.com. The brand is gone.
This wasn’t a rumor or a temporary outage. Drs. Foster and Smith permanently closed in early 2019 after Petco decided to shut it down and absorb the e-commerce operation into Petco.com.
This article covers exactly what happened — when it closed, why Petco made that call, what it meant for employees and customers, which affiliated brands like LiveAquaria survived, and what this story tells us about how large retailers treat the niche brands they acquire.
Drs. Foster and Smith Closed in 2019 — The Short Answer
Drs. Foster and Smith is no longer in business as a standalone retailer. This was not a bankruptcy. No court filings, no financial collapse. Petco made a deliberate decision to close all DFS operations and fold them into Petco.com.
In late January 2019, existing DFS customers received an email announcing the closure. The shutdown was expected the week of February 11, 2019. Petco also notified the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development in January 2019, formally filing notice of the permanent closure of all DFS operations in Rhinelander.
The DFS website eventually displayed a pop-up reading “Doctors Foster and Smith is now part of the Petco family,” along with a discount code for first-time Petco orders. Today, the site redirects to Petco.com. The brand itself is retired.
How Drs. Foster and Smith Became One of America’s Biggest Online Pet Retailers
To understand why this closure was a big deal, you need to know what the company actually was — because it wasn’t just another pet store.
Drs. Foster and Smith was founded in 1983 in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, by three veterinarians: Race Foster, Rory Foster, and Marty Smith. It started as a small mail-order catalog operation with just two employees and around $30,000 in revenue.
By 2008, the company had grown to over 550 employees and roughly $250 million in annual sales. That’s a significant business by any measure, especially for a company based in a small Wisconsin city.
What made DFS different from general pet retailers was its vet-owned identity. The founders weren’t just business people selling pet products — they were practicing veterinarians. That gave the brand real credibility with pet owners who wanted trustworthy advice, not just cheap prices.
The company also operated PetEducation.com, a resource for vet-written pet care content. This wasn’t a gimmick. It gave customers a reason to trust the brand beyond the products themselves. Alongside its general pet supplies, DFS was particularly strong in pet medications and specialty aquatics.
At its peak, Drs. Foster and Smith was one of the largest online pet supply retailers in the United States. That context matters when you consider what happened next.
Why Petco Bought the Company — and What It Said It Would Do
In late 2014, Petco agreed to acquire Drs. Foster and Smith. The deal closed in early 2015 for approximately $158.8 million.
On paper, the acquisition made sense for Petco. DFS had a strong digital presence, a loyal customer base, trusted veterinary content, and a specialty aquatics division through LiveAquaria.com. Petco was a large brick-and-mortar chain that wanted to grow its e-commerce footprint. Buying an established online retailer was a faster route than building one from scratch.
At the time of the acquisition, Petco publicly stated that Drs. Foster and Smith would continue operating as a separate brand. LiveAquaria.com and PetEducation.com were included in the deal and were also expected to keep running under their own names. The veterinarian founders were expected to stay on with the company initially.
From the outside, it looked like a smart acquisition — a large chain buying a trusted specialist and letting it keep doing what it did well. That’s not what happened.
What Petco Actually Did Four Years Later
For a few years after the acquisition, DFS continued operating under its own brand. But in January 2019, Petco changed course.
Petco notified the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development that it would permanently close all DFS operations in Rhinelander. The plan was straightforward: shut down the separate DFS brand and absorb its e-commerce business directly into Petco.com.
Reports on the exact closure date vary slightly. Some sources cite February 12, 2019, while the Wisconsin DWD filing indicated March 10 as the final closure date. Layoffs were carried out over a 60 to 120 day period. Either way, by early 2019, Drs. Foster and Smith was done.
The closure affected approximately 289 employees at the Rhinelander facility. For a small Wisconsin city, losing nearly 300 jobs from a single employer is a meaningful hit to the local economy.
What Happened to LiveAquaria and PetEducation?
This is where things get less clear-cut, and it’s a reason some people are still confused about whether any part of DFS survived.
When Petco announced the closure, it explicitly stated that LiveAquaria would not be affected. LiveAquaria, which sells live fish, corals, and other aquatic life, continued operating under its own domain. Its premium segment, Divers Den, also remained open. Hobbyist forums and reef aquarium communities confirmed this at the time and expressed relief that at least this part of the DFS operation would survive.
PetEducation.com, the vet-written content site, did not continue as an active resource the way LiveAquaria did. That content and brand effectively disappeared along with the main DFS site.
So if you’ve seen references to LiveAquaria still operating, that’s accurate — but it’s a separate brand, not a continuation of Drs. Foster and Smith as a retailer.
Why Did Petco Shut It Down?
Petco never released a detailed public explanation for the closure. What we know is based on the actions they took and the broader market context at the time.
A few factors likely played into the decision:
- Overlapping operations. Running two separate e-commerce platforms — DFS and Petco.com — with duplicated logistics, warehousing, and staff is expensive. Consolidating everything under one brand cuts costs.
- Competition from Amazon and big-box retailers. Online pet supply was getting more crowded and more price-competitive. Maintaining a separate brand in that environment requires significant investment.
- Brand consolidation. Petco likely decided it was more efficient to build a single strong online presence than manage two brands that overlapped heavily in product offerings.
None of these are officially confirmed reasons from Petco. But they fit the pattern of what happens when a large retailer acquires a smaller niche brand and later decides the cost of running it separately isn’t worth it.
What Happened to Customers
Existing DFS customers received email notices about the shutdown and were directed to Petco.com going forward. The DFS site showed a transition message promising that everything customers loved about DFS would now be available through Petco.
Many longtime customers were frustrated. DFS had built a reputation for reliable service, competitive pricing on pet medications, and genuinely helpful content. The perception among many pet owners — particularly aquarium hobbyists — was that Petco.com, as a general-purpose chain site, couldn’t replicate what DFS offered as a specialist.
That frustration is understandable. When a specialist store closes and tells you to shop at a general retailer instead, you’re not always getting a like-for-like replacement.
What This Story Shows About Acquisitions and Niche Brands
The Drs. Foster and Smith story is a useful case study in how acquisitions actually play out versus how they’re announced.
When Petco bought DFS in 2015, the public message was that the brand would continue independently. Four years later, Petco shut it down and absorbed it. This pattern — buy a niche brand, promise continuity, then consolidate — is common in retail and e-commerce.
For businesses, the lesson is that being acquired by a larger company doesn’t guarantee survival. A parent company’s priorities can shift. What looked like a strategic fit at acquisition can look like an expensive redundancy a few years later.
For consumers, it’s a reminder that brand loyalty doesn’t transfer automatically. When a trusted specialist brand disappears into a general retailer, the expertise, pricing, and product depth often don’t follow.
If you follow business news and want clear analysis of stories like this one, SlideJournal covers business topics in straightforward, practical terms.
The Final Word
Drs. Foster and Smith is no longer in business. It closed in early 2019 — not through bankruptcy, but through a deliberate decision by Petco to shut down the brand and consolidate its e-commerce under Petco.com.
The company had a genuine legacy: founded by veterinarians, built from a two-person catalog operation into one of the largest online pet retailers in the U.S., and trusted by pet owners for decades. That ended when Petco decided maintaining a separate brand wasn’t worth the cost.
LiveAquaria continues to operate independently. Everything else — the main website, the catalog, PetEducation.com, and the brand itself — is gone.
Also Read This:
