A Dog Treat Business Journey

The dog on the left is Petey, who is no longer with us, but was the inspiration for our logo.  Dunkin is on the right and as of this writing is almost 15 years old.

We hate leaving our pups behind when we need to go somewhere.  Honestly even when driving around town and doing errands.  I feel bad leaving them at home or in the car when they want to join in.  

My husband and I brainstormed a bit about the idea of having packaged dog treats easily available. 

But there were definite considerations as we pieced the ideas together:

• I wanted to make sure that Good Paws treats could be well tolerated by the majority of dogs out there.  From our own experience, I knew that many dogs have sensitivities to grain and that is why I went with a “grain free” approach.  
• I also wanted to make sure the treats were human grade. One of the first people I talked to about my treats said “make sure they are safe for my kid to eat because they are the first ones to try the dog treats!”
• Also had to make sure the packaging actually showed the treats themselves.  I hesitate buying things when I can't see what is actually in the package.
• Based on work commitments, I would be the one to primarily make the treats and work on the business.
• In addition to making the treats, I REALLY wanted to provide an avenue for people to increase the connection and bond that they have with their dogs.  We have had a lot of different experiences with our dogs, and I thought, perhaps it would be helpful to share some experiences that may be new to some folks.

Ok so with those goals, how do we get started?

Steps Along the Way

Meeting Angie

I remember meeting Angie at a local dog faire where she was selling her treats.  She was super nice, and I felt like we really connected.  I can’t remember if I met her before or after having this idea of making treats myself, but in any event, at some point I wanted to reach out to her.  I had her name but didn’t have any other means of contacting her.

I tried Linked In several times but to no avail.

Months after trying, on impulse I tried again.  And… she popped up on the search!  She had “just joined” LinkedIn like 3 days earlier so I was very excited to make that connection.      

Angie was VERY helpful in getting me started with the dog treat business.  She had recently sold her business, ironically to someone in my office at a software company – what are the chances of that, and was now working as a consultant.  I hired Angie to help me understand the “business side” of a dog treat business as well as guidance on developing recipes.  

I developed my own recipes, and to make them grain free, I tried different types of grain and gluten free flours. I also started with a peanut butter treat and a parmesan cheese treat. I figured some dogs love everything, but there are also definite peanut butter lovers and cheese lovers among the canine crowd, so I wanted to cover at least those 2 bases. All the recipes only have 3 ingredients.  

Going from a home kitchen to a commercial kitchen

After making treats in our home kitchen for a while, I needed the next step to more easily increase volume and not take over my entire home kitchen.  In my mind I was wondering if I could rent time at real bakery or commercial kitchen…

I was literally at a friend’s party, standing at the kitchen island verbalizing with friends what I was looking for.  Right then my friend Neelima turned to me and said she was soon starting a commercial kitchen for people to rent time in a neighboring town.   Even though I knew her (and knew she LOVED  food), I had no idea she was starting such a venture.

All that timing was pretty crazy…

The above picture is what the interior of Creative Chef Kitchens looks like.

I became one of Neelima's initial clients, and it was very helpful working with her and the larger pieces of equipment.

Selling treats and getting back to that travel idea…

With the ability to create more volume, it felt like the time to approach more places to sell the treats.  I was in a few local stores, but really wanted to see if the treats would work in travel venues.

My husband and I would often fly out of Boston Logan airport.  In the terminal, there is a gift store catering to travelers, so I “nervously” asked one of the folks there if “people look for things for their dogs”.  The store manager at the store, Mitch, was SUPER helpful, said "YES they do!"  Over time I brought him samples.  He eventually got the samples to his buyers and over time Good Paws was selling across the country.

It was super fun to see my treats in different airports such as when traveling through Newark and out west.

During this time, I had increasing orders and needed help filling the bags.

Getting a connection with Easter Seals

I had always thought about involving folks from Easter Seals or similar organizations to help in the business.  These were dog treats. They are low stress items; they don’t have to be perfect, and it’s all about the intention for connection with our dogs.

I wanted to utilize an organization like this for at least a couple of years, but now I really needed help to fulfill the orders I was getting.

One day a friend asked if I would sub for them during a BNI networking meeting.  I agreed to do that and met a person, Joe, who was an Edward Jones consultant.  Months later, I knew Joe had a dog and just opened a new office.  When driving by his office, I thought to drop off some treats for his dog.  We were chatting, and I mentioned that I really wanted to utilize folks from Easter Seals but I am not sure how to do that.

…and then he said, "my sister is one of the directors in the Manchester, New Hampshire office." That office is just north of us.  Huh!  Well that's amazing.

I soon after contacted her and was able to get the help I needed with some wonderful folks who helped me for time with both packaging and production.

Again…what are the chances of that!

Here are some of the wonderful folks who helped me at Creative Chef Kitchens.

Taking a closer look at costs and pricing

Things were going well selling the treats, however, what I didn’t understand at the time was the concept of “margin”.  I did not truly understand how much it cost me to produce and ship the treats.   It was a big lesson, but luckily the numbers became known that I wasn’t making enough money to support a business selling treats at the current pricing before anything serious happened.

