June 18, 2025 • 50 mins
🧬 What’s really in your dog’s supplements—and how do you know they’re working? In this episode, Em sits down with Will, CEO of PetMatRx, to break down the science, transparency, and impact behind quality pet nutrition.
💡 In this episode, you’ll learn:
How to read supplement labels and what to avoid
The mission behind PetMatRx’s science-backed products
Why proactive wellness matters in a dog’s longevity
What makes a supplement truly effective
🐾 Em and Will also get real about the pet industry, the challenges of building trust with consumers, and how education is at the heart of lasting health for our dogs.
🎧 Whether you're new to supplements or ready to upgrade your dog’s wellness routine, this episode is packed with practical advice and honest insights.
Guest Info:📲 Follow Will on Instagram: @will_leaddog📲 Learn more about PetMatRx: @petmatrx🛍️ Explore science-backed supplements: petmatrx.com
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💛 Follow Straight Up Dog Talk for more insights and updates on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.
#petnutrition #dogsupplements #petmatrx #healthydogs #straightupdogtalk
This episode is proudly sponsored by our partnership with PetMatRx.
Use code SUDT20 to save 20% on your first order: petmatrx.com
Affiliate purchases through this link help fuel Em’s RV journey to bring the Straight Up Dog Talk podcast on the road—sharing real stories and connecting with dog lovers nationwide. 🚌💛
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Today's episode is proudly sponsored and brought to you by
our good friends over at Pet Matrix Premium Canine
Supplements. Straight Up Dog Talk is so
excited to be partnered with PetMatrix and jump into their
family. After exhausting several other
pet supplement brands, I am getting the support and results
I have been searching for for both Toby and Fitz.
Pet Matrix supports all three pillars of canine Wellness using
(00:23):
their Cell Matrix delivery. It delivers nutrition directly
into the cell. If you're looking for a
supplement that pairs with nature and science, look no
further and get your dog on Pet Matrix today.
This stuff works, period. Welcome to Straight Up Dog Talk,
the podcast where pet parents, pet guardians, and pet
professionals come together to dive into real issues in dog
(00:43):
parenting. From controversial training
methods to sensitive health topics, we're getting raw and
real about what it means to carefor our canine companions.
Join us every Wednesday for unfiltered conversations, expert
insights and personal stories that will make you laugh, cry
and grow as a pet. Here.
No topic is off limits and no question goes unanswered.
(01:04):
You won't get one perspective here.
You'll get them all because every dog is different and every
human is too. You can follow along on
Instagram, TikTok and Facebook at straight up dog talk or by
visiting UWW straight up dogtalk.com TuneIn from any of
your favorite podcast platforms.Welcome to straight up dog talk.
I'm em and we are back again this week with another amazing
(01:25):
guest. This week we have Pet Matrix
again, but we have will this time who is the other Co founder
and CEO of pet Matrix and he's going to give us a little bit of
the behind the scenes. We're not going to talk about
the product so much today, maybea little bit, but we're going to
talk about small businesses, what it's like to run a small
(01:46):
business and the crazy amount ofthings that pet Matrix has been
through in the last two years since we've started working with
them. So welcome will, how are you
today? I'm.
Good. Thanks so much for having me,
Emily. I appreciate it.
Yeah, we love our Pet Matrix. We are a very firm standing Pet
Matrix household. Now that I'm training dogs, I
(02:08):
feel like I talk about Pet Matrix even more between the
podcast and Instagram and then talking to training clients and
people always want to know nutrition and health and
supplements. And I'm like, there's only one
way to go and that is Pet Matrix.
So we're very, very strong supporters of Pet Matrix in this
household. It has made such a huge
difference, especially my littledog Toby, he has pancreatitis
(02:31):
and Protect was game changer forus.
Once he started on that Protect,he did not have a single flare
up for a year and 1/2, which wasincredible.
And I love to be able to tell people that and say I strongly
support this product because it helped so much.
And I can see Move was also a huge one for him because he's 13
(02:52):
or 14 years old and arthritis and aging and all of those
things. He had stopped jumping up on the
couch and jumping up on the bed.Once he started on Move, those
things changed and he was jumping up again.
It was like he was a young pup all over again.
It's just music to my ears. We, I, we, yeah, we we can't
hear enough of that. And whether it's through online
(03:13):
reviews or e-mail conversations that we have, I know we're on
here talking about small business.
You guess who runs the customer service?
The three founders, Self, my wife, Summer and Tanisha.
And we're the ones answering customer service.
It's so important for a businessowner to understand their
(03:35):
customers wants, their needs, their frustrations, their
victories. So we're literally in our third
year of business now. We still, every time somebody
tells us the real life results that they're getting, that we
know we have our own dogs and they had their own issues and
we've brought them back to life through our, our products, our
(03:58):
amazing delivery system, cell matrix delivery CMD.
I'm so happy for you. I'm so happy because I know
personally that they say happy wife, happy life.
Well, you know, a happy, healthydog in the house, They will set
the entire mood for the house. And it's it's an integral part
to a happy household. It really, really is, and it's
(04:18):
just so amazing that you guys can bring that to so many people
on such a large scale. But also the fact that you guys
are so involved with your socialmedia and you guys are
responding. You're not hiring people to
respond. You guys are responding.
That's something that's really important to me, something that
I do for the podcast and for thedog training.
Obviously it's just me. I'm a one woman show all the
(04:41):
time. I think that that customer
service and that connection withthe followers and the listeners
is so, so, so important. It's kind of sacred almost.
And if you don't go through all of those stages of your business
as a business owner, I feel likeyou miss part of that value and
part of that connection with your customer.
Yeah. And especially in our business,
(05:03):
we are coming into your home, weare connecting with you.
We are being trusted by people with one of the most important
valuable items in their home, their dog.
So we take that very seriously. Having and understanding the
customer and getting into how wecan continue to help their dogs
(05:24):
stay healthy is a vital importance.
And you know, I'm going to say this, through three years, we've
tried, we tried to hire a socialmedia company to interact with
our customers so we could continue our future thinking of
our business and move forward. When you look at what the roles
of ACEO really are and they all revolve around the vision.
(05:45):
If you're ACEO of a small business and all they're doing
is focusing on the vision, you're going to fail as a
business because it's all of those little intricacies to the
business. The dotting, the IS the
crossing, the T's, the talking to your customers, being
involved when the manufacturing and the processes everything.
That's what will give your business the best opportunity to
(06:06):
be successful because even you could do all the right things
and at the end of the day, your business could still fail,
right? We've really gone through that
and growing pains and having to fire social media companies and,
and really understanding at the end of the day that no one is
going to care as much about the customers as us, the owners and
founders. So when I tell you how much we
(06:27):
care for your dogs, you might say you can't even be close to
how much you do. I'm telling you we do.
We care about all of these dogs that are out there and we try
and find results. And I know you know, Tanisha,
our director of education, takesan extreme amount of pride in
diving into what's really going on with your dog, not just
(06:48):
throwing supplements at your dog.
That's a big problem in our industry.
It's a huge problem. Huge problem and it stems from
the top. I don't know if you've noticed,
we don't spend a whole lot of money on market.
We really are a grassroots kind of swell of a company and have a
following of people who are loyal to the brand because the
(07:09):
brand and works and that's really what we pride ourselves
in. And understanding all the
nuances has been a joy. It has been a pain.
It has caused a lot of strife and arguments among founders,
but none of us would tell you anything other than this has
been the most growth that any ofus have ever really experienced
(07:30):
as entrepreneurs, as people, as dog owners.
And So what we do as a company, we really pass down to the
customer. We really do a joke that I would
love to hire a social media manager because I just hate
social media so much because of all the misinformation and mis
education. We can only do our small part as
(07:50):
our account. We can't fix all of the other
accounts, right? I spoke to Tanisha about the
social media marketing thing because you guys were going
through the whole thing and she was telling me a little bit
about it. And she was like, don't do it
because it takes away from your authentic voice.
You are you and nobody else is going to say the things that you
say the way that you say them and represent you the way that
(08:13):
you are because you're you and you are your brand.
And that's where we had our hiccups.
That's where we made our mistakeand we learned the hard way.
So don't do it. And I was like, well, that's
great advice. I think it's great that we can
come together and learn from each other, not just about our
dogs and their health, but also our experiences with businesses
(08:33):
and learning how to grow our businesses and manage our
businesses and what the ups and downs as our experiences may be.
And maybe we're not all in the same industry, but right now,
the way that the world works, a lot of it focuses through social
media. It focuses through things like
podcasts, It focuses through things like Word of South.
And so you really do have to have people that feel very
(08:56):
strongly about what you do and how much they like it because
those are your champions, right?I know some of our best
listeners, our most returned frequent listeners are out there
saying, Oh my gosh, listen to this episode or oh, hey, you
need to listen to this podcast. Those are the people that I have
an unfounded amount of appreciation for because they
push us and they make us better and they support us and that
(09:20):
kind of bolsters us for when things do go upside down.
The main thing that I want to talk to you about today is
because I don't think that we'veactually really ever talked
about this. I know we've talked about the
products and what they do and how amazing they are and how
they support our dogs, but wheredid the idea of Pet Matrix come?
From that's a great question. It all revolves around maybe
(09:42):
eight years ago when myself, Summer and Tanisha came together
and we were basically running a biotech company for this amazing
CSO Chief Science Officer. We basically blew his company
out of the water. He was doing half $1,000,000 in
sales and we took him to 24 million in under 2 years.
(10:04):
And through that time, we developed an amazing
relationship with him and it really got me to an
understanding and an intimate with the technology because
that's really where everything kind of comes into play with
what makes us different. The pet matrix difference.
You can get curcumin from anybody.
People are so impressed and amazed that we can work with BPC
(10:28):
157, an amazing peptide, and nobody else can.
And that's because of the technology.
There's literally a handful of labs around the world who can
actually perform and do what we do, and there's nobody in the
pet industry doing it. And so we were driving this
company and having our own problems with our Pitbull,
(10:51):
Vishla Mix. We got her when she was rescued
her when she was nine months old.
A Good Samaritan picked her up on the streets in Chula Vista as
a puppy. At about six to seven months.
They took her to a shelter. It turned out to be a high kill
shelter, a shelter up in Orange County.
Heard about her, came down, grabbed her, took her up and the
lo and behold, you got a rescue.But we love them, but we got to
(11:13):
love all their problems as well.And so you name it, she had it.
And something clicked with Summer one day and BAE was going
through one of her fits. Her pads were constantly swollen
and red and and chafing and she's biting it.
Her skin is inflamed and her eyes are red and her gum, her
(11:34):
jawline. Everything's like what you could
think is bad with this dog is Bow with her.
But she's the most loving, amazing dog in the world, right?
They all are to us. And she goes, I'm going to
contact the biochemist and talk to them about how these
supplements could work with our dog BAE.
And lo and behold, we start using the supplements and she
starts getting better really quick.
(11:55):
And about seven months after that, they came to us.
