What Pet Parents Don’t Know About Everyday Dog Products (and What to Use Instead)

What if the problem wasn’t your dog—it was the products we’ve all been told to trust?

In this no-BS conversation, Em sits down with Lindsay Ruggles, Senior Director of Brand Marketing at Pet Life Unlimited, to talk about why so many “standard” pet products are outdated, overcomplicated, or just plain ineffective—and what pet parents actually need instead.

From the pee pad aisle to paw balm hype, we break down how to stop wasting money, avoid overwhelm, and choose products that actually work for your dog’s lifestyle and health.

🎙️ You’ll hear:

• Why so many pet care products are created without your dog in mind
• The problem with traditional pee pads (and what to use instead)
• How Pet Life Unlimited is rewriting the pet product playbook
• What to look for in paw balms, dry shampoo brushes, and daily care
• The shift toward transparency, science, and respect in dog care

🐶 Want a FREE sample of Pet Life Unlimited products?

Email [e-mail] with the subject line Straight Up Dog Talk to request yours.

Please note: Submitting a sample request will sign you up for Pet Life Unlimited’s marketing emails.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The ones that I had previously used were just flimsy.
The pee would leak through them.I was still having to clean up.
I would pick them up and it would just separate and be saggy
and soggy. It was like why am I even using
this thing? When it comes to loving your

(00:24):
dog, you don't really need any help.
I mean, look at that face. But caring for them, especially
the everyday stuff, that's wherea little support can go a long
way. That's exactly what Pet Life
Unlimited is all about. They're transforming dog care
with products that make the not so glamorous parts of being a
pet parent faster, smarter, and more rewarding.
From pee pads to a peptide powdered paw serum and the dry

(00:46):
shampoo brush you didn't know you needed, their solutions are
built around what real dog parents say they need the most.
Their newest invention. It's honestly genius.
Stick around to the end of the episode and I'll tell you all
about it and how to get a free sample to try for yourself.
Welcome to Straight Up Dog Talk,where real talk meets real
support for both ends of the leash.

(01:06):
Today's episode is all about raising the bar on pet products
and why the industry needs to dobetter.
I'm joined by Lindsay and Julia from Pet Life Unlimited, a woman
powered brand on a mission to change the way we think about
grooming, potty products, and the everyday we rely on at home.
From stigma to quality control, we're digging into what's broken

(01:28):
and how they are doing it differently.
If you've ever felt frustrated by the lack of good options out
there or just wanted products that actually work for you and
real life scenarios, this episode is for you.
Let's get into it. I had the pleasure of meeting
these ladies at the Global Pet Expo and I wanted to bring them
in today to share all about their business and their very

(01:49):
cool products. How are you ladies doing today?
Oh good. How are you?
I'm wonderful. I'm so excited to have you guys
here and chat. We had such an amazing
conversation at the Expo and youguys have some really cool
products which we will talk about today because I have been
trying out the samples that you gave me.
I always like to share my uniqueraw thoughts with you guys on

(02:11):
the podcast episode as well as educate in generals.
Why don't you guys tell everybody a little bit about
yourself and then Pet Life Unlimited and what you guys do
Great, I'll. Start I'm Lindsay, I'm the CEO
of Pet Life Unlimited. My background is not
traditionally in the pet care category, which is you'll
probably hear us say this a few times during our conversation,

(02:33):
but I think it's one of our superpowers that are very lean
and tenacious team is made-up ofpeople that come from a wide
variety of background. So for me, my background was
beauty and then baby product development, marketing brands.
And through all of those lenses,I'm leading a company that has
vision for what dog care really should be, and it's quite

(02:56):
different from what the status quo has been for a really long
time. I'm Julia.
I'm the senior director of Product Marketing at Pet Life
Unlimited. My background like Lindsay's is
not traditionally in the pet care space, but actually came
from innovation background, working with startups to launch
new businesses, working with large corporations to help them
think about their future strategies.

(03:16):
Join the team because I really believe in the mission and the
people who are behind it. And it has been a whirlwind
developing products with this team and and all of the
innovation that's coming out of our company has been awesome to
see and fun to get to. Do you guys do have quite a
variety of products? Let's talk about the first
product and what inspired that first product.

(03:37):
Sure. So we took a look at what was
happening in dog care, and what we saw was this stark contrast
between the food and treat categories, really keeping up
with the times, essentially giving dog parents variety,
answering the questions that they had about the different

(03:58):
possible ways to feed their dogs.
And yet when we looked at categories like the category
that's called in the industry, waste management, and it's like
the least sexy name for a category in the whole entire
world, but that essentially makes up dog pads.
So pee pads, right? That's a category.
The other category that we looked at that really was

(04:20):
underserved is the grooming category, and then flea and
tick. And we just saw a really obvious
way to give dog parents simply amuch better version of products
that were sitting in market for years and years and years.
And the way that we sort of imagined these categories as

(04:40):
they existed is that companies put products on the shelf.
They've been collecting dust foryears and years, and dog parents
just like us didn't even know toexpect more or better.
But the solutions really just take some ingenuity, creativity,
and partnership with manufacturers who share the same

(05:02):
vision. And so really the the dog pad is
where we started and we completely reimagined the way
that you can make a dog pad. So our dog pads perform in all
of the ways that dog parents whouse dog pads expect.
They absorb beautifully. They leave no trace of a mess on
your floor, and also they look great in your home, which to us

(05:28):
is table stakes. You're going to have a pad that
sits on your floor that your dogpees on because this is part of
your lifestyle as a dog parent or you're training your puppy.
Why can't that pad just look better?
That was really the foray into these categories.
We'll probably talk a little bitmore about our latest product

(05:48):
and innovation really in the dogpad set, but I'll save that for
later. But that was really our first
product, one that we were reallyproud of and because it served a
need that dog parents told us that they wanted, but nobody was
giving to them, which is. Huge in this industry, right?
Because like you said, innovative people don't know to

(06:09):
expect more of their pet products.
We just go to PetSmart and we buy what's ever on the shelves.
And I have kind of gotten into the habit of educating people
not to do that anymore because there is kind of a lot of junk
out there. There's kind of products that
are not safe for your pets that they still put on the shelves,
low quality food, all kinds of things, right?

