About

Hi, I’m Jay, the person behind Jibber Gear. I handcraft every pooper scooper myself in Fargo, North Dakota, for people who love their dogs and want a straightforward tool for cleaning up after them.

I have no employees. Each scooper is made by me, using materials purchased from US suppliers, many of them family-owned and operated.

My life has always been filled with dogs—and more dogs. One minute they’re making you laugh, and the next they’re eating your new cell phone. But one thing is certain: you’ll never be bored with a pupsker around.

A life with dogs and tools

When I was a young boy in the early 1960s, we had a Norwegian Elkhound named Gretchen. When I was almost ten, we moved to the country, and our family grew to include lots of dogs. My mother was a huge dog lover: the more, the merrier.

Whether you have one dog or a whole pack, one thing comes with them: poop. Lots of dog poop. I wasn’t thinking about designing pooper scoopers back then. That came much later.

I grew up as a mechanically inclined farm kid, surrounded by equipment and tools and always looking for the next thing to make or improve.

In the mid-1990s, I went to work for a direct-mail vitamin company in Fargo. I spent 13 years there and introduced more than 1,400 new products, gaining experience in product development along the way.

“I can outdo this thing”

In 2007, I started a handyman business that evolved into a snow and lawn service. At customers’ homes, I kept seeing broken, twisted-up pooper scoopers. It seemed like a simple job deserved a better tool.

Then my partner’s father brought me a scooper that needed to be brazed back together. I repaired it, but that homemade-looking tool gave me an idea. I took it back to my partner and told her, “I can outdo this thing.”

At the time, we had Chopper, also known as Jibber, our first Doberman together. My partner was using a small hand shovel for cleanup, and I was using a spade. We needed a new scooper ourselves.

From prototypes to the Natural

Around 2010, I started building prototypes. The first ones weren’t much to look at, but they were good enough to keep me going.

Eventually, I made one that worked very well. It was too large and too heavy, so the next job was to downsize it and find the right materials. That process led to a design close to the model I now call the Natural.

The feel of a traditional tool

From the beginning, I knew how I wanted my scoopers to look and feel. I wanted the tradition and solid feel of the farm tools I grew up around, combined with a design that worked for dog waste cleanup.

My goal was to make a tool that helped people clean their lawns and maybe smile a little more while doing it. Just as important, I wanted customers to know there was a real person behind the product who cared about their experience.

Today, I still make each scooper myself in Fargo. You can compare the Natural, Everyday, and Dozer models to find the one that suits your cleanup needs.

Questions? Ask the person who makes them

If you have a question about my scoopers, please get in touch at jibbergear@hotmail.com.

Happy Scooping,
Jay
Jibber Gear LLC