Our Story

Why the dash?
Happy-Bee is named for three of owner Kim Dove’s dogs.

  • Happy

    Happy Dog appeared one hot May afternoon in a field at Kim’s day job. Drastically underweight and crawling with critters, the six(ish)-month-old puppy was in dire need of help. Whether he’d wandered from a neglectful home looking for a meal, or been dumped, he found his way to building where one of Kim’s coworkers (and great friend!) was working. Luckily, she knew who to call.

    Kim took one look at the tired, scraggly pup and scooped him up.

    “He smiled at me,” Kim says, with a shrug. “That’s all it took. I knew he was mine.”

    Thanks to the modern wonders of canine genetic testing, Kim now knows that Happy is a (handsome!) mix of at least eight breeds. Even though Happy closely resembles a Golden Retriever in many ways, he’s actually more Australian Shepherd than anything else.

    Happy is, indeed, and happy guy! At around two years old, he takes nothing for granted, and loves learning and competing in Rally Obedience.

  • Honeybee

    Kim dreamt of adopting a retired racing greyhound since she was a little girl. Finally, when the time was right, Bee (previously Island Girl) came home to the Dove home in 2019, just after her second birthday. Long on talent, but low on motivation, Bee wasn’t much of a racer. But she is an excellent couch potato!

    Now almost eight, Bee rules the roost at home, keeping her adopted brothers in line.

    Bee is also the inspiration for Kim’s notebook business and parent company: Honeybee Hound Designs LLC.

  • Dash

    You guessed it!

    This little tornado is the newest addition to the Dove household. Dash’s beginnings were not tragic like his new brother, Happy. Kim thought she was bringing home a dachshund mix (as did everyone else involved!), but Dash’s breed testing revealed what nobody expected!

    Dash is neither dachshund, nor corgi, nor basset, or any other “short” breed that might explain his stature. (Dash is twice as long as his is tall!) To everyone’s surprise, Dash is Australian Cattle Dog, Chihuahua, Beagle, Mini Aussie Shepherd, and a few other things, too. Somewhere along the way, he inherited a dwarfism gene that gives him his body type — the same gene that gives dachshunds (and others) a similar build. Dash is certainly a “dash of this, and a dash of that.”

    As Kim brainstormed names for the fledgling company with her husband, she suggested Happy Bee.

    “But, what about Dash?” Kim’s husband frowned, clearly concerned the puppy was being left out.

    Kim hit one more key on the keyboard, and Happy-Bee Flower Market was born.

Sometimes an idea takes hold and won’t let go.

That’s what happened for the owner/creator of Happy-Bee Flower Market in late 2024. After graduating from College of the Ozarks with a degree in Graphic Arts only months before the onset of the Great Recession of 2008, Kim Dove found herself making the best of what jobs were available for a recent college grad. You know the old catch: it’s hard to get a job when you don’t have any experience; but how do you gain experience without a job?

So, she made lemonade with lemons, building on the skills she’d learned in her campus job as a landscaper (and florist), and off-campus jobs as a dude wrangler and certified fitting specialist for New Balance shoes. Hey, a girl’s got to eat!

This trajectory lead to a long list of varied experience, from dog walker to zookeeper, groundskeeper, maintenance woman, customer service agent, to executive administrator, graphic designer (finally!), photographer, and event planner. Always learning, always filling in, always doing whatever needed done; but never getting ahead, and yet endlessly hustling for the benefit of someone else’s dream. Nothing seemed to last longer than a few years, no matter how much dedication, overtime, or mastering of out-of-the-box tasks she put forth.

And one day, as another hopeful road seemed to be fading and the familiar drudgery of “what now?” reared it’s head, a new sensation crept in: the value of fleeting Time.

Time, the currency of life. We must spend it at a rate that grows more rapid with each breath. There’s no buying more. No earning it. No amount of hustle, or determination, or stress-filled days will slow the debit. And eventually, we all run out of Time.

And Kim was done wasting hers. So, what would she do, if she could do anything at all?

Happy-Bee Flower Market — sharing her favorite things with others. Making the most of Time, and maybe, bring a smile to someone else in the process.