(06:31):
Becoming a canine nutritionist really opened my eyes up to how
bad and how little regulation there really is when it comes to
the whole pet industry in general.
And people just don't know. They just don't know.
And it's really kind of. Scary.
Yeah, yes, that to us was reallyeye opening because in in any

(06:53):
category where there's a productthat is a consumable product.
So for us that's like cleaning products or grooming products,
even flea and tick. There is like you just said, no
regulation, which means that brands don't even have to list
their ingredients on the package.
That is not acceptable. What we've always set out to do

(07:16):
is start to push the category forward by leading in the ways
that we think pet care products should be depicted at shelf.
So for example, we use inky nomenclature in our ingredient
lists, which is from a regulatedstandpoint in the beauty and
skin care, anything related to to human, it's called inky

(07:39):
nomenclature. So your ingredient lists are
using the same language so that when you're buying your shampoo
for yourself, you can start to understand what those
ingredients are and at least youcan look them up.
But in the pet care category, you don't actually have to list
your ingredients. That means that when a consumer
goes to the shelf, dog parent turns to the back of the shampoo

(08:00):
bottle and they might see an ingredient list, they might not
see an ingredient list at all. Or there's this Gray area in
between where a company might list a description of an
ingredient. So it might say something like
surfactant, which is a cleanser,but they're not actually
clarifying which ingredient is the cleanser.

(08:21):
So for us, we are adamant about leading the way in terms of
ingredient disclosure on our packaging.
That's super important in grooming and really, really
important in cleaning because inthe cleaning category, if it's
like the wild, Wild West, to be quite honest with you, there's
no rule, no regulations. Companies will state whatever

(08:44):
they feel like stating and that's really doing a disservice
to dog parents. It's one of the the things that
we have always put a stake in the ground and it's largely
because of a number of us have abackground in the baby category
where as you can imagine it's a highly sensitive category and
the dog care category, pet care in general is no different and

(09:07):
our minds I. Completely agree, It's the same
thing with the dog food. There's this thing called
ingredient splitting in dog food, and that's when they take
an ingredient like peas and theysay, you know, pee this and pee
that or chicken this or chicken that, and it's all just still
chicken. But they use it to expand the

(09:28):
ingredient list to make it look more valuable to the reader.
Supposedly there's a law that's changing that for dog food,
which is going to make pet food labels look a lot more like
human food labels, which would be amazing because I think that
people will really start to wakeup in that area because they
will see how much stuff is actually in processed kibble

(09:49):
versus what they really think isin there now.
So I'm hoping that we can start to be more transparent with
labels in the pet community because like you said, it's a
sensitive topic. We want to know what we're
putting on our pets fur and we want to know if it's safe for
them to have it on their ears, on their nose, near their mouth.

(10:10):
Can they digest it? That OK if they lick the P Mac?
Because dogs do weird things, right?
They do weird things and you can't just control them.
What if they eat the pee pad? Is it going to come out?
Is it going to make them sick totheir stomach?
Do we need to make them throw up?
There's so many questions that you have to take into account
and then people panic because there are literally no answers
on the package when the vets like, well what is the pee pad

(10:32):
made of? Totally, Yeah.
And Julia can maybe can speak tosome of the research that we do
because what's so crazy to us isthat we know that that pet
parents care so much about all of this.
And yet, by contrast, again, in the categories that we live in,
nobody's answering these thoughts, concerns and needs.

(10:54):
I'll add to that, that as a brand and as a business, we're
really focused on how do we deliver care not only to pets
but also to the dog parents and deliver on the needs that they
have when they're taking care oftheir dogs.
And so for that reason, we spenda lot of time going deep with
dog parents about the things that they're thinking about.

(11:16):
So we've spent tons of time, time running surveys, running
interviews. We have every kind of research
we've run in the past six monthsto really understand what is
driving people's decision making, what is driving their
biggest concerns, what do they care about, what do they not
care about. And we actually just recently
built out AI database of all of our conversations, all of our

(11:37):
research so that we can continually mine for insights
and get to know dog parents evenbetter.
The research has been really fruitful for us because it means
that we're building not just what we think people want, but
we're actually building things that solve real needs that
people are experiencing. It's been really fun to get out
in front of dog parents and get to talk to them, because if

(11:59):
you're going to do research, people talking about their dogs
is about as good as it gets. People light up when they get to
talk about all of the things that they're doing for their
dogs. Yeah, using AI in that way is so
important, right? Because AI can scan through all
of that stuff in a matter of seconds, minutes where you
otherwise would be reading through documents for and then
trying to figure out how to wordit properly.

