honestly, F#*K brand development…

Feb 19

He was all “nugget-ed up”, asleep in his half moon pose. His big paws all tucked together, his head on my arm; my other arm across his warm, barrel chest; my face in his neck. His soft, hook wing ears, twitching, from my hair tickling them, but never moving away. I squeezed him tighter, the thought crossing my mind for the ten thousandth time today, you’re such a good boy..how did we get such a good, damn dog?? As if he heard my thoughts, or felt the dew from my eyes, he heaved that cozy, old man sigh that sounds like love. The one that makes us go, “awwwww…!” every single time, like a couple of saps. Another cat jumped on the bed and he opened one eye, sighed a different, old man sigh, and fell back asleep.

Not a minute later his paws began twitching, his soft muzzle forming quiet “rrooo ooff!…..rrooo…WOOF!” and tail thumping. Suddenly, my little nugget felt like a stead at churchill downs, and I could barely stop my laughter from waking him from such a good dream. Such a good dog, I thought once more, and like animals always tend to do… I realized what a stupid human I had been. Life is so good. Life has good dog. Ugh. I am an a-hole….

This food saved my dog’s life.

Fuck a brand. Wanting to come across as professional. I had found myself lying awake again, ticking off the things I need to finish… trying to figure out why I couldn’t make the conditional logic form plugin dealio use your dog’s name in sequential questions, dammit… isn’t that logical.. !?! Or why I have to download 7 different programs to make one stupid pdf label FLIP 90 DEGREES for printing so I don’t waste paper..or why the printer only comes online when it wants to?! (I day dream of the scene from Office Space once a day now…) I was thinking how I need to email those people who know these things better than myself, and offered their time; hell, some offered to invest financially already! Because they believe in us! But I couldn’t bring myself to. Because…we aren’t big enough? We don’t have a panel of experts? I want the time to add coding to my ‘jackie of all trades’ this journey has led me to become? I hadn’t figured out affordable, sustainable shipping yet…!

Whether imposter syndrome or pride, fear of vulnerability, or of becoming as powerful as we all can become when we embrace it…I’ve erased this post and a 1000 others, a 1000 times. Held emails in drafts. Focused on CRMs or SEOs or whatever acronym I could come up with to keep myself from simply asking you to trust me. Worried my name, or my partners, didn’t have another set of 3 letters behind it; to prove we had the right to tell you what we know is truth. To share our journey. I thought a “clean, concise website” and marketing strategy with a catchy phrase and and

Quote’s in big, bold letters... Stating things like “veterinarian recommended!” and “complete and balanced"!

would make you feel safe…

but

that’s all bullshit.

(Actual poo. really… totally allowed in kibble.)

Those statements? Require NO evidence WHAT so ever to back them up. On the off chance you get a kibble company into court, one vet simply has to say, “yeah, I said that”. And “complete and balanced”??? Oh lawrd, suga. You don’t even want to know… you can puree a leather shoe, saw dust, and water with toxins in it to meet the minimum nutritional standard currently set for our pets. IT IS FUCKING TERRIFYING the shit we have found out in our own journey to finding the right nutrition for our boy, William. One in honor of my girl Kali..who’s body went to research after acute kidney failure at a healthy, 6 years old. She was on a “high quality, vet recommended, complete and balanced” bag of: big business not giving the rotten, rats asses (also totally allowed in dog food) they were packaging with shiny, new gimmicks and selling to compassionate animal lovers for 5x the profit. Dog food can BE FOUND to be causing DISEASE AND EVEN DEATH and REMAIN ON THE SHELVES. No way, right? It is not FDA regulated, not for human consumption, so it is deemed no threat.

I didn’t want to “fear porn” or “shock value” you. I wanted to show you the happy videos first. Tell you how William was told last year, ‘not to play ball or run anymore’, because his arthritis had gotten so bad we carried him to the vet on a blanket. His body had been weakened from recovering from cancer surgery just a month or so before. See, William found us when he was already almost 12 years old, and was diagnosed soon after. I wanted to tell you how he had been found in my yard…only a few months after loosing Kali; how when I met him he sat on my feet. He slumped his 80 pound beefcake body against mine and looked directly into my eyes; unwavering, they told me to stop mourning Kali; forgave me; but he needed help. I know that sounds nuts, I do….but I didn’t realise until recently.. while I nodded, sobbing like a fool (like I am now)… he told the story of how they all did, but finally, we were all together. Things had begun to change.

I wanted to tell you that he doesn’t just run in his sleep. That at age 14 he plays ball. He runs. He’s cancer free. And, more than anything, I wanted to tell you I am sorry. That I haven’t been shouting louder, scaling sooner. I was so worried about how to earn your trust, that I have all but entirely betrayed it.

My dog grounds me, saves me, reminds me of pure empathy and love… every fucking day. He just put my pride and insecurities in check—in his sleep. Our site may not be perfect, but our food is pretty damn close. We are not vets, we do not claim any magic cures. Rather, we work hand in hand with our clients vets, holistic practitioners. We don’t have corporate funding , heck we don’ have a commercial dishwasher; but every batch you receive gets taste tested by us and William. If your pup doesn’t like it, we’ll replace it free. If you don’t like my cussing, Charles will talk with you about other options.(Duct Tape, maybe?) We’ll teach you our recipes and how to add nutrients the right way if you’d rather. We would love to make it for you… But we’d rather be bankrupt in a world of healthy dogs than ‘rich’ in a one without them.

Citations and more content coming soon! Call, email, message, text, insta, pinsta, bookface, two solo cups and a string. . we’re here.

Because great dogs really do deserve good food.

Dani