The Guy Behind JettaJacks

If we’re going to have a place called The Barkroom where I spend my time giving opinions about dogs, walking gear and life with a couple of hounds, I suppose it’s only fair that I eventually introduce myself. I’m Todd Caverly, founder of JettaJacks & Co., dog guy, cottaging in Northern Ontario guy, and someone who would choose weathered wood over polished marble without thinking twice.

I’m also rarely very far from a cup of coffee. Preferably a big one.

The dogs in the picture are a pretty good introduction to me too. Some are still beside me and some aren’t, but every one of them has left something behind. They’re my kids with four legs each, and they’ve probably had more influence over the direction of my life than they’d ever understand.

Subtract 15 years! ;)

Give Me a Lake and Some Windswept Pines

Put me somewhere in Northern Ontario with a lake outside the window, rocky shoreline under my feet and windswept pines that have spent the last hundred years leaning into whatever Mother Nature threw at them, and I’m pretty content. There’s something about that landscape that has always felt right to me.

I’ve never needed things to be particularly polished. I like old wood, leather that gets better as it ages, comfortable rooms that look lived in and things that feel as though they have a story attached to them. I’d rather sit on a dock with a coffee than somewhere fancy wondering which fork I’m supposed to use.

Maybe that explains some of JettaJacks too. I’ve always believed good things should be made to be used, and dog gear is going to get muddy, wet, dragged through the woods, thrown in the truck and occasionally subjected to something the dog discovered beside the trail that we’d all prefer not to discuss.

That’s life with dogs, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Thirteen Years Ago, Life Changed

There is another part of my story that’s harder to fit neatly into a company biography. Thirteen years ago, I suffered an acquired brain injury after an aneurysm, followed by brain surgery, recovery and then the much longer process of figuring out what life looked like afterward.

An ABI doesn’t necessarily announce itself to everyone you meet. You can look perfectly fine while your brain is working extraordinarily hard to accomplish things that once happened without a second thought. That’s one of the strange realities I’ve had to learn to live with.

Over the years I’ve had to learn my limits, relearn things I once took for granted and accept that sometimes my brain and I aren’t going to agree on how the day should proceed. There have been good days, difficult days and plenty of days when I’ve had to find another way around something because going straight through it simply wasn’t going to happen.

I’m still working through it thirteen years later, and I suspect I always will be. It has become part of my story, but I’ve never wanted it to become the whole story.

So Where Did JettaJacks Come From?

JettaJacks wasn’t born from a corporate business plan or a boardroom full of people studying market opportunities. It came from dogs, from needing purpose and from wanting to build something useful with my own hands.

After my brain injury, rebuilding a life wasn’t simply about getting back to the person I had been before. Eventually I had to understand that some things were going to be different, and instead of constantly measuring myself against the old Todd, I needed somewhere productive to put the person I was becoming.

Dogs were already a huge part of my life, and making things was something I could do. Somewhere along the way, those two things found each other, and in 2016, JettaJacks & Co. began.

The Dogs Had a Lot to Do With It

The name itself came from dogs. Jetta, my black Lab, and Jackson, my chocolate Lab, became JettaJacks, which seems appropriate considering dogs have been interfering with virtually every major decision I’ve made since.

Over the years, the cast has changed. There have been Labs, hounds and enough personality wandering through the house to ensure I’ve never developed an inflated sense of my own importance. Today, Jackie and Red continue the tradition rather enthusiastically.

They are companions, family members, product testers, schedule disruptors and occasionally the reason nothing useful gets accomplished after lunch. Living with them also keeps me connected to something I think matters when you’re designing equipment for dogs: dogs aren’t measurements on a size chart.

They’re moving, pulling, twisting, sniffing, opinionated creatures who couldn’t care less what looked perfect on the workbench. They have a wonderful way of exposing your bad ideas, and that’s probably made JettaJacks products better over the years.

JettaJacks Became Part of My Recovery

I don’t know that I understood this when I started the company, but I understand it now. JettaJacks gave me somewhere to go, although geographically speaking, some mornings the commute isn’t particularly impressive.

It gave me problems to solve, customers to talk with, dogs to fit, equipment to improve and a reason to keep pushing myself when my brain would occasionally have preferred that I didn’t. It also allowed me to build a working life around some of the realities of an ABI rather than spending every day pretending those realities didn’t exist.

That’s an important distinction. JettaJacks didn’t cure my brain injury, it didn’t magically return my life to what it had been before, and I wouldn’t insult anyone living with an ABI by pretending that finding the right project makes everything okay.

What it gave me was purpose, and purpose can be a remarkably powerful thing.

Ten Years Later

It’s strange to think that JettaJacks is now approaching ten years old. What started small has put equipment on dogs of almost every imaginable shape and size, and along the way I’ve met wonderful customers, worked with independent retailers, made mistakes, redesigned things and learned a great deal.

I’ve also broken machinery, sworn at machinery, repaired machinery and discovered that owning a small manufacturing business occasionally requires qualifications in fields you didn’t know existed. Apparently “founder” is just a more impressive way of saying, “the person who has to figure out why the damn thing isn’t working.”

Through all of it, one principle has remained fairly simple: make something useful, make it well and be honest with people about whether it’s right for their dog. If one of our products isn’t the best answer, I’ll tell you, because I’d rather lose a sale than sell somebody something I don’t believe is right for the dog standing in front of me.

That’s probably not something you’ll find in many marketing textbooks. I’m okay with that.

The Things That Matter

At this point in my life, I’ve discovered I’m really not very complicated. Give me my dogs nearby, a comfortable weathered room, Northern Ontario outside the window and a lake surrounded by rock and pine, and I’m probably where I want to be.

Add good people, work that means something and the freedom to build things with my hands, and that’s a pretty good life. There will always be things I’d change, and an ABI has certainly taught me that life doesn’t ask permission before rewriting your plans.

But it has also made me considerably more aware of what matters and what doesn’t. The dogs matter, purpose matters, home matters, and making something you’re proud to put your name on matters.

And apparently, judging by the mug that’s rarely very far from my hand, coffee matters a great deal. Did I mention coffee?

So, That’s Me

I’m Todd, the guy behind JettaJacks, although “behind” may be giving me considerably more authority than the dogs would acknowledge. I’m still figuring things out, still learning from the dogs, still tinkering with equipment and still navigating a brain that occasionally decides we’re taking the scenic route today.

And when I can, I’m heading north. There’s something about a quiet lake, an old pine hanging over the shoreline and the sound of water against Canadian Shield rock that puts everything back where it belongs for a while.

Preferably with the dogs beside me and a fresh cup of coffee in my hand.

Okay, maybe two.