(12:20):
And AI can just be like, here, let me show you what the
consensus is. And 74% of people think this and
2% of people think that. And that really helps you grow
it down, which is actually genius because then you really
are getting to the heart of the matter and coming to find the
ways to resolve the issue much faster.
Which I think is something that doesn't happen a lot just in

(12:41):
general is that we don't try to find the answer and we just keep
going with whatever the norm is.Yeah, exactly.
Once you acknowledge that that is what's happening out in the
market with the products that sit on the shelf, you can't
Unsee it. So what you start to see is that
the the brands and the products that have been around for a very

(13:01):
long time and that are conventional.
They're talking to each other and they're one upping each
other, but they're not actually talking to the pet parent and
they're not answering what the pet parent wants and needs.
I can give you an example, like a tangible example of a product
that came out of these conversations and the research

(13:23):
that we've done with dog parents.
Several years ago, we ran a survey of dog pad users who used
dog pads in a various degree of ways.
The number one, of course, reason why people use dog pads
was that they used them all day,every day.
And this was the lifestyle that they chose for their dog, right?
But the second top reason was people who are using them only

(13:45):
at night, so they used them almost like it as an insurance
policy. So just so I don't wake up to an
accident so I don't have to get up for whatever reason.
It was like this epiphany to us,especially because we had
experience in the baby product world where we're like, wait a
second, why isn't anybody offering a nighttime pad that is

(14:06):
specifically designed to be thatnighttime pad?
Just like baby diapers, you've got your daytime diaper and you
have your nighttime diaper. Literally every parent who has a
baby now uses both types of diapers.
So we designed from scratch a dog pad that is specifically
designed for the night time. The size of it is perfect for

(14:29):
night. It has a dry touch technology.
So when your dog does their business on the pad, they walk
across it and then jump back in your bed or and on their bed,
they're not tracking anything with them.
It has a nighttime calming sensethat emerges after they wet the
pad. Specifically designed because we
heard what people were using pads for.

(14:52):
And yet again, nobody in the entire industry that has been
doing for years and years and years and years with big huge
teams of people thought to actually just listen.
And that's one of the products that we now have launched in
multiple places. It's one of our top selling and
most popular products. It fits a need.

(15:14):
Let's talk about pee pads and the use of pee pads and the
general stigma about pee pads because I'm going to tell you
guys a little story. Toby is 13 or 14 years old.
He's my little Chihuahua terriermix and he's currently in his
bed eating a popsicle right now.So that fits us out on the
porch. But Toby is 13 or 14 years old.

(15:35):
He can't always make it through the night.
He doesn't like it when it's raining.
So we have a pee pad down as an option for Toby, who might
decide that he's going to use that instead of going outside.
That all started because I got got tired of him peeing on the
dining room chair all of the time, right?
So now I just slide it under thedining room chair leg and he

(15:56):
pees on the pee pad instead of me coming out having to clean up
the floor. Fortunately I have wood so it's
easy to clean up, but it's stillinconvenient when your dog pees
on the floor. But he's 13 or 14 years old.
He wakes up in the middle of thenight.
He doesn't wake me up or it's thundering outside and he gets
upset and he goes and he pees over there fine.
So I accommodate him. I've had pee pads for a while.

(16:18):
The ones that I had previously used were just flimsy.
The pee would leak through them.I was still having to clean up.
I would pick them up and it would just separate and be saggy
and soggy. And it was just like, why am I
even using this thing? Because I'm still now cleaning
up after supposedly trying to not be cleaning up from him.

(16:38):
And then you guys gifted me somewhen we were at Expo.
He did use one of the pee pads and this is something we can
talk about here in a second. It did not turn purple, which is
wonderful. I'm very happy about that, but
we haven't had to use all of thepads.
I think I've had the same pee pad sitting there since I
switched it because he hasn't used it, but he's not going

(16:58):
swear in the house, which is wonderful on all accounts,
right? I think that a lot of people
walk into a house and they see pee pads and they get that
automatic. Like these people are not potty
training their dogs. They're not whatever.
That's not always the case. Some people live in apartments.
They don't have a safe place fortheir dog to go to the bathroom,

(17:19):
or their dog is active and they can't take their dog outside, or
they have a senior dog like minewho can barely get around and
can't walk down the stairs anymore.
There's just such a negative feeling about pee pads beyond
puppy training. That's just really unfair to the
industry and the pet parent community as a whole.
Totally. Agree.

(17:39):
It's it's not an anecdotal story.
You're absolutely right. And Julia, I think you can
probably speak to some of the research where we heard exactly
that, which is dog parents who use dog pads.
There's a shame. And that's actually the word
that we've been able to sort of extract.
They might not think of it top of mind every day, but there is

(18:01):
a shame associated with it. And they're of course shouldn't
be. And we are in part, giving them
something that helps to infuse satisfaction and joy and pride
into a solution that sort of reverses that internal feeling
that they have. And to that.
Point when we've talked to dog parents, there's no one reason

(18:25):
why people are using them. They're using them for many
different reasons and often for multiple reasons.
So maybe they're training their dog, but they also use it when
it's raining out to your point, and their dog doesn't want to go
outside. Maybe their dog has incontinence
and gets scared of other dogs. It's they're using it for
several reasons. And so it to that point
shouldn't be a judgment on the parent because they have several

(18:47):
different reasons why this may be in their home.
And to add to Lindsays .1 of thethings that we know is that when
you do hard things, when you getinto the nitty gritty of being a
dog parent, that's where a lot of pride comes from.
And so when you're taking care of your dog and your dog's 13
and you've given their dog a great life and you're supporting
your dog in those years of its life by using a pee pad, it

(19:10):
shouldn't be a shameful thing. It really should be a moment of
pride and security. And to Lindsay's point, that's
really what we're trying to bring to the category because
it's reflective of really how dog parents feel when they're
taking care of their dog. Empowering.
That's the word I hear every time you guys talk.
It's you're empowering pet parents to have more comfortable
lives and more comfortable situations and more comfortable

(19:33):
solutions. And I just don't see that in
this industry. Like you said, it's, it's always
the the industries going back and forth with each other,
trying to one up each other or trying to modernize their
product and compete with this product or compete with that
products. But they're not really doing
what you guys are doing, which is reaching out into the

(19:54):
community and saying how can we make this better for you?
We are working for you with you,not just trying to sell
something. Shiny and new and get your
attention on it because unfortunately marketing is a
huge part of the pet industry. Labels and regulations and all
that because it's such a mess. You can literally just put

(20:16):
anything you want on packaging to sell it In the pet industry.
People don't understand that they're literally being marketed
with every single product that'sout there, which is why I like
your guys's packaging so much because it's very clean, it's
very simple, it's very informative, and it doesn't just
scream solutions and whatever modern day lingo you want to use

(20:39):
to say buy this now because it will solve all of your problems
with your dog and their pee pad issues.
I hate that. I hate that salesy tone.
I hate that it just makes me feel icky and you guys don't do
that. Like I said, it's very modern,
it's very clean and it is solution based, but it doesn't
just scream I'm trying to sell you something.
Yeah. Thank you.