I went back to the travel related company and we could not come to an equitable pricing agreement, so I stopped selling with them.  

And at about that time, Covid hit, so it was helpful to have a pullback at that time as well.

I have to say however, even though it didn’t work out at those travel stores, I am so grateful for the experience it gave me.  And I think about them with that appreciation every time I am at Logan airport.

Can you make an allergy-friendly treat?

I then got a call from our holistic veterinarian, Dr. Martha.  We have 2 dogs, and in addition to a “conventional” veterinarian, we take them to a “holistic” veterinarian.  Holistic veterinarians are properly licensed DVMs but much more focused on the food and nutritional intake of animals in order to prevent and treat health conditions.

Dr. Martha asked “Can you make an allergy-friendly version of your treats because I have a lot of patients on limited food diets”.

And with that question, and her help as to ingredients to try, we now have our Apple Recipe dog treat – again with only 3 ingredients.  This recipe works really well for the vast majority of her patients with food allergies and sensitivities. 

The Good Paws Apple recipe is actually our best seller because it is very difficult for folks to find a clean treat for their sensitive dogs to have.

Another funny point about our apple treat is that literally the day after settling on making the apple treats, my Aunt Judy, who lives in Arizona at the time and had no idea I was looking to add another dog treat recipe, texted me to suggest that I should make an apple treat.  Her text was one sentence – “I think you should make an apple dog treat.” And that was it.  I can still see the text in my mind.

That text came totally out of the blue, and for me, it was a lovely confirmation that this was the thing to do.

Thank you, Aunt Judy, for your VERY timely text and perfect advice.

We could not have planned that…

Registering a trademark

One of the things I thought I should do is register the Good Paws logo for a trademark.  Not totally sure it was necessary at this point, but I am glad that I did it.  It’s a bit of a process and I did get help from a friend who is an IP attorney, so I know it was done correctly.  It’s all about showing the little R with a circle around it on the logo.  The idea is that someone else cannot register a similar logo potentially causing a consumer to be confused about what brand they are buying.

The only reason I am mentioning it here is that when I got the approval, the person reviewing and approving the application gives their name.  The person who approved the Good Paws logo had the first name of Gina, spelled just like I do, and I thought that was a really nice twist to it.

I don’t think it is really that common of a name…

Calling in more help

At some point when you start a business in an area you don’t have a lot of background in, you realize you need help if you want to grow.

A good friend of mine arranged a Sunday brunch for about 6 people where during our time together we could each spend time with a psychic if we wanted to.  I was game, and the psychic asked me if I had a company (I didn’t tell her that I did ahead of time), and I said “Yes, I do.”  She went on to say that I would find a woman to help me with the “technical aspects of the business”.

Now in my mind, when someone says “technical aspects” I was thinking about the computer / website side of things, and I thought to myself, I don’t really need that… since the site itself is fairly easy to manage…

However… a couple weeks after I was seeking help with learning about the food retail side of things and came across a consultant named Alli Ball that has a program called Retail Ready through her Food Biz Wiz company.

The funny part was in watching one of Alli’s video promotions she specifically mentioned that she helps her clients with “the technical side of pitching to buyers” (meaning learning all the ins and outs about that).   Once I heard that, I remembered what the psychic said and signed up!

Through Alli’s program, I learned a lot about getting ready to get on retail shelves as well as the names of many other high-quality consultants to learn from and work with.

Finding a copacker

For quite some time I had been trying to find a copacker on my own.  A copacker is a company that can make a food product for you from your own recipes.  It was a daunting task, but one I took on quite vigorously but to no avail in “finding a good match”.

Through Alli’s program, I came to know about a woman named Ashley.  I totally resisted working directly with Ashley because I didn’t want to spend the extra money for something I felt I could do on my own – until I realized I couldn’t.  Again and again I had the “nagging thought” that I should work with her but I was very stubborn.

I finally bit the bullet and starting working with Ashley.  She had a great way of prepping me for the transition to a co-packer, and soon after one day literally out of the blue, called to say she thought she had found someone for me to work with.  Turns out Ashley was taking a fun cross-country road trip with her boyfriend at the time (now her husband). While they were out and about on the road, she stopped by a couple different co-packers to check them out.  After talking with this one in particular, she arranged meetings for us to talk and it all worked well to jointly decided to take the next steps.

Thank you Ashley for going on that road trip and checking things out!

Doing a test day

Before going full production with a copacker, you do something called a “test day” where the copacker makes a smaller version of your recipe to make sure it is something they can produce and determine what the cost is to do so.

During our test day, we were having quite a bit of trouble producing my apple treat recipe.  I think I stayed pretty calm, but it wasn’t a great situation because that was my best-selling treat.  In my mind I am thinking, if they can’t do this recipe, this isn’t going to work very well.