They said, hey, we appreciate you doing everything with our
company. We're revamping stuff, but we
don't want to leave you kind of high and dry.
We've built this relationship. How about we give you the
technology, use the technology for a pet supplement company
because we know you love your dog and da, da da and everything
else. So we start going through
formulations and Pet Matrix is born.
(12:17):
All the results that we're getting are great, but we wanted
to be different in this industry.
A pet supplementation, which is so convoluted, it's muddy.
There's so many people and you talk about disinformation.
These marketing machines, that'swhat they are.
They're marketing machines. They're not dog supplement
companies. They're marketing machines.
And it just so happens that they're deciding to market a pet
(12:40):
supplement, a dog supplement. So we're like, let's run a 50
dog focus group. First of all, having a peer
group of 50 to run your own trolled case study is unheard.
So we decide we're going to do that.
Nisha is running all the protocols of intake and outtake.
She knows how to do that. She was in the human nutrition
(13:01):
space on a super, super high level.
She's amazing. I know you know how amazing she
is. She is amazing.
She's so smart, it's ridiculous.As we're running through these
groups, we knew what results were going to happen because we
know the technology. So we're like, OK, this is
great. We have Pet Matrix, we've got
our product line and let's go. And that's pretty much how it
(13:23):
was more we made sure that product efficacy and safety was
there before we even came to market.
We did it on our dogs, then we did it on a fifty person focus
group with dogs ranging in all ages, gender breeds.
It was not specific because we wanted a true baseline for how
this is going to work out in thepublic eye.
And then it was just get on the ground and start getting in
(13:45):
people's hands and start listening to their feedback.
And that's how Pet Matrix was born, really out of necessity
and need for our own dogs. So cool.
That is really cool. The family element of it that
you guys have going on, because Tanisha is your sister and
Summer is your wife. You have this nice little core
family thing going on, which is so awesome.
And I love that you used your strengths as a team working
(14:09):
together to build something thatbenefited other families.
How cool is that? It's just the whole thing is
just so cool. Pitbull Vishla.
Oh my. As a vet tech, I have to say
what a combination there of dogs.
Well, I'll. Tell ya, I because I'm pretty
sure you've seen a picture of her on online, right?
So she has the body and the coatof a Hungarian hunting dog, the
(14:34):
Vishla, and she's got a female pity head.
She's got this strong head and this amazing slender streamline
body. She's awesome.
She's. A dog?
Of course she is. I mean, she's got the pity in
her. And oddly enough, Vishles are
pretty Velcro dogs too, so you kind of got a double whammy on
the Velcro there. Yeah, first today, a little
(14:56):
windy here in Venice, FL. She has PTSD from the wind
because anytime there's a littlewind outside or a little howl,
she is typically under my desk or under summer's desk in our
office hanging out. Do you give her the calm on
windy days? For sure, yeah, yeah.
And there's a huge, huge difference.
We're coming out with a new and improved comp that's.
(15:17):
Exciting. Do you want to talk about that
for a minute? Yeah, we can, for sure.
We're finding out that it works great.
But when you have dogs that either have really high drive or
have major anxiety or PTSD, you're starting to give them 5
or 6 sprays, which is fine, but you run through the thing too
fast, right? So we're actually doubling the
compound volume but keeping the price exactly the same.
(15:40):
So you're 66 sprays will last you longer because you're not
going to need as much. And then we're actually going to
be removing curcumin and adding in L theanine to the spray.
So if you're, if you have a hydride dog, whether you're
training or doing bite work and want to get him out of that
drive so you can start avoiding the oxidative stress, that's
going to start setting in. And then if you have a dog that
(16:00):
has a lot of anxiety from fireworks or wind or anything
like that, a couple sprays will do you.
And I know you've noticed it. Yeah, it's pretty amazing.
I've got a real anxiety potato and then I've got the high drive
crazy dog. So calm has been a lifesaver for
me some nights because I have a dog that is so high drive that
sometimes he gets himself just so wound up that I cannot get
(16:23):
him to calm down. And being able to put calm on a
lick mat and see him put himselfinto a calm frame of mind has
just been so amazing for him because he's the kind of dog
that he lays down and then he gets up and then he paces and he
circles any pants and then he lays back down and then he gets
back. I'm like, dude, go to sleep.
And he does when he has the calm.
(16:45):
But if he doesn't, I'm like, I don't know what to do with you.
And then we found you guys and you guys really hit just so many
things for us move. Having a high drive dog and
knowing that that's helping withthat inflammation and those
muscles and just keeping him strong and healthy when he is
such an active dog and then being able to wind him down with
the calm. It's just a really powerful
(17:06):
combination for him. Yeah, especially when you're
putting the move and the calm totake the drive down and battle
the oxidative stress that's massive for high drive dogs and
people really don't even ambassadors that are ambassadors
for a company that do bite work and behavioral training and
things like that. A lot of them were very not
really understanding of what oxidative stress is and what
(17:27):
it's doing to your dog and how you can help support an anti
oxidative stress, you know, state of mind for the dog.
But it with trainers, it is thiskind of give and take because
when they're going through trials or they're doing bite
work or you know, they're, they're, they're training for
SWAT or the sheriff, you want that dog in drive.
You want them in drive. But you, but once you're done,
(17:49):
you got to bring them down because if they stay in drive
for too long, oxidative stress starts sitting.
And now you're now reducing the lifespan of the dog without even
not even knowing it. It takes a lot to get to this
understanding of the direct correlation between nutrition
and behavior, the direct correlation between nutrition
and longevity and getting peopleto really bite on that.
(18:11):
Like when we started Pet Matrix,our number one goal on all three
of our lists, we said we have toeducate, we lead with education.
We are not a product company. We're a solution company.
We're solving problem. How many pet supplement
companies have only four products?
And we've been in business threeyears.
It's because we solve problems. We don't want a category or our
(18:36):
catalog of products. And if you start really going
through these other companies that have 100 products and, and
more, there's so much duplicity and there's so much redundancy
in their products. I can't even differentiate one
from another from another from, oh, they took out one compound
and they just added another. This, this is going to be a
problem. And I think that we're going to
(18:56):
in this industry hit a tipping point in the next three to five
years from both a supplement space, an educational space and
a problematic space. From what customers are dog
owners, I should say, are going to be trying to solve problems
that they contributed to by oversupplementing their dogs without
(19:16):
even realizing it. Because at the end of the day,
what a handful of people are outthere going to hurt dogs.
I get that right? Horrible means, but 99.9% of
people own dogs, would love their dogs and do anything for
them. So you start seeing this
marketing, which this is commercial, there's dog ASPCU.
(19:37):
Or ASPCA there. You go, I, I think that every
supplement marketing company is,of course they're pulling on
your heartstrings. Yes.
Oh, I don't want my dog to limp like that and walk like, oh, you
say to buy that. Great, I'm going to buy that.
Oh, you too. I'm going to buy this.
And all of a sudden you're giving your dog 7 to 8
supplements and you're doing more harm than good.
(19:57):
So we're we're on a mission really to educate people on the
type of supplementation and using supplementation for what
it really is there for. It's a support.
It's to fill in gaps. You can never supplement your
dog to health. I hope everybody hears that.
OK, say it again. Yeah, You cannot supplement your
(20:18):
dog to help. You have to start with an
amazing foundation and that is their diet.
And then build on that. What aren't they?
Beginning, how can you support what they're not?
And you know what the beautiful thing about dogs is that even if
you have rescues, you know the breed or breeds that they're
that they're coming from, right?They have tendencies.
You kind of know what your dog is going to have as a problem in
(20:42):
their future. So you start supplementing
against that. Now, in educating people with
supplementation, you don't want to always just look for those
immediate results because typically supplementation cannot
handle acute type of trauma, petmatrix camp, because we bypass
digestion, we go directly to thecell.
So you start seeing these very, very quick results and people
(21:03):
are blown away. They're like, wait a minute,
I've been using something for eight months, nine months, and
it's not work. It, you know, hasn't worked and
now yours works in two weeks. Yeah, that's the CMD.
So really we're educating and we're, we're building a
foundation for pet owners to be able to use us as a resource of
not just buying product. We don't, I'm not, I'm not
(21:24):
interested in pushing a product to you.
I'm really not. Now, if I have something that I
know is going to help you, then I'm going to tell you about it
because I'd be robbing you of information if I didn't.
But there are times where we will recommend because like we
don't have probiotics. There's a reason we don't, we
don't think we need to solve that problem right now.
There are high quality, I preferSBO probiotics versus other.
(21:45):
There are high quality ones out there and I refer people over to
it for sure. We're more interested in the
health of your dog than selling you.
That's two things that I love about you guys is that you you
are not product pushers and you're not just mass producing
things and trying to get things on shelves and you're trying to
make partnerships with other brands.
You're trying to make partnerships with veterinarians,
you're trying to make partnerships with police
(22:06):
departments, all kinds of things.
And you're really, really are trying to help dogs.
But the other thing is, which isthe most important part to me is
the education fees because that is why I started this podcast
because there's so much different misinformation
education basic hand me down. This is what we've done for
years on nutrition for dogs. And the last three years for me
(22:31):
have literally been learning about nutrition, trying to find
a diet that supports each of my dogs individually.
My dogs don't eat the same thing.
The only thing that is the same that I give my dogs is their pet
matrix and they don't even get the same amounts because they're
different sizes. I did an interview with another
company that was nutrition company, and he basically said
(22:51):
the same thing you did about themarketing and how this is all
just tapping into your feelings and how they market a certain
diet to make you feel a certain way about the diet, but they
don't really explain the ingredients.
And apparently AFCO has now passed a law about changing the
labels on dog food bags that should be released sometime
within the next three to five years.
(23:12):
That'll put into action, which is going to change a lot of
things, right? Because people are actually
going to understand what's in their dog food, what's in their
dog supplements, and be able to look at the label and go, oh,
OK, this is a Coke can. This is my dog food.
Maybe I'm a little bit uncomfortable now about what's
in the dog food because they didn't have to do those things
(23:33):
before and all of the byproducts.
Somebody will send me a picture of a label and I'll be like, oh,
I'm at PetSmart and I found thisfor anal glands.
Would you take a look at the label and tell me what you think
Immediately? No, because you're at PetSmart.
But second of all, yes, I'll look at the label.
So I always take a look and there's always, there's all
these fillers, there's all thesechemicals and it's a capsule or
(23:55):
it's something. And I'm like, do you understand
that every time you give your dog something that its body has
to breakdown like this, you are shaving months, days, years off
of your dog's life? It was something that I didn't
not know until recently. I didn't know until Tanisha.
I pass this information along constantly because what you guys
have is so unique and being ableto literally see the difference
(24:19):
in my dog within a couple of weeks was astounding to me.
I was just completely dumbfounded by the fact that my
dog was running around acting like a little puppy again and
that he wasn't having his pancreatic flare ups anymore.
And I was like, for sure, this has just got to be something
that's, you know. But no, here we are.
By by the time this episode releases, we'll have been in a
(24:40):
relationship with you guys for almost 2 years and that is huge
because that's a commitment to my dogs.