(20:59):
We really appreciate that because it's hard to be the one
in a category where everybody isdoing that.
Everybody is screaming at the dog parents at shelf, every
product. You just said it so well, it
feels like you're being yelled at.
And this is the status quo. And it means that to be the the

(21:23):
company, the brand, the productsthat comes in and really tries
to be forward thinking and sort of speak in a conversational way
with the dog parent at shelf is the only thing that feels right
to us. And also it means that we're
bucking A trend that is deeply ingrained in the industry.

(21:45):
We have to find retail partners who have the same vision that we
have and who are willing to see that there's a different, better
way to serve dog parents. And that doesn't always
translate immediately. Who competing with those brands
that are historically selling atthe number one spot all the

(22:07):
time. It takes time to really change
the way that people shop. And but we are so committed to
doing exactly that because we know that it's the right thing
for dog parents. And part of the way that all of
this started was the fact that Ihave three dogs myself.
And when I was going to the store or if I was shopping

(22:30):
online, I was bored, quite frankly.
And it's a sea of sameness. Everything is the same and
everything is trying to say the same thing in a little bit of a
slightly different nuanced way. That's just not good enough.
When I say we, I don't even justneed our company, our products,

(22:51):
but we as and an industry shouldreally just be doing.
Better, Yeah, do you, if you happen to have like a package of
the the pee pads nearby you? I have one in another room, I
can go grab it. Go get it.
I'm going to go grab one out of my closet.
Not yours, but just to show the.Difference.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got AI, have a couple of
different ones that I'll break open.

(23:13):
Perfect. I want to show since we have the
opportunity. So we just took a break to go
get some product to show you what we're talking about as far
as marketing and stuff. So I have not pet Life
Unlimited. I have paused happy life
protection pads premium and it says 6 layer leak proof
construction, built in dog attraction, advanced polymer gel

(23:34):
technology, powerful older control.
Let me tell you, these things are weak.
These are the ones that fall apart.
But this is the packaging and itsays all of this stuff and it
tells you how to use them directions on the side as no
ingredients. It doesn't say what's in the
scent. It says who it's distributed by,
and it says please keep this plastic bag away from children

(23:56):
and pets. And that's legitimately all that
it says. If I was in a store and I just
needed a quick solution, would Iprobably buy this?
Yes, because I didn't know that there was something else better.
But as you can see, there's PPAT.
That's standard PPAD. But this is what I've learned
since. Like, look at that.
That's ridiculous. It shouldn't do that.
I told you they're weak, right? That should not happen with the

(24:19):
PPAD. That's that happened.
Show everybody what you got going on over there.
Julie got holds up either one ofthose and I also have some pads
that I can hold up of ours. I have the health tracker pad
with me right here. This is a new launch that we
just had and it we're really excited about.
And maybe Lindsay, you can talk about it, but this is our pads

(24:39):
by comparison. Yeah, I'll talk about the
details of that product in a second because I feel like that
needs its own moment, but show the other.
Show the other. This one's bigger and taking up
most of my screen here, but I have Smart Pads Pro, which is a
product that we just launched and we're super excited about
it. And to your point, we want to be

(25:01):
really clear about what dog parents are getting when they
get this pad and really elevating each of the features
that it has specifically designed for the problems that
we know that dog parents have with P pads.
Lindsay, do you want to talk a little bit about what makes it
different? Yeah, sure.
So our Smart Pads Pro products, one of the, one of the things
that, that we, that we hear fromdog pad users all the time is

(25:23):
the no, no surprise, the most important thing is absorbency.
You want to make sure that you know what you're buying is
actually going to absorb. And to your point, it doesn't
end up on your floor. We, we have heard dog parents do
some of the most extreme things to protect their floors.
We've heard things like people putting a big, huge piece of

(25:46):
plywood down on their floor first and then pee pads on that
piece of plywood because clearlythe dog pad didn't work in the
1st place. Nobody should be going through
that extreme of a measure. They should simply be using a
dog pad that works. And one of the things that we
want to make sure that we're always tapping into is all of

(26:09):
the senses. So with the Dog Pad Pro, can you
hold it up again or actually hold up one of the pads?
If you can RIP open the way thatwe develop dog pads, And I'm not
going to go into too much detailabout how we design them because
we'd be giving away all of our secrets, but.
Yeah, don't give away your tradesecrets.
No, I definitely won't. But we discovered a material
that we've incorporated into this jog pad that makes it so

(26:32):
you can see when the liquid is being absorbed.
It looks like magic, and I don'tsay that lightly.
I know that sounds sort of crazy, but when you actually
experience liquid being absorbedinto this pad, you can see it
happening, which tells you it's working because you can see it
working. The other thing that it does is

(26:53):
it fully hides the yellow urine spot.
So if you are a dog pad user andyou're gone from your house for
however many hours a day becauseyou're working really hard and
you come home, you prefer not toprobably come home to see a ton
of yellow urine spots because itdoesn't look great.
And again, that feeling that you've left your dog at home for

(27:16):
a certain amount of time. There are these feelings that
people have about using pea pads.
The beauty of this particular pad is it hides the pea spots.
And yet if you just turn the padover or lift the pad up, you can
see on the back of it how many times your dog has gone.
It's the beauty of both worlds. It's hiding the pea spots.

