SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Jessica Coulombe said changing the name of JJ Hobbies was a chance to kill two birds with one stone.

JJ Hobbies is morphing into a new store – and in a new location, albeit just next door. Owners Jessica Coulombe and Scott Anderson have moved the animal and hobby shop to the old Wolverine Guns and Tackle location under the name Artistic Hound. Coulombe said it is scheduled to be fully open at the new location on March 1. - Andrew Livingstone/NNSL photo

As of March 1, the nearly 40-year-old store will be known as The Artistic Hound and will also be in a new store, two doors down from its current spot, in the old Wolverine Guns and Tackle location.

More spacious than their current location, Coulombe said since rumblings of Wolverine closing down began last year, she's been interested in taking over the roomy location.

"I said if it ever came open that I would want the spot," she said from the store Monday, prepping the location to open on March 1.

Coulombe said since coming back from vacation in mid-January, it's been a whirlwind of a time preparing for the big move, something she said she was elated to have, despite the delays getting the new flooring in, something she said was the biggest challenge.

"We wanted to bring more products in," she said. "We have a lot of customers who asked for new stuff all the time and in that location we never had enough room. We were reduced down to 18-inch aisles in some places, so this will be nice."

Coulombe said the store plans to expand on what products it offers.

"We're going to be expanding in the professional arts area and we'll be expanding on some of the pet lines."

Coulombe, along with co-owner Scott Anderson, have been moving product from the old location to the new one, all the while keeping the doors open so customers can still get their pet and art needs filled.

"It's a lot of running back and forth but it's OK," she said, adding she and Anderson plan to complete the move this Sunday when the store is closed. "Instead of closing doors completely we stayed open and if someone needs food we can run over and get it."

The change to The Artistic Hound became part of the move because of the fact, as Coulombe put it, the store isn't so much about hobbies anymore.

"It hasn't been a hobby store so much," she said, since purchasing the store almost two years ago. "We get a lot of people coming in looking for odd things all the time that we don't carry, so we might as well just refocus and change the name. We've got to change the name so we might as well change it to what we want.

"We wanted to fuse the professional art supplies with the pet stuff, so we picked a name that would put the two together. We're a little bit of both."

Coulombe said once the new location is up and running smoothly, they hope to start being able to give back more to the community with a series of youth-oriented programming, focusing on pets and the arts.