Welcome to Animal Posse, the podcast dedicated to the people and rescues making a difference in the lives of animals. Today I am talking with Lisa of Pet Wants Metairie Before we get started, I want to share a quick reminder., Lisa, is speaking from her personal journey with her own pets. She's not a veterinarian and nothing here should replace professional veterinary care. If something ever feels off with your pet, your vet is always the first stop. Welcome to the show, Lisa. Thank you for coming on to talk about pet nutrition.

Thank you for having me.

Tell us what was going on with your pet's health that made you feel that something wasn't adding up and that caused you to go more into investigating pet nutrition?

My dog had a mass removed in December of 2021. And come to find out they did blood work, of course, before the surgery. They didn't tell me they had she had abnormal blood work. And by February 5th of the following year, 2022, she had stage five lymphoma. And I'm like, how come you guys didn't tell me this in November? It aggressively attacked her body. I found that out from holistic type vet. Her name is Dr. Adria Sagera, and she told me she, she looked all the blood work. She spent an hour with my dog, and my dog is my soulmate. Let tell you, it took everything inside of me. Not to, lose my, mind. Every time I think about this, I still cry about my dog because she was like the coolest dog ever. She was like a human, and she was my best friend. And so when I come to find out that part of the reason that she got sick is because of the food I was feeding her, I didn't know any better. And I'm still kinda just guilt around with me, and it hurts. It hurts. So when she passed away that fall in April. And I was determined to find out what I did wrong and swear that I never did it to another dog again. So I turned around and started to learn about pet nutrition and, part of it was was through doing the franchising with Pet Wants Pet Wants is a company that is very strict about nutrition and freshness of the food, and I like that. So I was laid off from my job last year and he gave me a severance package. The severance package. Allowed me to buy into the franchise and I'm so glad I did. I see a lot of promise in the future. I've only been in business for two months, but I've already helped a few dogs and it makes me feel really good inside. So I finally met the dog the other day and I was crying. I was just like, oh my God, I love this dog. I'm not a vet, I don't know everything but I do have a team behind me. And if I don't know a nutrition question, I can ask them and find out the answer to the nutrition question. A lot of it has has to do with pet nutrition when we feed our dogs, even the treats matters, everything. And so that's what got me into this business and I'm doing it all in the memory of my dog, Darby and Michelle, because she was my angel and I know she's probably proud of me for doing this. She was only eight and a half years old when she passed away and that just another thing to hurt. She was too young to die. And I don't wanna see more dogs go through that, or more owners go through that. If there's something I can do to help, I wanna help, and so that's why I got into this, and I'm so glad I did. I'm so glad I did, I'm only been in business two and a half months, but we're growing, and I'm gonna work hard to make it grow into a successful business. I'm gonna work hard to do whatever I can, and right now we're just a e-commerce type business. Ill do mobile deliveries but I am currently looking for storefront. I'm hoping to get on Metiaire Road or Airline Highway around that area to find a store, a storefront, and make it better and make bigger and better, and. As many dogs as I possibly can. That's what this is all about.

Yeah, I can understand that too, because I actually lost my cat to cancer. It was very sudden. The vet believes that mine had a heart tumor and it was crazy because he's what I considered my soul cat. So I know what you say. Yeah. When you say you have a soul dog, this was my soul cat. Yeah. It was just crazy because he was actually so healthy up until the time. Yeah. I noticed he was breathing funny. And that's what kind of set me off. And I noticed it started with him breathing funny. Even when we first took him in and got his blood work done. His blood work came back perfect. And it, so it just, it happened so

quick.

Yeah. It does, it happened so quick. Yeah., For us, it was two and a half weeks. When he first got sick, and I'm saying when he first got sick, because really, at the time he had no problems except he was having a little bit of a strange way of breathing, is how I'm gonna put it. I noticed it in his stomach. He was doing a belly breathing. So I got him to my vet. My vet said, let's get some blood work done. And when we went and we got the blood work done, and I hate to say this, but I was hoping it was pneumonia or something like that, yeah. And when we got the blood work done, his blood work didn't really show anything, but then we got the x-rays and we saw the, that he had a pleural effusion, so they had to drain the fluid off of his lungs or was actually not on his lungs. It was like around his heart. And oh, I'm so sorry. Yeah. And we had to take that fluid, we had to send that fluid off to see what the results would come back, and unfortunately when we did get the results back, Aw. He so sorry was, it was so fast that he was so bad by the time we got those results back anyway. There wasn't much that we could do, and yeah. And it was just, and you know what? Your

pets will suffer.

Yeah. Going through all,

you

don't want that to happen,

It is funny because it was like, he was fine. I noticed the breathing, we got the fluid removed, we got the x-rays, all that kind of stuff. And it was just crazy. It really was the progression of it from going from a completely healthy animal and it, right? Yes. Yeah.