(27:36):
And also you can still tell how much they've used it.
And no need for a big plywood board because the dog pad
absorbs a ton of urine. This was actually our very first
dog pad product and these are called smart prints.
This is one of the ones when we talk about why does your dog pad
have to look so bad? It's essentially a hospital pad

(27:59):
that's sitting on your floor, but there's no reason for that
to be the case. And so we have an in house
designer who is incredible. She designs every one of our
pads, the top sheet material to have this really cool, modern,
beautiful look. So when you walk into your house
and you see your pee pad or someone else walks into your
house and they see the pee pad on the floor, it becomes a

(28:21):
talking point instead of a pointof contention.
All of our dog pads have these really beautiful designs on
them. We actually even did, we did a
summertime design last year. So this is our is our surfboard
design. That's so.
Cute. We did this really cool thing
with a surfing bulldog at that time.

(28:41):
There are a lot of dog surfers in the in the world who would
have known, right? But we did this cool partnership
with a, with a bulldog who surfed from a a packaging
standpoint in the way that we communicate the benefits of the
product. It's more centered on as Julia
said before, what the dog parentis actually wanting and needing

(29:02):
versus US screaming about how great the product is because
yes, of course our products is really great.
And yet that doesn't actually matter if it's not speaking to
what the dog parent needs and wants and and goes to the shelf
for who you. Pulled back up one of them and
yank on it a little bit and showeverybody that it won't just RIP

(29:24):
in half. Like that?
See big difference guys. I literally did not even hardly
pull on that one. I'm also really regretting that
I did because whatever they put in it for the scent, it's making
me want to sneeze. Until to Lindsay's point, I have
the Smart Pads Pro here, which have that colorized core guard,
and they also have beautiful patterns on it.

(29:45):
This one is bigger than the one that she had, so it's gone off
my screen, but it's also quite durable.
And that one is the one, well, you showed two of them when we
were at Expo, and that one is the one that you said that
absorbs, which was really, really cool to watch because you
can just see it sucking into it and it doesn't look all bumpy
and weird and you can't see the urine.
And then the other one, which iswhat I was saying earlier about

(30:09):
that not being purple and Toby used it.
Why don't you tell everybody what I'm talking about when I'm
saying the purple? Yeah, totally.
OK, I have. It right here, so I'll hold it
up for anyone who's watching. This is our health Tracker dog
pad and we have been obsessed for the past three to four years
with developed, designing and developing and producing a dog

(30:31):
pad that can help track your dog's urine health.
Because we know that dogs are five times more likely to get
UTI's than cats are, for example.
And yet there are now on the market a number of cat litter
products that help to track urine health and no one has

(30:52):
figured out how to do this in aneffective way in the dog care
space. So we have an incredible team of
researchers, product developers,chemists who have been working
on this for quite some time. And Julia, do you have one of
the OK perfect. So we have developed a it's a
proprietary formula that makes the pad fully green.

(31:15):
So it's kind of hard to see on camera, but but where normal dog
pads, you know, conventional dogpads are a big bite pad.
Ours, of course, are a printed beautiful pad.
This particular 1, the whole entire top of the pad is a green
color. The reason for that is because
when your dog urinates on the pad, if pH of their urine is in

(31:38):
the healthy range for a dog, thecolor will stay green.
So you'll see the urine spot andthe urine spot will remain
green. If the pH of their urine is in
the unhealthy range, which typically indicates a UTI,
potentially a kidney issue, the spot will immediately turn
purple and that purple spot willstay day for hours and hours and

(32:02):
hours more than 24 hours, which you'd never leave your dog for
more than 24 hours alone. But when you come home several
hours later and you see a purplespot, you know that something
has changed in the pH of their urine.
Now, the way that we instruct people to use these pads is you
use them once a day. So this doesn't have to replace

(32:25):
your pad that you use all day, every day.
This is your first thing in the morning pad and then you can go
and use the other pads that you use for the rest of the day.
But this gives you a baseline every single day.
Let's just say you've been usingthem for a week and on day eight
you see a purple spot. What we advise people to do is
test again the next day and if you still have a purple spot,

(32:48):
give your vet a call. What your vet is going to do is
all of the things they normally do, but if this is an indicator
of a UTI, you will have detectedit way earlier than when your
dog is actually showing physicalsymptoms.
And that's what we're trying to give parents is a tool that
helps them speak to their dog. Essentially, our dogs can't tell

(33:10):
us how they're feeling. They can only show us.
And when they show us, it's often well down the line.
This is giving people a tool that gives them an early
indication. And I have a really funny story
about Grace, who is our she's not a product person by nature
or by trade, but her dog doesn'tuse pads and a lot of dogs don't

(33:32):
use pads. But she really wanted to test
this out with her dog. So she wrapped the pad around a
mop and she went outside when her dog was going outside to
pee. And she just like gently held
out the mop with the pad wrappedaround it underneath her dog and
her dog peed on it. So she was like, I've invented a

(33:52):
new product, you guys. So we said maybe we'll just turn
that into a social video or something, but maybe it's not a
product anyway. There is a way to use this even
if you don't use dog beds. Especially, you know, from being
a vet tech, having those early indicators is so important,
right? Because usually by the time it's
gotten to where it's really a problem, your dog is acting out

(34:15):
in a behavioral way. And you don't know why because
you don't know that your dog is uncomfortable.
And if you can't see an early indication in something like
this, this is just a a great tool for people to use to make
sure that their dog is healthy. I know that they have cat litter
that changes colors when the cathas urinary tract or blood or
whatever going on in it. So why not have a pee pad that

(34:37):
helps pet parents determine if their dog is having the same
issue? Especially if you have a pet
that has liver or kidney issues and it has had stones or
crystals or whatever, that's just a safety net for you to
make sure you're staying on top of their health totally.
The way that we've developed this product and the, the