That's commitment to a product, but that's also me, me telling
everyone out there, this is something that I stand by and I
will not tell anybody to go anywhere else because you will
see the results and you will seea difference and it will help
your dog. And I think that it's so unique
(25:04):
that you guys have really started to turn the tables
because it said in another episode, the same thing about
nutrition. This is a generational change.
You guys are making a huge change in a market that's been
the same since 1956 when dog food was created in 1956.
Most of those big brand kibbles that are out there have been
(25:27):
made the exact same way with theexact same process, with the
exact same ingredients and and our dogs are living because it's
sufficient. It gets them through
nutritionally. But if you actually look at what
it takes to provide for your dog, what they actually need,
what they actually would still eat if they were considered wild
dogs, it's vastly different thana dry kibble product that we're
(25:49):
pulling off of shelves for $60.00 a bag.
It's funny you say that because the bags of kibble are not
nutrient sufficient for our dogs.
What they are is calorie sufficient for our dogs and
there's a big difference. Calories do not equal nutrition,
Calories equal energy. Our dogs metabolic rate is 7 to
(26:12):
10 times faster than humans. So from the moment that they're
born, they have this expiration.Things can affect that
expiration like disease, infection, things like that.
But if you just take the lifespan of a dog, now we're the
ones who are actually bringing down their lifespan.
The kibble debate just comes down to nutrition versus
calories. And so what's happening is the
(26:33):
dogs getting enough energy to perform as a dog as you want
your dog to perform. Some dogs are just a companion,
others are working dogs, huntingdogs, you know, whatever you
have them for, they fit your lifestyle.
And so now what people are realizing is that you need to
give them the proper nutritionalbenefits.
(26:54):
As we start catching up with ourown health, we're now just
starting to see raw ones just started becoming popular and
feeding a different way just maybe a few years ago where
people really started grabbing onto it.
And that will continue to grow. People start are to become more
label readers, but the problem really stems from the
educational system of vets from what the vets end up pushing
(27:16):
because that's what they get paid to push.
I will say this please for the audience.
I love DVMS, I love good DVMS and I tell you go to your vet.
We tell people all the time you got a problem with your dog.
Don't ask me. I am not a vet.
OK, go to your vet and have yourdog analyzed.
Now, based on what I know, I would suggest using Protect, but
(27:36):
what I want you to do, I want you to print out our product
sheet. I want you to take it to your
vet and say I'm thinking of giving this supplement.
Are you OK with the ingredients?And that relationship, I think
is very important for people to have.
And I don't think it should be dismantled, but I think that
there needs to be a lot more good vets out there who are
(27:57):
standing up for the nutrition and the benefit of the dogs
instead of just, you know, pushing.
I'm not gonna name the brands, but we all know who they are.
OK, They're kibble. They say it's the best and give
it because your dogs post surgery.
So give them this kibble. Are you out of your mind?
Yeah, I learned some fun facts about those upper echelon
brands. Let me put that in air quotes.
(28:18):
The upper echelon brands that are highly recommended by vets
and how much carbohydrates are actually in your dog's food and
how bad carbohydrates are for your dog.
My mind was blown. I could not believe it.
I was like, OK, well, I was donewith those brands before, but
now I'm really done with those brands.
But to prove your point, I was avet tech for 10 years and I
(28:40):
stood behind those brands. And those brands came in and
they educated us and they would bring us lunch and they would
tell us all about their product and their programs that they
have in Switzerland with the dogs and the centers and they're
adoptable and all of the things.It seemed great, seemed
wonderful. But then you get down to it and
you learn more about the productand the breakdown of the product
(29:01):
and how it's cooked and how yourdog's body is actually not
processing it and then the size of their poops, all of these
things. But then that just takes you
right back to the education piece because nobody is putting
this on the Internet. And while I agree with you
completely about going to your vet and talking to your vet
about these things, I also highly recommend that you find a
(29:22):
dietary specialist, whether it'slike whether it's a DVM canine
nutritionist or a certified canine nutritionist, which is
something that I'm looking into doing now because I've become so
passionate about it. I want to be just like Tanisha.
I want to follow in her footsteps.
I've become so passionate about this.
This is something that I need tobe able to say, hey, I'm
actually certified in this. We can have this conversation
(29:44):
for real. Veterinarians go to school for a
four year period of time post grad.
They learn how to do a lot of things.
They do continue that education for a lot of things.
You go to your regular doctor for annual checkups, but if you
break your foot like I did, I didn't go to my regular doctor
for that. If you tear a muscle or if you
(30:06):
have some kind of orthopedic issue, you go to see a
specialist. If you have stomach and gut
issues, you go to see a specialist.
Find a specialist for your dog. Don't just go to your regular
vet for those things. And unfortunately, there's only
a small percentage of them that are not on the payroll for those
(30:27):
big brands of kibbles. So they are far and few in
between. But it does seem to be something
that's becoming quite popular and more and more people do want
to be part of this movement and part of this education piece.
So go out and find a canine nutritionist.
Find somebody that can help you with this.
Find somebody that can help you with the diet it find somebody
that can help you understand more about the ingredients in
(30:49):
the supplement that you're giving.
Because if you're not giving PetMatrix, there's a lot of stuff
that you're not going to know what it is without Googling it.
Granted, there's some stuff in Pet Matrix products that I still
have to Google or message to Anisha and be like, what is this
and what does it do? And she will tell you because
that's her job literally is to help you understand it.
(31:10):
And that's a service that you guys provide that a lot of these
other brands that are out there don't provide.
So many of the big ones, and I'll just name one just because
right off the top of my head is Woofs.
We tried Woofs before we came toyou guys, before I met Tanisha
and it didn't do anything. Why would my dog?
Why would it? Have you seen, I mean the
(31:31):
ingredients on it? What is this supposed to be do?
Basically, it's a chew, right? It's not Wolf's product.
They're it's a white label company.
They're going and they're getting a manufacturer to
produce what they produce. There's nothing special about
it. They're a marketing machine and
the ingredients in Wolf's, I guarantee if you've been using
Wolf's for more than a year and you use it every day, I would
(31:54):
definitely go tag your dog checked out for hepatotoxicity
and get their blood levels checked because I'll tell you
what, their liver is working overtime because typically I
don't want to bash on kibble toomuch because everybody has
different needs. To know budgets and all that
stuff. Yeah.
And So what you want to do is you want to supercharge your
(32:14):
kibble as much as possible. Again, find a supplementation
that works for you, fill in the gaps that you know is going to
be specific to your dog breed. It's not difficult to figure
that out. You probably already know off
the top of your head. It's just making you think a
little bit different. My German Shepherd is going to
have problems with hip dysplasiaas they get older, rear hind
quarter problem and whatever else.
OK, great. So you should start
(32:35):
supplementing for that type of preventative.
So try and get organic as much as possible.
Worry about the bioavailability of things because that is what
will hurt your dog's liver and hurt their blood if it's not
bioavailable and you're just jamming it down their throat.
So I'm just wondering how long they're going to be able to
sustain this marketing search and how deep their pockets are
(32:55):
because when we were talking earlier about making mistakes.
So with social media marketing and those types of things, when
you make those mistakes as a small business, that's dollars.
That's bottom line. Yeah, that's bottom line.
And at the end of the day, what keeps us in business is dollars.
That comes through sales, of course.
So what we went through in abouta nine month period, we
(33:19):
literally lost over six figures as a company through social
media, through ads, through management, through everything
else. It was a disaster and our
company wasn't growing until we took hold of everything.
The three of us sat down, we said OK, this is it, we can't do
this anymore. The ambassador program was born
(33:39):
and we said this is how we're going to do it.
We're going to keep our social presence, but we're going to do
it. Our customer service, we're
going to do it. We're not going to outsource
anything, OK? We're going to do it so we
understand what who we are as a business and what we and you can
only do that by being intertwined with every part of
your business. It was extremely important for
(34:01):
us to really take hold of every piece of our business in order
to get to where we are today. I want to make sure that
everyone understands that there's a place for every diet
that you have. It doesn't matter what your
budget is. Find the best kibble for the
budget and then try and get sometype of supplementation.
(34:22):
If you have questions, hit us upon e-mail.
We'd be more than happy to, to answer questions for you, walk
you through some basics and workwithin your budget.
At the end of the day, you know,because we get dogs to fulfill
our needs, right? Do at the end of the day, we
feel so much better and we're, we get so much more out of it.
And then then really what we caneven think of, But we have to
(34:43):
fill those needs within our budget, within our life.
Be very choosy, be very picky about the dog that you bring
into your life. It's an important decision.
Don't be so fleeting with it. You know how many dogs are
getting returned back to the shelter?
You know, try to not to make such an emotional decision by
getting the dog. Make an intellectual, mature
(35:04):
decision that you're going to beable to take care of that dog.
Because these dogs, they rely onus for everything, everything
for life itself. I think people need to take that
a little more responsibly. I'm sure your audience, the
people listening to this podcasts, are the ones who care
about that stuff. Hopefully as your audience
grows, maybe someone hearing this like, hey, these people
(35:25):
really do care about our dogs, and we do.
No, and that's a that's a huge topic on this podcast is doing
your research, whether it's yoursupplements or it's your dog
food or it's your veterinarian and the how to interview a
veterinarian or a pet sitter. Those are the conversations that
we have on this podcast so that people can feel informed because
(35:47):
again, you can Google whatever and you're going to get 15
different answers and you're still not going to know what to
do. The whole point of this podcast
is to be here to say, OK, look, you just heard this whole
conversation between Emily and Will and now you know what Will
knows and you know what Emily knows and you know what they
share in common. And you know that they both
think you should make an informed decision when you pick
(36:08):
a breed of dog. You should make an informed
decision when you pick a food and a supplement.
Now I have questions and I mightfeel bad about what I'm feeding
or what I previously used for treats or supplements or
whatever, but I can go and I cantalk to Will and Emily and not
feel bad about it because they didn't know either at one point.
And that's the whole point. I don't want people to feel
(36:30):
judged. I want people to learn.
I want people to understand thatthey can come here and they can
ask whatever they want and thinkit could be the stupidest, most
innocent, dumb question that's actually going to turn on some
light bulbs for them. Because that's what I did.
I asked a lot of questions. And then I started recording
those conversations because I thought, Gee, if I had been able
(36:51):
to find this information somewhere else before, how much
easier would that year that I spent Googling things have been?
It would have been a lot easier,yeah.
And, you know, because it's justnot there.
You know one of the big problemsthat you're talking about when
you Google and you get all thesedifferent answers, well, you
know what's before you get to all those answers?
All those sponsored ads. So the answers are way below
(37:11):
everyone paying the money to getyour eyes.
So you start looking like these guys probably got an answer for
me. And of course, you go on to it
and you're like, yeah, I can relate.
That's my dog. It pulled on my heartstrings.
And I'm getting that right. So yeah, you're looking at all
these big marketing companies before you get to the real
information. And even when you get to there,
it's hard to really filter that information or decipher through
(37:33):
that information of what it really isn't.
