In 2002, Bob Garfield of On the Media called Fancy Publications "the Time Warner of the pet magazine business".
[1] After some financial difficulties, BowTie was restructured as I-5 Publishing in 2013 under the new ownership of David Fry and Mark Harris, and took on its present name in 2016.
Over the years, the company has launched, acquired, divested, or consolidated many pet-related paper and digital publications, including a number that have been dominant in their niches among North American speciality magazines and sites during various periods, including Bird Talk, Cat Fancy (merged into the Catster website and magazine), Dog Fancy (merged to Dogster), Dog World (purchased from Primedia Inc., and originally dating to 1916), Ferrets Magazine (merged to the Small Animal Channel website), and Reptiles.
[2] By 2013, BowTie had experienced months of financial difficulties caused in part by significant decreases in readership and in advertisement proceeds.
[2] In 2013, I-5 Publishing LLC, a new company founded by David Fry and Mark Harris, bought BowTie's businesses for an eight-figure sum.