(34:58):
production is completely proprietary.
We have a patent pending on the product.
What we've seen and we saw this at Global Expo, there are some
companies that are coming out with products that say that they
they do this same type of, but unfortunately they're, they're

(35:18):
not if not using a technology that's actually effective.
And I don't know that those willactually get anywhere in the
market. The problem that we see with
that is that it's actually doinga disservice to dog parents
because let's just say they stumble upon this product that's
most likely coming from overseas.
And that's another just point sort of separately from this

(35:40):
particular product for the most part are made domestically,
including the health tracker pads.
We really do that for so many different reasons.
We want to keep things domestic.We have much more control and
oversight because we have relationships with our
manufacturing partners. We are there for every single
production run. We are may be a little

(36:00):
controlling, but it's really important to us and it just
gives us the ability to ensure that we're providing the dog and
our dog parents with products that we know that they can trust
because we trust them. The products that we just showed
you is one that no one else willbe able to have this same type

(36:20):
of technology because we developed it in such a way that
it's protected essentially. And so we're really proud of
that because we know that it will be used as a tool that
actually helps dogs and dog parents live a better, better
life. It's incredible.
I love that you guys are taking a step into the future in in

(36:42):
such a meaningful way. That's not just helping pet
parents with cleanup and feelingless shameful about having pee
pads in their home, but also stepping into a a warning system
for people who have issues with their dogs.
Because let's be honest, there are a lot of people that use pee
pads because all of a sudden their dog has just started

(37:02):
peeing in the house and not knowing why, they just start
putting down pee pads when instead they could be putting
down this and going, oh, should probably go to the vet.
Because a lot of people are justgoing to put down the pee pad
and continue to ignore the problem when it's really
actually something that they should be seeing the vet.
Yeah. Let's also talk a little bit
about the paw bomb as something else that I tried, which I

(37:26):
really like a lot because, I mean, I live in Iowa.
It gets cold here. My dog's paws get really rough.
The thing that I like the most about your paw bomb is that a
lot of those paw protectors paw bombs that are out there on the
market have wax in them. And I said before, I have wood
floor and so there's paw prints all over my floor that are
probably permanent. It's old house, old wood floors.

(37:48):
They're not totally finished anymore.
So I have like these paw prints that have just been left there
from the other products. Just my dog walking across the
floor after I put it on. We're trying to get outside and
instead it's all rubbing off on my floor instead.
So now I have a whole cleanup situation, which is not fun, but
yours is like a lotion kind of texture and it rubs right into

(38:10):
their paws. And I think it was like two or
three days. I noticed immediately that their
paws were softer and I can neverremember it.
It's called. But when you're when their paw
gets that real textured, like almost build up on it, kind of
like callousing that even was starting to soften and not look
so funky. I guess I don't know what the

(38:30):
right word is for, but it could be really rough and it can
scratch them, it scratches theirskin, it can scratch you and it
that wasn't the case. After a couple of days I really
felt like they were getting relief from the cream and it
wasn't making a disastrous mess all over my floors.
Yeah. So you just articulated
essentially the issue that we heard and that we've experienced

(38:53):
every dog parent has when it comes to their dog's paws, a
couple of really special things about this product.
And it's funny because this is aproduct that's like physically
it's very small. So it's really hard to talk
about all of the special things that went into developing this
product and the results of it because literally the package is

(39:13):
very small. It's hard to talk to people at
shelf. They're working into a Walmart,
which is where we sell this product.
One of the reasons why we developed this formula
specifically is exactly what yousaid, which is that most of the
paw bombs on the market, they stay on the surface of the skin.
And so exactly what you described you're, you put this

(39:34):
bomb on your dog, they usually come in like a tin, right?
So you're using your finger, you're applying the product, and
then your dog walks on the floorand most of the product is now
on your floor instead of on yourdog's paws.
One of my dogs, Lincoln, he has chronic paw sensitivity,
allergies issues and specifically in between his

(39:56):
little toe beans. So when we were developing the
formula, it was also really selfishly important that we had
a. Component or a package that
allowed dog parents to get in between their dogs toes really
easily. So if you notice that the tube
that the product comes in, it has what's called a needle nose
applicator. So it's basically just a really

(40:18):
thin applicator, but it gives you the ability to squeeze out
the product in between their little toe beans.
And then the formula is actuallya serum formula, and this is
what you were experiencing, which is in the skin care
product category, that serums are the type of formula that
gets sucked into your skin really easily.

(40:40):
And we have an incredible team of chemists.
Again, my background is in beauty.
And so it just seemed so obviousto bring that type of formula to
this type of product, and yet noone's done it because, again,
like we talked about before, everybody is just kind of doing
the same old thing. And we just said, no, we're not

(41:00):
going to do that. We're going to develop a formula
that actually gets drawn into the skin, even into the paws,
which are so thick. And that's exactly what the
product does. Julia, maybe you can speak a
little bit to the already special ingredients in the
serum. Yeah.
The ingredient that Lindsay's referencing is a silk peptide

(41:21):
that we've, we've sourced specifically for this and it's
designed to lock in the moistureand protect the skin barrier.
So it's not just about sitting on top of the skin like Lindsay
mentioned, but it's really aboutbuilding up the protection over
time so that your dog's paws areprotected from the environmental
allergens. And we've learned just generally

(41:41):
about dog skin is that it's moresusceptible than human skin is
and which is why they have fur, but it's, it's more susceptible
to allergens and, and external aggressors.
And so for us, it was really important that this product
didn't just protect officially, but really supported the long
term health of the dog's paws. But it smells nice, too.