So what we talk about at Pet Matrix is that we like to
partner with our people. We don't look at people as just
customers. We look at it and go, hey, we're
a partner because you're trusting us with your dog's
health. This is very serious.
OK, great. So let's talk about this.
Let's make sure that you feel informed and that we're making a
(37:54):
good purchase and that we're going to then help your dog down
the road. And and like you said, you're
going to continue to see results.
If you see results now, you're going to continue to see results
with pet majors and that's because of the cell matrix
delivery and that has everythingto do with bioavailability,
which. Is a huge thing which if you
want to define it again, I'm sure everybody who's listened to
(38:15):
this episode is probably listened to the previous two,
but I like to talk about bioavailability.
It was a huge light bulb moment for me, so let's just talk about
it for a second because it's so important.
Yeah, bioavailability is the rate at which something can be
absorbed in its simplest terms. So you're going to use
bioavailability to measure efficacy, to measure dosing
(38:36):
amounts and things like that. So for instance, I'm sure this
is probably what most people have heard.
Oh, I take 5000 Iuds of vitamin D Well, OK, Vitamin D is one of
the only vitamins that's a lipid, OK.
It means it's not water soluble.So the bioavailability of it is
extremely low. It's, it's not that you need
5000 Iuds of vitamin D, it's that they know that only about 5
(39:00):
to 10% of it is going to be absorbed, OK.
The bioavailability is extremelylow.
So they say we need this amount.So in order to do that, you're
going to take this much. So if you have, let's say 100%
of something and 10% of it can be absorbed, what happens to the
other 90%? It has to be broken down.
For a human, it would take a lotof supplementation because our
(39:23):
liver is really built to last, built to survive.
Dogs are built to perform. It doesn't matter the size of
the dog. These dogs, man, they're amazing
specimen. They'll do stuff and they're
driven and they want to be a dog.
Hanisha talks about it a lot, isunlocking a dog's genetic
potential. We really like to do that and
(39:44):
talk about that. All that stems from the
bioavailability. So when you have a dog that has
to now breakdown that 90% or 95%of waste, whether it's fillers,
like you said, carbohydrates, sapiens, all these different
kinds of things, you're really overstressing the amount of
hepatic enzymes that have to be released from the dog's liver.
(40:04):
And so if too much of that within their blood and that's
very easy to do, you are then going to put your dog at risk of
hepatotoxicity, which is a toxicity within the blood and
that can. To all other types of issues,
there's a saying that we use it's we didn't coin the say it's
a, it's a Latin phrase called quantum status and it's used in
(40:25):
the pharmaceutical space becauseit means the amount that is just
enough. It's important in the
pharmaceutical space because of prescriptions, drugs can cause
havoc on internal organs for humans.
So if you ever look on your prescription, you'll see a
little QS on it. Quantum status, they're giving
you just the right amount. They'll have you get the maximum
(40:46):
amount of efficacy with the least amount of side effects and
damage. That's what they're looking to
do. So you can only do that when
you're making something extremely bioavailable.
Let's say you took curcumin today in a turmeric form, a
pill. Curcumin is only bioavailable.
Curcuminoids are bioavailable atlike 2 percent, 5% maybe.
(41:08):
And so you have to take a lot ofit.
But the the big problem with that is that your results are
not measurable because the absorption of it will vary from
day-to-day. From time of day that you take
it, your state that you're in, are you resting, are you moving?
All those different things affect the bioavailability.
So solving that problem, we through CMD make curcumin
(41:32):
bioavailable through our process, change the polarity of
it, of that lipid which is a nonpolar charge compound.
We change it to a polar charge compound so it gets directly in
the bloodstream. So what this allows us to do is
bypass digestion. So the dog doesn't have to
release any of these enzymes. It gets directly into the
bloodstream, goes directly to the cell and now we can deal in
(41:54):
micrograms in some cases the amount that is just enough
what's going to get the job done.
They don't need any more than that, and the only way you solve
that problem is by solving the bioavailability issue of
hydrophobic compounds. We make them hydrophilic.
It's pretty cool, man. It is fascinating.
(42:14):
It, it's crazy. I'm, I'm a nerd.
I got into the lab a lot. I continue to work with the
biochemists in the lab a lot. They kind of gave me a little
nickname and and like the citizen scientists running
around asking all the questions,getting the answers, asking more
questions, getting this kind of perturbed looking back at me
like, how do you know that? Why are you asking that
question? Well, just makes sense.
(42:34):
Once something clicks for you, it really kind of takes you down
this road. I'm here like, yeah, now I want
to be a certified canine nutritionist.
Yeah. So it's pretty cool.
The bioavailability, the rate atwhich something can be absorbed.
And it's everything when you're talking about supplementation.
The bioavailability of something, or the lack thereof,
is everything, especially when it comes to your dog's health.
(42:56):
Yeah, because dogs are not builtthe same way our bodies are
built and they don't have the same things that we do, which
for something I learned recently, I believe it's
families in our mouth that helpsus start to break something
down. And dogs didn't have that until.
Yeah, that's a it's, it's an enzyme.
Yeah. So, yeah, yeah, we produce that
(43:17):
and the dogs don't. And so they, they talk about the
when does the digestive process start?
Some people go back to the thought, because the moment you
start thinking about eating something, all of a sudden what
your mouth starts to water if you're hungry, saliva starts
going, Oh, guess what digestion started.
Now it didn't start digesting, but the process goes.
(43:39):
We're seeing the different mechanisms of the digestive
process, the different propulsions and, and where it
can get to. It was extremely important in
our science if I can talk about this for just two seconds.
Go for it. For your audience that's
listening whenever you see an adcome out in regards to
supplementation or dog food and they talk about the science of
it, let me explain something to you.
(44:00):
They're not talking about their science of anything, They're
talking about the science that was done way before them.
Just because I stand on the shoulders of people who are 7
feet tall doesn't make me tall. I'm still 5-6.
So just because all these peoplethis amazing work to find out
that the efficacy of Kirsten anddogs of curcumin of safety of
(44:22):
BPC 157 with dogs, just because somebody did that, that's not my
science that I can tell. So for me to say that my product
is scientifically proven becauseI use an ingredient from
somebody else, I find it mildly insulting because it's
propaganda, it's deceitful marketing.
We have real science behind our product.
(44:43):
Our science is a cell matrix delivery We consider to be the
most important function within supplements to your dog and
that's the delivery of the supplements to your dog.
I just wanted to say that because I don't think people
realize it, but. They don't, they don't.
I didn't. And that's the thing, I was a
vet tech for a really long time.When I was a vet tech, they were
still demonizing raw diet that will make your dog feral, that
(45:06):
will make your dog attack you, that will make your dog
aggressive. That was what they were teaching
when I was a vet tech. And now they're like, wait,
what? That's how natural world things.
That's not the dog should be ready to process all of those
things because that's how the dog's built.
So it's just wild to me how muchof a gap there is between the
two and how easily people can get lost in it because there is
(45:29):
little to no information. And the information that's out
there is so skewed that it's hard to keep up with it.
So we just keep putting out episodes like this where we're
explaining, hey, this is where you can start if you have
questions, we can put you on theright path to getting your dog
into a better position because we want our dogs to live longer.
We want our dogs to not have as much waste.
(45:52):
We don't want them to process things so hard.
If we want them to eat diets that are good for them at an
effective cost. And we want to provide those
supplements for them so that they can live to be 1314,
fifteen, 1617 years. 20 years, 20s, yeah, absolutely.
Our Bay girl, she's 12. If she goes any sooner than 20,
(46:12):
I'm going to be really upset about it.
Based on nothing external thingsthat you really can't help,
whether that's disease or whether that's, you know, some
type of bacterial infection thatends up going crazy, which is
very prevalent in dogs. I'm pushing the envelope as far
as I push it. The reason we feed raw is for
the nutrient absorption and not having to overwork their liver.
(46:36):
That's why we do because if you go outside of that and you start
looking out of the other diets, even if it's slightly cooked,
you still have to work for that.And then you go down to kibble.
That's extra work on their body.And like you said earlier,
you're just taking a week off, amonth off, taking three months
off of their life without even realizing it, Again, because I
believe the dog owners are even pet, just pet owners are really
(46:59):
aware of and really wanting what's best for their animal.
And we're here to support that on all levels.
Yeah. And again, that's why I love you
guys so much, because you reallydo support that.
You guys are always there to answer the questions and you're
always there to give the information.
And obviously we have two educational episodes out and
we're going to have a third one come out.
I just want people to realize how supportive we are of you
(47:22):
guys. So I want you guys to keep
popping up up in the roster because I want people to know
about Pet Matrix. And how much?
It benefits our pets and how much it benefits our lives
because it benefits our pets. And you guys are just doing
incredible things. And I cannot wait until I can
get this show on the road and I can come and I can come and see
(47:42):
your place where you make the pet matrix and I can then bother
all of your scientists with my questions.
I think it'll be so fantastic. I'm so looking forward to that.
I will ask you the question thatI ask everybody before we wrap
up. What would you like to leave the
listeners with, Ohio? What would I like to leave the
listeners with? Look at your dog and ask
yourself, are you doing what's best by them?
(48:02):
And if the answer is no, don't beat yourself up.
Start looking for answers. The wonderful thing about dogs
is they're just extremely resilient and they'll continue
to push forward and always want to please get the information,
get educated on it, do the research and don't fall for the
marketing ploys. Dig in, dig in, because that dog
is going to give you everything that have for the short life
(48:25):
that they do have. The amount of what they require
from us is so little, so little at the end of the day.
I guess I would leave with that.I don't want to give a shameless
plug for Pet Matrix, but my goodness, I'm telling you right
now, biased. Call me whatever you want, it
doesn't matter. I know we have the best
supplements in the world. If your dog has an issue, we'll
(48:45):
help you and and we'll get you results.
We know what we're here for and we're here for the long haul.
And our ambassador program is getting ready to get a new
recharge. We're actually going to be
blowing it out again here in thenext month looking for new
ambassadors, a new ambassador call.
Our goal is to have between 3 to400 ambassadors by the end of
the year. That's the hill we're wanting to
(49:07):
stand on with. The people were willing to stand
on the hill with and die on is the people who are in the game
every day. We don't want to dump a lot of
money into social marketing. We want to be on the ground with
you and your dog and loving life.
And you know that comes from a healthy dog.
Absolutely. That's phenomenal.
And if you have questions, you can reach out to Will, you can
(49:30):
reach out to Tanisha and you canreach out to me.
So thank you Will so much for being here and we will see you
guys next week on Straight Up Dog Talk.
Straight up Dog talk was createdby Emily Breslin.
It is edited and produced under the supervision of Straight up
Dog Talk LLC and Emily Breslin. If you're enjoying this podcast,
follow or subscribe and be sure you don't miss an episode and
(49:52):
leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform.
Looking for more honest and relatable dog content?
Check out our sister show Unpacked with Jerry Sheriff and
Madison Simpson. Thanks for listening to Straight
Up Dog Talk. See you next week.