Literally out of the blue (a theme of this entire dog treat journey), a friend of mine, named Kathleen, completely randomly sent me a text with 3 pictures of herons.  Now Kathleen did not know I was doing a test day at this new facility, nor did she know that herons are actually a significant animal for me.  I often see herons in obvious ways when I am “on the right track” of something.  I feel they are there for encouragement.  This speaks to an Animal Spirit / Totem type of connection which many people, myself included, have with specific animals.

Kathleen has also never sent me a text with animal pictures before.  She just said that she felt for some reason she wanted to send me the 3 pics before she deleted them off of her phone.

Soon after that, the head baker figured out a change that worked so they could produce the apple treat.

Upon further investigation when reading some notes I kept about that day, apparently at some point during the day, I asked to myself "Where is heron?" since I typically see them as encouragement.

Thank you everyone!

The rainbow appears

So now with the ability of the copacker to make all the recipes, they did their analysis and sent me a price proposal a few days later.  I was happy with it.  But what cracked me up is later that same afternoon I received the email, I went out for a walk at our local park with our 2 dogs.  While on the path, someone said “hey look at that rainbow!”  and when I looked up, I saw this beautiful rainbow which again I took as a good sign for what was happening that day.

A few other moments

Here are a couple other moments:

• I had to return the Creative Chef Kitchen key to Neelima, since I was no longer going to be working at her kitchen.  As I was pulling out of the garage to drive there, the first song I heard on the radio was the song "Time for Me to Fly" by 38 Special.  I totally noticed it because in essence that was a symbol of the transition I was making that day.
• Next, when I was at the co-packers doing my first larger production run, my friend Jake who I knew from Creative Chef Kitchens texted me “just to say Hi” right as we were starting in the copacker kitchen.  I hadn't seen or talked to Jake in a really long time, he had no idea that was my first time producing in the new kitchen that day, and his message’s timing was absolutely perfect.

And here is one more…

Late one afternoon, I got last minute text to attend a political party meeting happening that night for a friend of ours in town.  I didn’t really want to go, but I did want to show support for our friend. 

When getting ready to go that night, I dropped a perfume sampler bottle and broke it.  At first I thought - ugh, this is going to take time to clean it up and I didn’t want to be late.  But then I had a knowing that it was all OK because for some reason it will provide perfect timing.  This idea about right timing got a bit more accentuated because I knew I should deal with vacuuming it up right now vs waiting until I got home, but I was tempted to leave that last step. 

I thought about it again and decided to do the final cleanup right then. 

So now when I arrived, a lot of people were already there so I got “in line” to go up the stairs in Town Hall where the meeting was taking place (Windham Town Hall was built in 1798 – read ‘typical New England long, narrow staircase’).

I ended up standing right behind a friend who was also attending named Ralph.  We started chatting and I was telling him about my dog treat business.  Then he said, oh you should give me your card because my wife Beth used to work for a pet food retailer (Loyal Companion – which actually got bought out) and she might be helpful. 

Well I know Beth, and I knew she did retail, but I had no idea she was pretty high up in this local pet-related chain.  So we did meet, and Beth was EXTREMELY helpful in providing feedback on a key marketing document called a “Sales Sheet” that I provide to retailers as well as other aspects of approaching pet retailers.

Crazy…and perfect timing.

I believe...

Each person has their own unique path that gets them from where they are to where they want to go.

As each of us decides to and goes along that path, I believe the universe (greater forces/source/God) helps us along the way. 

Over the years I have seen this type of help come in all different forms – whether it is someone I meet serendipitously, or an encouraging song on the radio/Pandora or some other unplanned event.  I have learned to take note of it and appreciate each moment, because they are often so unplanned yet so helpful in getting me to my next step.

The journey has not been all fun songs and rainbows, but these “miracle moments” are very inspiring to me, and does give me the feeling that "the universe has my back".

For me, the tricky part is to not resist the help or impulses but be open to them, before squashing them with negative thoughts.  But again, reflecting on all the amazing and encouraging events that have happened along the way keeps my inspiration going! 

Another thing that helps me is to "have an idea of what I want" (like finding a copacker), "but not be totally rigid about how it will happen".  For example, me being determined to find a copacker on my own vs having someone help me find a copacker.  I have found out that working with others is all part of my journey as well - not always easy for the introvert side of me.

Can I encourage you...

to just keep track of seemingly small coincidences as they happen for you in whatever "thing (be it a project or relationship - whatever it is!) you are working on."  

Sometimes I take a photo or screen shot, or make a "note in my phone", or write an email to myself.  I think I have even made a voice memo!  There are a myriad of ways to make note of something.  But it is helpful to grab the moment when you can still remember some details about it and collect them in a list somewhere.  You may be surprised at all the unplanned help you have been getting when you look back upon it!

Ok so we will keep going with the dog treats, and I am really looking forward to seeing how this journey continues to unfold!

xox,  Gina

written by,

Gina Anderson...

founder of Good Paws Bakery and Gifts, LOVEs to make dogs and their people HAPPY! Prior to starting Good Paws, she was a human factors engineer making software easier for people to use.  She is a fine artist, loves metaphysical studies as well as learning all things dog. She also enjoys helping people understand things from a dog’s perspective.  Connect with Gina on Linked In