(42:02):
I'm actually really, really sensitive to smells.
Because of my medical condition,I get migraines very easily.
So anything that's really heavily coloned or like this
thing down here on the floor immediately starts making me get
choked up and sneezy and wheezy.And then I'll usually get a
migraine from it because it getsinto my system and I'm very,

(42:22):
very sensitive to it. And I have not experienced that
with any of your products, whichactually kind of leads me into
the brush that you guys have, which is a dry shampoo brush,
which is so freaking cool. Because one of the things that I
think a lot of people don't realize is that bathing your dog
on a weekly or bi weekly or evenmonthly basis can actually be

(42:47):
really bad for them. Because as you said, dog skin is
much more sensitive than humans.And when we take the oils and
that natural barrier away from that skin, we are actually
hurting them and increasing thisway that they smell.
We are increasing their potential for allergies.
We are increasing their potential for dandruff, all of

(43:07):
this stuff. So having things that help us
feel better and the way that they smell and make us feel
better about their cleanliness, but also makes it easy for us to
do so. Because my bigger dog, he does
not like to take a bath. He does not like it.
He will jump in the tub to let me rinse off his feet if it's
been muddy, but even and sometimes that is an issue.

(43:28):
So having a way to clean him off, wipe him down, we use a
combination of things, but having the brush to get in there
and give him like just a good brushing first of all.
But also it helps kind of clean things out like dry shampoo for
people, right? If you have it, go ahead and
show it and tell everybody aboutit.
We're really, really excited about this product.

(43:51):
OK, so I'll, I'll do my best to sort of demonstrate it.
This was born of all of the facts that you just stated,
which most dog parents aren't being sort of told either by
companies who are trying to justsell them more shampoo.
But you're right, we shouldn't be bathing our dogs super often.
And yet we want to keep them healthy, clean, smelling great

(44:15):
in between the big bath moment. Our solution to that was to
develop. And this, this is a product
that's also been in development for a couple of years now, but
we designed and developed a brush that actually, so this is
just this nice little cap so it all stays clean.
It's a brush that you use to apply a dry shampoo powder.

(44:36):
So the dry shampoo powder comes in these cute little packets.
You put, pour the packet into the reservoir, close it, and
then it opens and closes sort oflike baby powder top wood.
And as you're brushing your dog,the powder flows through and
applies to your dog, gets all the way down to the skin.
And the whole purpose of a dry shampoo powder, as we know on

(44:58):
the human beauty side of things,is to absorb excess oil to help
remove some of the allergens that go into the skin just from
your dog being outside in the world.
And as you're brushing, you're brushing that dry shampoo powder
through their coat, through their skin, and you're removing

(45:19):
some of the excess fur, so you're helping to deshed them at
the same time. We have a fragrance in here that
leaves them smelling really wonderful and beautiful.
And it takes no more than two minutes once a week to just give
your dog a quick freshening in between those big bath moments
so that you don't feel like you have to and give them the big

(45:42):
bath, which to your point, actually is worse for them.
So it's providing a solution that sort of sounding like a
broken record here, but like people aren't being offered
solutions to the actual challenges that they're having
for taking care of their dog on a daily, weekly, monthly basis.
But it's just because, quite frankly, the industry has been a

(46:03):
little a little bit lazy and there's no need for that.
Let's just be creative and give dog parents solutions that they
really want and need. The other thing about the dry
shampoo powder brush that we developed is there are dry
shampoo powders out there. In fact, we used to make one
where you sprinkle it on and then you'd massage it in and

(46:23):
then you'd get your brush and you'd brush it through.
But what we realized from talking to folks about their
grooming at home routines was that the amount of work and the
lack of of joy, quite frankly, that comes from grooming your
dog at home is one of the barriers.
So then what happens is people just don't do it.
And we're like, OK, how can we make this kind of fun for both

(46:48):
the dog parent and for their dogand create this bonding moment
that actually then leaves everybody in a better place
afterwards? And that's exactly what we've
done with this product. I love that because it is, it is
a kind of a terrible experience,right?
Especially if you have a dog like Fitz, who just kind of
like, alligator rolls in the bathtub, you know?
And now not only are you coveredin the bathwater, but the entire

(47:11):
bathroom is covered in the bathwater.
It's a disaster because you've used seven towels to clean
everything up, and now you have to take a shower on top of
everything else. Yeah.
It's not fun. Yeah.
So you know what's so cool is that so everything you just
described is why people, of course, don't love giving their
dog a bath at home. And yet through our research

(47:33):
with dog parents, what we know is that the amount of
satisfaction that we feel after we've successfully given that
bath is greater than the satisfaction that we feel after
we've fed our dog. Our dogs actually, of course,
love being fed more than they love being given a bath.
But yet as a dog parent, you feel way more satisfaction after

(47:58):
you've you're like, OK, I did the bath, I did it, we did it,
we did it, buddy. We want to give people more
tools and reasons to actually enjoy that process, even if
you're really just getting the most satisfaction after you're
done with it. And that's just one of the
things that's the most fun for us when we're engineering our

(48:21):
products and we're coming up with new ideas and new solutions
and new packaging ideas that aresometimes totally crazy.
But it's because we just, we just think that pet parents,
they deserve more and why not give that to them?
We will add on I'm Lindsay's point about the dry shampoo
applicator is my dog hates beingbrushed and she loves this and

(48:46):
it feels good. She enjoys the process of
getting brushed using this versus before I'd have to just
bribe her to sit there and let me brush her.
So I think beyond the joy of getting her clean, that there's
something really fulfilling about seeing your dog not
struggling through the process too.
Yeah, 100%. It's not necessarily a
traditional brushing either, right?