Today's episode is proudly sponsored and brought to you by
our good friends over at Pet Matrix Premium Canine
Supplements. Straight Up Dog Talk is so
(50:13):
excited to be partnered with PetMatrix and jump into their
family. After exhausting several other
pet supplement brands, I am getting the support and results
I have been searching for. For both Toby and Fitz, Pet
Matrix supports all three pillars of canine Wellness.
Using their Cell Matrix delivery.
It delivers nutrition directly into the cell.
If you're looking for a supplement that pairs with
(50:34):
nature and science, look no further and get your dog on Pet
Matrix today. Stuff works.
Period.
Today's episode is proudly sponsored and brought to you by
our good friends over at Pet Matrix Premium Canine
Supplements. Straight Up Dog Talk is so
excited to be partnered with PetMatrix and jump into their
family. After exhausting several other
pet supplement brands, I am getting the support and results
I have been searching for for both Toby and Fitz.
Pet Matrix supports all three pillars of canine Wellness using
(00:23):
their Cell Matrix delivery. It delivers nutrition directly
into the cell. If you're looking for a
supplement that pairs with nature and science, look no
further and get your dog on Pet Matrix today.
This stuff works, period. Welcome to Straight Up Dog Talk,
the podcast where pet parents, pet guardians, and pet
professionals come together to dive into real issues in dog
(00:43):
parenting. From controversial training
methods to sensitive health topics, we're getting raw and
real about what it means to carefor our canine companions.
Join us every Wednesday for unfiltered conversations, expert
insights and personal stories that will make you laugh, cry
and grow as a pet. Here.
No topic is off limits and no question goes unanswered.
(01:04):
You won't get one perspective here.
You'll get them all because every dog is different and every
human is too. You can follow along on
Instagram, TikTok and Facebook at straight up dog talk or by
visiting UWW straight up dogtalk.com TuneIn from any of
your favorite podcast platforms.Welcome to straight up dog talk.
I'm em and we are back again this week with another amazing
(01:25):
guest. This week we have Pet Matrix
again, but we have will this time who is the other Co founder
and CEO of pet Matrix and he's going to give us a little bit of
the behind the scenes. We're not going to talk about
the product so much today, maybea little bit, but we're going to
talk about small businesses, what it's like to run a small
(01:46):
business and the crazy amount ofthings that pet Matrix has been
through in the last two years since we've started working with
them. So welcome will, how are you
today? I'm.
Good. Thanks so much for having me,
Emily. I appreciate it.
Yeah, we love our Pet Matrix. We are a very firm standing Pet
Matrix household. Now that I'm training dogs, I
(02:08):
feel like I talk about Pet Matrix even more between the
podcast and Instagram and then talking to training clients and
people always want to know nutrition and health and
supplements. And I'm like, there's only one
way to go and that is Pet Matrix.
So we're very, very strong supporters of Pet Matrix in this
household. It has made such a huge
difference, especially my littledog Toby, he has pancreatitis
(02:31):
and Protect was game changer forus.
Once he started on that Protect,he did not have a single flare
up for a year and 1/2, which wasincredible.
And I love to be able to tell people that and say I strongly
support this product because it helped so much.
And I can see Move was also a huge one for him because he's 13
(02:52):
or 14 years old and arthritis and aging and all of those
things. He had stopped jumping up on the
couch and jumping up on the bed.Once he started on Move, those
things changed and he was jumping up again.
It was like he was a young pup all over again.
It's just music to my ears. We, I, we, yeah, we we can't
hear enough of that. And whether it's through online
(03:13):
reviews or e-mail conversations that we have, I know we're on
here talking about small business.
You guess who runs the customer service?
The three founders, Self, my wife, Summer and Tanisha.
And we're the ones answering customer service.
It's so important for a businessowner to understand their
(03:35):
customers wants, their needs, their frustrations, their
victories. So we're literally in our third
year of business now. We still, every time somebody
tells us the real life results that they're getting, that we
know we have our own dogs and they had their own issues and
we've brought them back to life through our, our products, our
(03:58):
amazing delivery system, cell matrix delivery CMD.
I'm so happy for you. I'm so happy because I know
personally that they say happy wife, happy life.
Well, you know, a happy, healthydog in the house, They will set
the entire mood for the house. And it's it's an integral part
to a happy household. It really, really is, and it's
(04:18):
just so amazing that you guys can bring that to so many people
on such a large scale. But also the fact that you guys
are so involved with your socialmedia and you guys are
responding. You're not hiring people to
respond. You guys are responding.
That's something that's really important to me, something that
I do for the podcast and for thedog training.
Obviously it's just me. I'm a one woman show all the
(04:41):
time. I think that that customer
service and that connection withthe followers and the listeners
is so, so, so important. It's kind of sacred almost.
And if you don't go through all of those stages of your business
as a business owner, I feel likeyou miss part of that value and
part of that connection with your customer.
Yeah. And especially in our business,
(05:03):
we are coming into your home, weare connecting with you.
We are being trusted by people with one of the most important
valuable items in their home, their dog.
So we take that very seriously. Having and understanding the
customer and getting into how wecan continue to help their dogs
(05:24):
stay healthy is a vital importance.
And you know, I'm going to say this, through three years, we've
tried, we tried to hire a socialmedia company to interact with
our customers so we could continue our future thinking of
our business and move forward. When you look at what the roles
of ACEO really are and they all revolve around the vision.
(05:45):
If you're ACEO of a small business and all they're doing
is focusing on the vision, you're going to fail as a
business because it's all of those little intricacies to the
business. The dotting, the IS the
crossing, the T's, the talking to your customers, being
involved when the manufacturing and the processes everything.
That's what will give your business the best opportunity to
(06:06):
be successful because even you could do all the right things
and at the end of the day, your business could still fail,
right? We've really gone through that
and growing pains and having to fire social media companies and,
and really understanding at the end of the day that no one is
going to care as much about the customers as us, the owners and
founders. So when I tell you how much we
(06:27):
care for your dogs, you might say you can't even be close to
how much you do. I'm telling you we do.
We care about all of these dogs that are out there and we try
and find results. And I know you know, Tanisha,
our director of education, takesan extreme amount of pride in
diving into what's really going on with your dog, not just
(06:48):
throwing supplements at your dog.
That's a big problem in our industry.
It's a huge problem. Huge problem and it stems from
the top. I don't know if you've noticed,
we don't spend a whole lot of money on market.
We really are a grassroots kind of swell of a company and have a
following of people who are loyal to the brand because the
(07:09):
brand and works and that's really what we pride ourselves
in. And understanding all the
nuances has been a joy. It has been a pain.
It has caused a lot of strife and arguments among founders,
but none of us would tell you anything other than this has
been the most growth that any ofus have ever really experienced
(07:30):
as entrepreneurs, as people, as dog owners.
And So what we do as a company, we really pass down to the
customer. We really do a joke that I would
love to hire a social media manager because I just hate
social media so much because of all the misinformation and mis
education. We can only do our small part as
(07:50):
our account. We can't fix all of the other
accounts, right? I spoke to Tanisha about the
social media marketing thing because you guys were going
through the whole thing and she was telling me a little bit
about it. And she was like, don't do it
because it takes away from your authentic voice.
You are you and nobody else is going to say the things that you
say the way that you say them and represent you the way that
(08:13):
you are because you're you and you are your brand.
And that's where we had our hiccups.
That's where we made our mistakeand we learned the hard way.
So don't do it. And I was like, well, that's
great advice. I think it's great that we can
come together and learn from each other, not just about our
dogs and their health, but also our experiences with businesses
(08:33):
and learning how to grow our businesses and manage our
businesses and what the ups and downs as our experiences may be.
And maybe we're not all in the same industry, but right now,
the way that the world works, a lot of it focuses through social
media. It focuses through things like
podcasts, It focuses through things like Word of South.
And so you really do have to have people that feel very
(08:56):
strongly about what you do and how much they like it because
those are your champions, right?I know some of our best
listeners, our most returned frequent listeners are out there
saying, Oh my gosh, listen to this episode or oh, hey, you
need to listen to this podcast. Those are the people that I have
an unfounded amount of appreciation for because they
push us and they make us better and they support us and that
(09:20):
kind of bolsters us for when things do go upside down.
The main thing that I want to talk to you about today is
because I don't think that we'veactually really ever talked
about this. I know we've talked about the
products and what they do and how amazing they are and how
they support our dogs, but wheredid the idea of Pet Matrix come?
From that's a great question. It all revolves around maybe
(09:42):
eight years ago when myself, Summer and Tanisha came together
and we were basically running a biotech company for this amazing
CSO Chief Science Officer. We basically blew his company
out of the water. He was doing half $1,000,000 in
sales and we took him to 24 million in under 2 years.
(10:04):
And through that time, we developed an amazing
relationship with him and it really got me to an
understanding and an intimate with the technology because
that's really where everything kind of comes into play with
what makes us different. The pet matrix difference.
You can get curcumin from anybody.
People are so impressed and amazed that we can work with BPC
(10:28):
157, an amazing peptide, and nobody else can.
And that's because of the technology.
There's literally a handful of labs around the world who can
actually perform and do what we do, and there's nobody in the
pet industry doing it. And so we were driving this
company and having our own problems with our Pitbull,
(10:51):
Vishla Mix. We got her when she was rescued
her when she was nine months old.
A Good Samaritan picked her up on the streets in Chula Vista as
a puppy. At about six to seven months.
They took her to a shelter. It turned out to be a high kill
shelter, a shelter up in Orange County.
Heard about her, came down, grabbed her, took her up and the
lo and behold, you got a rescue.But we love them, but we got to
(11:13):
love all their problems as well.And so you name it, she had it.
And something clicked with Summer one day and BAE was going
through one of her fits. Her pads were constantly swollen
and red and and chafing and she's biting it.
Her skin is inflamed and her eyes are red and her gum, her
(11:34):
jawline. Everything's like what you could
think is bad with this dog is Bow with her.
But she's the most loving, amazing dog in the world, right?
They all are to us. And she goes, I'm going to
contact the biochemist and talk to them about how these
supplements could work with our dog BAE.
And lo and behold, we start using the supplements and she
starts getting better really quick.
(11:55):
And about seven months after that, they came to us.
They said, hey, we appreciate you doing everything with our
company. We're revamping stuff, but we
don't want to leave you kind of high and dry.
We've built this relationship. How about we give you the
technology, use the technology for a pet supplement company
because we know you love your dog and da, da da and everything
else. So we start going through
formulations and Pet Matrix is born.
(12:17):
All the results that we're getting are great, but we wanted
to be different in this industry.
A pet supplementation, which is so convoluted, it's muddy.
There's so many people and you talk about disinformation.
These marketing machines, that'swhat they are.
They're marketing machines. They're not dog supplement
companies. They're marketing machines.
And it just so happens that they're deciding to market a pet
(12:40):
supplement, a dog supplement. So we're like, let's run a 50
dog focus group. First of all, having a peer
group of 50 to run your own trolled case study is unheard.
So we decide we're going to do that.
Nisha is running all the protocols of intake and outtake.
She knows how to do that. She was in the human nutrition
(13:01):
space on a super, super high level.
She's amazing. I know you know how amazing she
is. She is amazing.
She's so smart, it's ridiculous.As we're running through these
groups, we knew what results were going to happen because we
know the technology. So we're like, OK, this is
great. We have Pet Matrix, we've got
our product line and let's go. And that's pretty much how it
(13:23):
was more we made sure that product efficacy and safety was
there before we even came to market.
We did it on our dogs, then we did it on a fifty person focus
group with dogs ranging in all ages, gender breeds.
It was not specific because we wanted a true baseline for how
this is going to work out in thepublic eye.
And then it was just get on the ground and start getting in
(13:45):
people's hands and start listening to their feedback.
And that's how Pet Matrix was born, really out of necessity
and need for our own dogs. So cool.
That is really cool. The family element of it that
you guys have going on, because Tanisha is your sister and
Summer is your wife. You have this nice little core
family thing going on, which is so awesome.
And I love that you used your strengths as a team working
(14:09):
together to build something thatbenefited other families.
How cool is that? It's just the whole thing is
just so cool. Pitbull Vishla.
Oh my. As a vet tech, I have to say
what a combination there of dogs.
Well, I'll. Tell ya, I because I'm pretty
sure you've seen a picture of her on online, right?
So she has the body and the coatof a Hungarian hunting dog, the
(14:34):
Vishla, and she's got a female pity head.
She's got this strong head and this amazing slender streamline
body. She's awesome.
She's. A dog?
Of course she is. I mean, she's got the pity in
her. And oddly enough, Vishles are
pretty Velcro dogs too, so you kind of got a double whammy on
the Velcro there. Yeah, first today, a little
(14:56):
windy here in Venice, FL. She has PTSD from the wind
because anytime there's a littlewind outside or a little howl,
she is typically under my desk or under summer's desk in our
office hanging out. Do you give her the calm on
windy days? For sure, yeah, yeah.
And there's a huge, huge difference.
We're coming out with a new and improved comp that's.
(15:17):
Exciting. Do you want to talk about that
for a minute? Yeah, we can, for sure.
We're finding out that it works great.
But when you have dogs that either have really high drive or
have major anxiety or PTSD, you're starting to give them 5
or 6 sprays, which is fine, but you run through the thing too
fast, right? So we're actually doubling the
compound volume but keeping the price exactly the same.
(15:40):
So you're 66 sprays will last you longer because you're not
going to need as much. And then we're actually going to
be removing curcumin and adding in L theanine to the spray.
So if you're, if you have a hydride dog, whether you're
training or doing bite work and want to get him out of that
drive so you can start avoiding the oxidative stress, that's
going to start setting in. And then if you have a dog that
(16:00):
has a lot of anxiety from fireworks or wind or anything
like that, a couple sprays will do you.
And I know you've noticed it. Yeah, it's pretty amazing.
I've got a real anxiety potato and then I've got the high drive
crazy dog. So calm has been a lifesaver for
me some nights because I have a dog that is so high drive that
sometimes he gets himself just so wound up that I cannot get
(16:23):
him to calm down. And being able to put calm on a
lick mat and see him put himselfinto a calm frame of mind has
just been so amazing for him because he's the kind of dog
that he lays down and then he gets up and then he paces and he
circles any pants and then he lays back down and then he gets
back. I'm like, dude, go to sleep.
And he does when he has the calm.
(16:45):
But if he doesn't, I'm like, I don't know what to do with you.
And then we found you guys and you guys really hit just so many
things for us move. Having a high drive dog and
knowing that that's helping withthat inflammation and those
muscles and just keeping him strong and healthy when he is
such an active dog and then being able to wind him down with
the calm. It's just a really powerful
(17:06):
combination for him. Yeah, especially when you're
putting the move and the calm totake the drive down and battle
the oxidative stress that's massive for high drive dogs and
people really don't even ambassadors that are ambassadors
for a company that do bite work and behavioral training and
things like that. A lot of them were very not
really understanding of what oxidative stress is and what
(17:27):
it's doing to your dog and how you can help support an anti
oxidative stress, you know, state of mind for the dog.
But it with trainers, it is thiskind of give and take because
when they're going through trials or they're doing bite
work or you know, they're, they're, they're training for
SWAT or the sheriff, you want that dog in drive.
You want them in drive. But you, but once you're done,
(17:49):
you got to bring them down because if they stay in drive
for too long, oxidative stress starts sitting.
And now you're now reducing the lifespan of the dog without even
not even knowing it. It takes a lot to get to this
understanding of the direct correlation between nutrition
and behavior, the direct correlation between nutrition
and longevity and getting peopleto really bite on that.
(18:11):
Like when we started Pet Matrix,our number one goal on all three
of our lists, we said we have toeducate, we lead with education.
We are not a product company. We're a solution company.
We're solving problem. How many pet supplement
companies have only four products?
And we've been in business threeyears.
It's because we solve problems. We don't want a category or our
(18:36):
catalog of products. And if you start really going
through these other companies that have 100 products and, and
more, there's so much duplicity and there's so much redundancy
in their products. I can't even differentiate one
from another from another from, oh, they took out one compound
and they just added another. This, this is going to be a
problem. And I think that we're going to
(18:56):
in this industry hit a tipping point in the next three to five
years from both a supplement space, an educational space and
a problematic space. From what customers are dog
owners, I should say, are going to be trying to solve problems
that they contributed to by oversupplementing their dogs without
(19:16):
even realizing it. Because at the end of the day,
what a handful of people are outthere going to hurt dogs.
I get that right? Horrible means, but 99.9% of
people own dogs, would love their dogs and do anything for
them. So you start seeing this
marketing, which this is commercial, there's dog ASPCU.
(19:37):
Or ASPCA there. You go, I, I think that every
supplement marketing company is,of course they're pulling on
your heartstrings. Yes.
Oh, I don't want my dog to limp like that and walk like, oh, you
say to buy that. Great, I'm going to buy that.
Oh, you too. I'm going to buy this.
And all of a sudden you're giving your dog 7 to 8
supplements and you're doing more harm than good.
(19:57):
So we're we're on a mission really to educate people on the
type of supplementation and using supplementation for what
it really is there for. It's a support.
It's to fill in gaps. You can never supplement your
dog to health. I hope everybody hears that.
OK, say it again. Yeah, You cannot supplement your
(20:18):
dog to help. You have to start with an
amazing foundation and that is their diet.
And then build on that. What aren't they?
Beginning, how can you support what they're not?
And you know what the beautiful thing about dogs is that even if
you have rescues, you know the breed or breeds that they're
that they're coming from, right?They have tendencies.
You kind of know what your dog is going to have as a problem in
(20:42):
their future. So you start supplementing
against that. Now, in educating people with
supplementation, you don't want to always just look for those
immediate results because typically supplementation cannot
handle acute type of trauma, petmatrix camp, because we bypass
digestion, we go directly to thecell.
So you start seeing these very, very quick results and people
(21:03):
are blown away. They're like, wait a minute,
I've been using something for eight months, nine months, and
it's not work. It, you know, hasn't worked and
now yours works in two weeks. Yeah, that's the CMD.
So really we're educating and we're, we're building a
foundation for pet owners to be able to use us as a resource of
not just buying product. We don't, I'm not, I'm not
(21:24):
interested in pushing a product to you.
I'm really not. Now, if I have something that I
know is going to help you, then I'm going to tell you about it
because I'd be robbing you of information if I didn't.
But there are times where we will recommend because like we
don't have probiotics. There's a reason we don't, we
don't think we need to solve that problem right now.
There are high quality, I preferSBO probiotics versus other.
(21:45):
There are high quality ones out there and I refer people over to
it for sure. We're more interested in the
health of your dog than selling you.
That's two things that I love about you guys is that you you
are not product pushers and you're not just mass producing
things and trying to get things on shelves and you're trying to
make partnerships with other brands.
You're trying to make partnerships with veterinarians,
you're trying to make partnerships with police
(22:06):
departments, all kinds of things.
And you're really, really are trying to help dogs.
But the other thing is, which isthe most important part to me is
the education fees because that is why I started this podcast
because there's so much different misinformation
education basic hand me down. This is what we've done for
years on nutrition for dogs. And the last three years for me
(22:31):
have literally been learning about nutrition, trying to find
a diet that supports each of my dogs individually.
My dogs don't eat the same thing.
The only thing that is the same that I give my dogs is their pet
matrix and they don't even get the same amounts because they're
different sizes. I did an interview with another
company that was nutrition company, and he basically said
(22:51):
the same thing you did about themarketing and how this is all
just tapping into your feelings and how they market a certain
diet to make you feel a certain way about the diet, but they
don't really explain the ingredients.
And apparently AFCO has now passed a law about changing the
labels on dog food bags that should be released sometime
within the next three to five years.
(23:12):
That'll put into action, which is going to change a lot of
things, right? Because people are actually
going to understand what's in their dog food, what's in their
dog supplements, and be able to look at the label and go, oh,
OK, this is a Coke can. This is my dog food.
Maybe I'm a little bit uncomfortable now about what's
in the dog food because they didn't have to do those things
(23:33):
before and all of the byproducts.
Somebody will send me a picture of a label and I'll be like, oh,
I'm at PetSmart and I found thisfor anal glands.
Would you take a look at the label and tell me what you think
Immediately? No, because you're at PetSmart.
But second of all, yes, I'll look at the label.
So I always take a look and there's always, there's all
these fillers, there's all thesechemicals and it's a capsule or
(23:55):
it's something. And I'm like, do you understand
that every time you give your dog something that its body has
to breakdown like this, you are shaving months, days, years off
of your dog's life? It was something that I didn't
not know until recently. I didn't know until Tanisha.
I pass this information along constantly because what you guys
have is so unique and being ableto literally see the difference
(24:19):
in my dog within a couple of weeks was astounding to me.
I was just completely dumbfounded by the fact that my
dog was running around acting like a little puppy again and
that he wasn't having his pancreatic flare ups anymore.
And I was like, for sure, this has just got to be something
that's, you know. But no, here we are.
By by the time this episode releases, we'll have been in a
(24:40):
relationship with you guys for almost 2 years and that is huge
because that's a commitment to my dogs.
That's commitment to a product, but that's also me, me telling
everyone out there, this is something that I stand by and I
will not tell anybody to go anywhere else because you will
see the results and you will seea difference and it will help
your dog. And I think that it's so unique
(25:04):
that you guys have really started to turn the tables
because it said in another episode, the same thing about
nutrition. This is a generational change.
You guys are making a huge change in a market that's been
the same since 1956 when dog food was created in 1956.
Most of those big brand kibbles that are out there have been
(25:27):
made the exact same way with theexact same process, with the
exact same ingredients and and our dogs are living because it's
sufficient. It gets them through
nutritionally. But if you actually look at what
it takes to provide for your dog, what they actually need,
what they actually would still eat if they were considered wild
dogs, it's vastly different thana dry kibble product that we're
(25:49):
pulling off of shelves for $60.00 a bag.