(49:07):
It's more of like a massage brushing, which is pretty cool.
And that's something else that Ireally like and appreciate about
you guys is that all of your products are focused on your
relationship with your dog, not trying to solve a problem.
Yes, trying to solve a problem, but that's not the main point
that you're trying to build here.
You're trying to show people we can make this a relationship

(49:30):
building experience. We can make this a better
experience. We can have a better home life
experience, and we can really cherish this time and these
moments that are not necessarilyalways easy with our pets in a
different way by making it more,what's the word I want to use?
We're equipping pet owners, we're giving knowledge, we're

(49:51):
giving schools, and we're givingdirection in a way that is
different, accessible, and easy to use like nobody else has done
before. Which is just so awesome because
there are so many pet parents out there that do they struggle
with all of these things, whether it's their dog's feet
seem sore or their dog smells bad or they're feeling bad

(50:13):
because they have to use pee pads.
Again, empowering pet parents ina way that is new and
evolutionary to the industry, because the pet industry, it's
been stagnant for too long. It's been stagnant for too long.
We've been using the same brands, we've been using the
same products, we've been using the same methods over and over
and over and over. And now while some of those

(50:35):
things are tried and true, even looking at things like flea and
tick medication or vaccines and how much and this and that and
the other thing, I think that it's time to start looking at
the pet in front of us and adapting appropriately because
every dog is a different size. We can't just give the same
medicine but be like giving me the same amount of cough

(50:59):
medicine as you give your child.You can't do those things.
So I think it's really neat thatyou guys are finding unique ways
to cater to each dog as an individual and really help build
those relationships with their pet parents.
Yeah, thank you. You said this earlier and and
you we just re articulated it, but it's about empowerment.
And the other thing that we are a little bit allergic to in the

(51:24):
industry is companies saying that their products are going to
help you have more love with your dog or for your dog or it's
about unconditional love. And the way that we see it is we
don't have to give you any otherways or reasons or ability to
have a relationship or love yourdog.

(51:46):
You've got that. Nobody needs help with that.
What they need tools for is to take that what might seem like a
chore normally, elevate it so that it's not such a chore
anymore. This has been done in other
types of products and in other categories like over and over

(52:09):
and over. And yet nobody has really
thought to do it in the types ofproducts that that we make.
It's not about giving you more reasons to love your dog.
You don't need that from us. What you need are tools to help
you care for them in the way that you want to, because we
know that dog parents want to dothe absolute best for their

(52:32):
dogs. They just need like the arsenal
of tools to to help them do that.
And that's what makes us really proud.
We could spend all day listeningto people talk about their dogs,
show us pictures of their dogs, then we get to show them
pictures of ours. Like, you know how that is.
It lights people up and we actually think that this might
sound a little bit lofty, but just on a day-to-day basis, the

(52:56):
world would be a much better place if everybody could have
joyful community type conversations about their dogs.
Everybody lights up when they talk about their dog.
You could be sitting on an airplane or on a train or in a
restaurant and if you overhear somebody talking about their
dog, you could totally be like, Oh my God, can I see?

(53:18):
And that wouldn't be weird, right?
No. So it's the best possible
category to be in. And when we're in our office,
typically there's always somebody's dog is in for the
day. Julia's dog, Boots is one of one
of our all time favorites because she's just such a yeah,
we love having her there. It's so fun.
We are really grateful that we get to do what we do.

(53:41):
And like I said earlier, we're avery lean team and it matters to
us that we're working really hard to give people the
opportunity to have a better selection of products and that
we're able to give them information that helps them be

(54:02):
an even better dog. Parent than they already are
yeah you guys are literally powering the pet care experience
which is awesome. It has been amazing having a
chat with you guys and I know that we're going to have future
episodes with you guys and I would love when we get the RV on
the road, get out there and visit you guys and come see
everything and just hang out again with you.

(54:25):
But what would you guys leave the listeners with tonight?
Julia, do you want to? Start, obviously go check out
Pet Life Unlimited at all of ourretailers and go check out our
products. But that I think is obvious
after this conversation. I think the thing that I would
love to leave listeners with is kind of the ethos that we bring
to the pet care industry, which is if you ask someone why

(54:49):
something is the way it is and they respond because that's the
way it's always been, ask yourself why a few times because
there's a real opportunity for innovation and growth.
And I think that applies beyond pet care.
That applies to every part of the world.
We could really use some more innovation today and I think it
can start there. Yeah, so good.
That just gave me. That's really good.

(55:09):
But give me goosebumps. It was so good.
Yeah. I think it's the thing that I
would say to everybody listeningis just that your voice matters.
Even if this seems like a category of products that hasn't
been listening, your voice matters so much.
And the best companies and brands and the the people behind
those companies, the best ones are listening.

(55:31):
And we really want to do the best by you.
So keep interacting, keep engaging because we want to
serve you. That's the whole reason why we
exist. Well, you guys, I hope you
enjoyed this week's episode and that you know you can reach out
to both Lindsay and Julia at Petlife Unlimited.

(55:53):
You can reach them on Instagram.We will have an e-mail in the
podcast description so that you guys can contact the Pet Life
Unlimited community directly if you have questions, comments, or
concerns about their products. And if you are just interested
in learning more about what theyoffer, you can always check out
their website as well. So hang tight guys.
And we will see you next week onStraight Up Dog Talk.

(56:24):
I promised you something cool and here it is.
Pet Life Unlimited just dropped their Health Tracker dog pad,
and it's not your average pee pad.
It's super absorbent, but it also helps detect signs of
urinary health issues like UTI, bladder stones, and kidney
problems, all in real time. Thanks to their color track
technology, the pad gives you a visible pH reading every time

(56:46):
your dog pees, offering daily Peace of Mind.
Want to try it for free? Just e-mail [e-mail]
Co with straight up dog talk in the subject line and your
mailing address. They'll send you a free sample
while supplies last. Quick heads up, sending that
e-mail opts you in to Pet Life Unlimited marketing emails.
But honestly, their product drops are so worth it.

(57:08):
Go grab your free sample and we'll see you next time.