It's funny you say that because the bags of kibble are not
nutrient sufficient for our dogs.
What they are is calorie sufficient for our dogs and
there's a big difference. Calories do not equal nutrition,
Calories equal energy. Our dogs metabolic rate is 7 to
(26:12):
10 times faster than humans. So from the moment that they're
born, they have this expiration.Things can affect that
expiration like disease, infection, things like that.
But if you just take the lifespan of a dog, now we're the
ones who are actually bringing down their lifespan.
The kibble debate just comes down to nutrition versus
calories. And so what's happening is the
(26:33):
dogs getting enough energy to perform as a dog as you want
your dog to perform. Some dogs are just a companion,
others are working dogs, huntingdogs, you know, whatever you
have them for, they fit your lifestyle.
And so now what people are realizing is that you need to
give them the proper nutritionalbenefits.
(26:54):
As we start catching up with ourown health, we're now just
starting to see raw ones just started becoming popular and
feeding a different way just maybe a few years ago where
people really started grabbing onto it.
And that will continue to grow. People start are to become more
label readers, but the problem really stems from the
educational system of vets from what the vets end up pushing
(27:16):
because that's what they get paid to push.
I will say this please for the audience.
I love DVMS, I love good DVMS and I tell you go to your vet.
We tell people all the time you got a problem with your dog.
Don't ask me. I am not a vet.
OK, go to your vet and have yourdog analyzed.
Now, based on what I know, I would suggest using Protect, but
(27:36):
what I want you to do, I want you to print out our product
sheet. I want you to take it to your
vet and say I'm thinking of giving this supplement.
Are you OK with the ingredients?And that relationship, I think
is very important for people to have.
And I don't think it should be dismantled, but I think that
there needs to be a lot more good vets out there who are
(27:57):
standing up for the nutrition and the benefit of the dogs
instead of just, you know, pushing.
I'm not gonna name the brands, but we all know who they are.
OK, They're kibble. They say it's the best and give
it because your dogs post surgery.
So give them this kibble. Are you out of your mind?
Yeah, I learned some fun facts about those upper echelon
brands. Let me put that in air quotes.
(28:18):
The upper echelon brands that are highly recommended by vets
and how much carbohydrates are actually in your dog's food and
how bad carbohydrates are for your dog.
My mind was blown. I could not believe it.
I was like, OK, well, I was donewith those brands before, but
now I'm really done with those brands.
But to prove your point, I was avet tech for 10 years and I
(28:40):
stood behind those brands. And those brands came in and
they educated us and they would bring us lunch and they would
tell us all about their product and their programs that they
have in Switzerland with the dogs and the centers and they're
adoptable and all of the things.It seemed great, seemed
wonderful. But then you get down to it and
you learn more about the productand the breakdown of the product
(29:01):
and how it's cooked and how yourdog's body is actually not
processing it and then the size of their poops, all of these
things. But then that just takes you
right back to the education piece because nobody is putting
this on the Internet. And while I agree with you
completely about going to your vet and talking to your vet
about these things, I also highly recommend that you find a
(29:22):
dietary specialist, whether it'slike whether it's a DVM canine
nutritionist or a certified canine nutritionist, which is
something that I'm looking into doing now because I've become so
passionate about it. I want to be just like Tanisha.
I want to follow in her footsteps.
I've become so passionate about this.
This is something that I need tobe able to say, hey, I'm
actually certified in this. We can have this conversation
(29:44):
for real. Veterinarians go to school for a
four year period of time post grad.
They learn how to do a lot of things.
They do continue that education for a lot of things.
You go to your regular doctor for annual checkups, but if you
break your foot like I did, I didn't go to my regular doctor
for that. If you tear a muscle or if you
(30:06):
have some kind of orthopedic issue, you go to see a
specialist. If you have stomach and gut
issues, you go to see a specialist.
Find a specialist for your dog. Don't just go to your regular
vet for those things. And unfortunately, there's only
a small percentage of them that are not on the payroll for those
(30:27):
big brands of kibbles. So they are far and few in
between. But it does seem to be something
that's becoming quite popular and more and more people do want
to be part of this movement and part of this education piece.
So go out and find a canine nutritionist.
Find somebody that can help you with this.
Find somebody that can help you with the diet it find somebody
that can help you understand more about the ingredients in
(30:49):
the supplement that you're giving.
Because if you're not giving PetMatrix, there's a lot of stuff
that you're not going to know what it is without Googling it.
Granted, there's some stuff in Pet Matrix products that I still
have to Google or message to Anisha and be like, what is this
and what does it do? And she will tell you because
that's her job literally is to help you understand it.
(31:10):
And that's a service that you guys provide that a lot of these
other brands that are out there don't provide.
So many of the big ones, and I'll just name one just because
right off the top of my head is Woofs.
We tried Woofs before we came toyou guys, before I met Tanisha
and it didn't do anything. Why would my dog?
Why would it? Have you seen, I mean the
(31:31):
ingredients on it? What is this supposed to be do?
Basically, it's a chew, right? It's not Wolf's product.
They're it's a white label company.
They're going and they're getting a manufacturer to
produce what they produce. There's nothing special about
it. They're a marketing machine and
the ingredients in Wolf's, I guarantee if you've been using
Wolf's for more than a year and you use it every day, I would
(31:54):
definitely go tag your dog checked out for hepatotoxicity
and get their blood levels checked because I'll tell you
what, their liver is working overtime because typically I
don't want to bash on kibble toomuch because everybody has
different needs. To know budgets and all that
stuff. Yeah.
And So what you want to do is you want to supercharge your
(32:14):
kibble as much as possible. Again, find a supplementation
that works for you, fill in the gaps that you know is going to
be specific to your dog breed. It's not difficult to figure
that out. You probably already know off
the top of your head. It's just making you think a
little bit different. My German Shepherd is going to
have problems with hip dysplasiaas they get older, rear hind
quarter problem and whatever else.
OK, great. So you should start
(32:35):
supplementing for that type of preventative.
So try and get organic as much as possible.
Worry about the bioavailability of things because that is what
will hurt your dog's liver and hurt their blood if it's not
bioavailable and you're just jamming it down their throat.
So I'm just wondering how long they're going to be able to
sustain this marketing search and how deep their pockets are
(32:55):
because when we were talking earlier about making mistakes.
So with social media marketing and those types of things, when
you make those mistakes as a small business, that's dollars.
That's bottom line. Yeah, that's bottom line.
And at the end of the day, what keeps us in business is dollars.
That comes through sales, of course.
So what we went through in abouta nine month period, we
(33:19):
literally lost over six figures as a company through social
media, through ads, through management, through everything
else. It was a disaster and our
company wasn't growing until we took hold of everything.
The three of us sat down, we said OK, this is it, we can't do
this anymore. The ambassador program was born
(33:39):
and we said this is how we're going to do it.
We're going to keep our social presence, but we're going to do
it. Our customer service, we're
going to do it. We're not going to outsource
anything, OK? We're going to do it so we
understand what who we are as a business and what we and you can
only do that by being intertwined with every part of
your business. It was extremely important for
(34:01):
us to really take hold of every piece of our business in order
to get to where we are today. I want to make sure that
everyone understands that there's a place for every diet
that you have. It doesn't matter what your
budget is. Find the best kibble for the
budget and then try and get sometype of supplementation.
(34:22):
If you have questions, hit us upon e-mail.
We'd be more than happy to, to answer questions for you, walk
you through some basics and workwithin your budget.
At the end of the day, you know,because we get dogs to fulfill
our needs, right? Do at the end of the day, we
feel so much better and we're, we get so much more out of it.
And then then really what we caneven think of, But we have to
(34:43):
fill those needs within our budget, within our life.
Be very choosy, be very picky about the dog that you bring
into your life. It's an important decision.
Don't be so fleeting with it. You know how many dogs are
getting returned back to the shelter?
You know, try to not to make such an emotional decision by
getting the dog. Make an intellectual, mature
(35:04):
decision that you're going to beable to take care of that dog.
Because these dogs, they rely onus for everything, everything
for life itself. I think people need to take that
a little more responsibly. I'm sure your audience, the
people listening to this podcasts, are the ones who care
about that stuff. Hopefully as your audience
grows, maybe someone hearing this like, hey, these people
(35:25):
really do care about our dogs, and we do.
No, and that's a that's a huge topic on this podcast is doing
your research, whether it's yoursupplements or it's your dog
food or it's your veterinarian and the how to interview a
veterinarian or a pet sitter. Those are the conversations that
we have on this podcast so that people can feel informed because
(35:47):
again, you can Google whatever and you're going to get 15
different answers and you're still not going to know what to
do. The whole point of this podcast
is to be here to say, OK, look, you just heard this whole
conversation between Emily and Will and now you know what Will
knows and you know what Emily knows and you know what they
share in common. And you know that they both
think you should make an informed decision when you pick
(36:08):
a breed of dog. You should make an informed
decision when you pick a food and a supplement.
Now I have questions and I mightfeel bad about what I'm feeding
or what I previously used for treats or supplements or
whatever, but I can go and I cantalk to Will and Emily and not
feel bad about it because they didn't know either at one point.
And that's the whole point. I don't want people to feel
(36:30):
judged. I want people to learn.
I want people to understand thatthey can come here and they can
ask whatever they want and thinkit could be the stupidest, most
innocent, dumb question that's actually going to turn on some
light bulbs for them. Because that's what I did.
I asked a lot of questions. And then I started recording
those conversations because I thought, Gee, if I had been able
(36:51):
to find this information somewhere else before, how much
easier would that year that I spent Googling things have been?
It would have been a lot easier,yeah.
And, you know, because it's justnot there.
You know one of the big problemsthat you're talking about when
you Google and you get all thesedifferent answers, well, you
know what's before you get to all those answers?
All those sponsored ads. So the answers are way below
(37:11):
everyone paying the money to getyour eyes.
So you start looking like these guys probably got an answer for
me. And of course, you go on to it
and you're like, yeah, I can relate.
That's my dog. It pulled on my heartstrings.
And I'm getting that right. So yeah, you're looking at all
these big marketing companies before you get to the real
information. And even when you get to there,
it's hard to really filter that information or decipher through
(37:33):
that information of what it really isn't.
So what we talk about at Pet Matrix is that we like to
partner with our people. We don't look at people as just
customers. We look at it and go, hey, we're
a partner because you're trusting us with your dog's
health. This is very serious.
OK, great. So let's talk about this.
Let's make sure that you feel informed and that we're making a
(37:54):
good purchase and that we're going to then help your dog down
the road. And and like you said, you're
going to continue to see results.
If you see results now, you're going to continue to see results
with pet majors and that's because of the cell matrix
delivery and that has everythingto do with bioavailability,
which. Is a huge thing which if you
want to define it again, I'm sure everybody who's listened to
(38:15):
this episode is probably listened to the previous two,
but I like to talk about bioavailability.
It was a huge light bulb moment for me, so let's just talk about
it for a second because it's so important.
Yeah, bioavailability is the rate at which something can be
absorbed in its simplest terms. So you're going to use
bioavailability to measure efficacy, to measure dosing
(38:36):
amounts and things like that. So for instance, I'm sure this
is probably what most people have heard.
Oh, I take 5000 Iuds of vitamin D Well, OK, Vitamin D is one of
the only vitamins that's a lipid, OK.
It means it's not water soluble.So the bioavailability of it is
extremely low. It's, it's not that you need
5000 Iuds of vitamin D, it's that they know that only about 5
(39:00):
to 10% of it is going to be absorbed, OK.
The bioavailability is extremelylow.
So they say we need this amount.So in order to do that, you're
going to take this much. So if you have, let's say 100%
of something and 10% of it can be absorbed, what happens to the
other 90%? It has to be broken down.
For a human, it would take a lotof supplementation because our
(39:23):
liver is really built to last, built to survive.
Dogs are built to perform. It doesn't matter the size of
the dog. These dogs, man, they're amazing
specimen. They'll do stuff and they're
driven and they want to be a dog.
Hanisha talks about it a lot, isunlocking a dog's genetic
potential. We really like to do that and
(39:44):
talk about that. All that stems from the
bioavailability. So when you have a dog that has
to now breakdown that 90% or 95%of waste, whether it's fillers,
like you said, carbohydrates, sapiens, all these different
kinds of things, you're really overstressing the amount of
hepatic enzymes that have to be released from the dog's liver.
(40:04):
And so if too much of that within their blood and that's
very easy to do, you are then going to put your dog at risk of
hepatotoxicity, which is a toxicity within the blood and
that can. To all other types of issues,
there's a saying that we use it's we didn't coin the say it's
a, it's a Latin phrase called quantum status and it's used in
(40:25):
the pharmaceutical space becauseit means the amount that is just
enough. It's important in the
pharmaceutical space because of prescriptions, drugs can cause
havoc on internal organs for humans.
So if you ever look on your prescription, you'll see a
little QS on it. Quantum status, they're giving
you just the right amount. They'll have you get the maximum
(40:46):
amount of efficacy with the least amount of side effects and
damage. That's what they're looking to
do. So you can only do that when
you're making something extremely bioavailable.
Let's say you took curcumin today in a turmeric form, a
pill. Curcumin is only bioavailable.
Curcuminoids are bioavailable atlike 2 percent, 5% maybe.
(41:08):
And so you have to take a lot ofit.
But the the big problem with that is that your results are
not measurable because the absorption of it will vary from
day-to-day. From time of day that you take
it, your state that you're in, are you resting, are you moving?
All those different things affect the bioavailability.
So solving that problem, we through CMD make curcumin
(41:32):
bioavailable through our process, change the polarity of
it, of that lipid which is a nonpolar charge compound.
We change it to a polar charge compound so it gets directly in
the bloodstream. So what this allows us to do is
bypass digestion. So the dog doesn't have to
release any of these enzymes. It gets directly into the
bloodstream, goes directly to the cell and now we can deal in
(41:54):
micrograms in some cases the amount that is just enough
what's going to get the job done.
They don't need any more than that, and the only way you solve
that problem is by solving the bioavailability issue of
hydrophobic compounds. We make them hydrophilic.
It's pretty cool, man. It is fascinating.
(42:14):
It, it's crazy. I'm, I'm a nerd.
I got into the lab a lot. I continue to work with the
biochemists in the lab a lot. They kind of gave me a little
nickname and and like the citizen scientists running
around asking all the questions,getting the answers, asking more
questions, getting this kind of perturbed looking back at me
like, how do you know that? Why are you asking that
question? Well, just makes sense.
(42:34):
Once something clicks for you, it really kind of takes you down
this road. I'm here like, yeah, now I want
to be a certified canine nutritionist.
Yeah. So it's pretty cool.
The bioavailability, the rate atwhich something can be absorbed.
And it's everything when you're talking about supplementation.
The bioavailability of something, or the lack thereof,
is everything, especially when it comes to your dog's health.
(42:56):
Yeah, because dogs are not builtthe same way our bodies are
built and they don't have the same things that we do, which
for something I learned recently, I believe it's
families in our mouth that helpsus start to break something
down. And dogs didn't have that until.
Yeah, that's a it's, it's an enzyme.
Yeah. So, yeah, yeah, we produce that
(43:17):
and the dogs don't. And so they, they talk about the
when does the digestive process start?
Some people go back to the thought, because the moment you
start thinking about eating something, all of a sudden what
your mouth starts to water if you're hungry, saliva starts
going, Oh, guess what digestion started.
Now it didn't start digesting, but the process goes.
(43:39):
We're seeing the different mechanisms of the digestive
process, the different propulsions and, and where it
can get to. It was extremely important in
our science if I can talk about this for just two seconds.
Go for it. For your audience that's
listening whenever you see an adcome out in regards to
supplementation or dog food and they talk about the science of
it, let me explain something to you.
(44:00):
They're not talking about their science of anything, They're
talking about the science that was done way before them.
Just because I stand on the shoulders of people who are 7
feet tall doesn't make me tall. I'm still 5-6.
So just because all these peoplethis amazing work to find out
that the efficacy of Kirsten anddogs of curcumin of safety of
(44:22):
BPC 157 with dogs, just because somebody did that, that's not my
science that I can tell. So for me to say that my product
is scientifically proven becauseI use an ingredient from
somebody else, I find it mildly insulting because it's
propaganda, it's deceitful marketing.
We have real science behind our product.
(44:43):
Our science is a cell matrix delivery We consider to be the
most important function within supplements to your dog and
that's the delivery of the supplements to your dog.
I just wanted to say that because I don't think people
realize it, but. They don't, they don't.
I didn't. And that's the thing, I was a
vet tech for a really long time.When I was a vet tech, they were
still demonizing raw diet that will make your dog feral, that
(45:06):
will make your dog attack you, that will make your dog
aggressive. That was what they were teaching
when I was a vet tech. And now they're like, wait,
what? That's how natural world things.
That's not the dog should be ready to process all of those
things because that's how the dog's built.
So it's just wild to me how muchof a gap there is between the
two and how easily people can get lost in it because there is
(45:29):
little to no information. And the information that's out
there is so skewed that it's hard to keep up with it.
So we just keep putting out episodes like this where we're
explaining, hey, this is where you can start if you have
questions, we can put you on theright path to getting your dog
into a better position because we want our dogs to live longer.
We want our dogs to not have as much waste.
(45:52):
We don't want them to process things so hard.
If we want them to eat diets that are good for them at an
effective cost. And we want to provide those
supplements for them so that they can live to be 1314,
fifteen, 1617 years. 20 years, 20s, yeah, absolutely.
Our Bay girl, she's 12. If she goes any sooner than 20,
(46:12):
I'm going to be really upset about it.
Based on nothing external thingsthat you really can't help,
whether that's disease or whether that's, you know, some
type of bacterial infection thatends up going crazy, which is
very prevalent in dogs. I'm pushing the envelope as far
as I push it. The reason we feed raw is for
the nutrient absorption and not having to overwork their liver.
(46:36):
That's why we do because if you go outside of that and you start
looking out of the other diets, even if it's slightly cooked,
you still have to work for that.And then you go down to kibble.
That's extra work on their body.And like you said earlier,
you're just taking a week off, amonth off, taking three months
off of their life without even realizing it, Again, because I
believe the dog owners are even pet, just pet owners are really
(46:59):
aware of and really wanting what's best for their animal.
And we're here to support that on all levels.
Yeah. And again, that's why I love you
guys so much, because you reallydo support that.
You guys are always there to answer the questions and you're
always there to give the information.
And obviously we have two educational episodes out and
we're going to have a third one come out.
I just want people to realize how supportive we are of you
(47:22):
guys. So I want you guys to keep
popping up up in the roster because I want people to know
about Pet Matrix. And how much?
It benefits our pets and how much it benefits our lives
because it benefits our pets. And you guys are just doing
incredible things. And I cannot wait until I can
get this show on the road and I can come and I can come and see
(47:42):
your place where you make the pet matrix and I can then bother
all of your scientists with my questions.
I think it'll be so fantastic. I'm so looking forward to that.
I will ask you the question thatI ask everybody before we wrap
up. What would you like to leave the
listeners with, Ohio? What would I like to leave the
listeners with? Look at your dog and ask
yourself, are you doing what's best by them?
(48:02):
And if the answer is no, don't beat yourself up.
Start looking for answers. The wonderful thing about dogs
is they're just extremely resilient and they'll continue
to push forward and always want to please get the information,
get educated on it, do the research and don't fall for the
marketing ploys. Dig in, dig in, because that dog
is going to give you everything that have for the short life
(48:25):
that they do have. The amount of what they require
from us is so little, so little at the end of the day.
I guess I would leave with that.I don't want to give a shameless
plug for Pet Matrix, but my goodness, I'm telling you right
now, biased. Call me whatever you want, it
doesn't matter. I know we have the best
supplements in the world. If your dog has an issue, we'll
(48:45):
help you and and we'll get you results.
We know what we're here for and we're here for the long haul.
And our ambassador program is getting ready to get a new
recharge. We're actually going to be
blowing it out again here in thenext month looking for new
ambassadors, a new ambassador call.
Our goal is to have between 3 to400 ambassadors by the end of
the year. That's the hill we're wanting to
(49:07):
stand on with. The people were willing to stand
on the hill with and die on is the people who are in the game
every day. We don't want to dump a lot of
money into social marketing. We want to be on the ground with
you and your dog and loving life.
And you know that comes from a healthy dog.
Absolutely. That's phenomenal.
And if you have questions, you can reach out to Will, you can
(49:30):
reach out to Tanisha and you canreach out to me.
So thank you Will so much for being here and we will see you
guys next week on Straight Up Dog Talk.
Straight up Dog talk was createdby Emily Breslin.
It is edited and produced under the supervision of Straight up
Dog Talk LLC and Emily Breslin. If you're enjoying this podcast,
follow or subscribe and be sure you don't miss an episode and
(49:52):
leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform.
Looking for more honest and relatable dog content?
Check out our sister show Unpacked with Jerry Sheriff and
Madison Simpson. Thanks for listening to Straight
Up Dog Talk. See you next week.
Today's episode is proudly sponsored and brought to you by
our good friends over at Pet Matrix Premium Canine
Supplements. Straight Up Dog Talk is so
(50:13):
excited to be partnered with PetMatrix and jump into their
family. After exhausting several other
pet supplement brands, I am getting the support and results
I have been searching for. For both Toby and Fitz, Pet
Matrix supports all three pillars of canine Wellness.
Using their Cell Matrix delivery.
It delivers nutrition directly into the cell.
If you're looking for a supplement that pairs with
(50:34):
nature and science, look no further and get your dog on Pet
Matrix today. Stuff works.
Period.
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