And you know what, once you hit stage four, stage five it's not even worth it. There's really nothing you can do. You can make the dog suffer, or the cat suffer and it's gonna cost you a lot of money. And it's to a point where it's too late. It's a losing battle, when you get to that point. So I'm just urging people, I'm trying to spread the word, trying to, get the word out there. Just please feed your animals because it matters. It really does. It would make such a difference in the world. We gotta understand that we are their whole life. We are their whole life, right? We are there for them from the day they born to the day they pass away. They're only here for part of our lives and we gotta make the best of that. And I want my dogs to be here as long as they can. I have two other dogs now and I'm feeding them pet wants food and pet wants treats And that's all I feed 'em. And let me tell you, it made a difference in their coat. It made a difference in their shedding. They don't shed as much. 'cause one of 'em, the husky, and believe me, the hair shedding just went to a minimal amount, of course they said a little bit. He's double coated, but yeah, pet wants just taught me so much and I really appreciated that. And I hope to spread the word and the store, I'm gonna have grooming and all this stuff. I wanna keep on spreading the word. So that's the thing I wanted to share too, because like Darby, after she had that mass removed from her. I still didn't know my dog had cancer yet. I didn't know until three months later. By that time, it was way too late. It was way too late. It just broke my heart.

Yeah. And I know with like cats, they hide their illnesses so well, and I'm sure dogs do too. Yes. And it's shocking. I'm still in shock over it now I will say my vet, did everything she could and I do appreciate that. But it's just such a shock when that happens to you that fast. It's just so unexpected,

and yeah, and just, it to me, by surprise, I wasn't expecting that she was only eight and a half. She, one of the signs that you could look for is behavior changes, like not eating becoming like lethargic That's some of the things that people could look for. That's a warning sign. Please, by all means, get your dogs to the vet. And if you're going to put 'em through the chemo fine. But once they get to stage four or stage five, it's probably not worth it. It's probably not you don't want your dogs suffer going through all that stuff, and the hardest thing to do was to let my soul dog go and I was there with it till the end. I went there when they actually did it. And believe me, it crush me, Dixie, it crushed me bad, but. I knew that it was time. She let me know that it was time and I knew, and all I could do is tell her to hold her and say, Darby, this isn't goodbye. This is just see you later. I'm gonna see you again. Just stuff like that. But that dog was my absolute soul dog and for to happen to her, I've had a bunch of other dogs pass away and I had through throughout my childhood all the way up to, I'm 60 years old now, so I've had dogs all my life, but that dog, I cannot explain the connection. It was something with me and that dog. We had a special bond and to lose her. Just broke my soul, and I know there's a lot of people out there that have soul dogs too. And soul cats, okay? And I just wanna do whatever I can to try and help and let them live a little longer, healthier, happier lives. That's what this is all about. That's why I'm doing this. It makes me feel good knowing that I'm doing something positive to try and help people out. Especially when it's a beautiful day outside and we're gonna make deliveries of people's homes. I'm having a good time. I turn my radio on. I'm dancing in a my truck, driving to people's homes and that's a good time to me. It makes me feel good knowing that I'm doing something positive to try and help people out. And I tell 'em all the time. You got any questions, anything going on with your dog or your cat, please let me know. If I don't know the answer, I will get the answer. We will find out, You know what I mean? So many people just don't even know if they lick at their paws, if they're, scratching on the ground. If they have rashes on their belly, we need to pay attention to those warning signs,

You said that you took your dog to a holistic vet.

Yes. Yes. So

What did she do that. Opened your eyes to all of this?

She's actually the one that discovered it. I brought all my records to her. Okay. 'cause I was just set up with, I don't wanna mention the vet's name, but I was set up with that vet. Okay. Didn't even bother to tell me that my dog had cancer until it was too late. How do you go from December, you saw in February? She, February 5th. She stage five. It didn't understand that, so I was a little aggravated, so I got all my vet, my records for her. Went to Dr. Sagrera and I couldn't get Darby to eat, so we put her on raw frozen food. And let me tell you, that's the only way I can get Darby to eat. Dr. Sagrera spent about an hour with my dog, which I found phenomenal. I thought it was like way cool. What vet's gonna do that, right? She's reading all her records. She spent the time where she's petting her. She's loving on her. She's honey, I wish somebody got my hands on it sooner, and all you could do is just cry. There's no FDA regulations on dog food out there. There really aren't. But everything we sell at. pet wants is AAAFCO approved. AAAFCO was like the fda for dog and cat food production. But they don't have power like FDA. They can't just come in there and shut you down because you have byproducts in your food. PET WANTS doesn't put it in byproducts. No gluten, no soy, no wheat, no sugars. None of that stuff is in our foods. And let tell you, it's got a good wholesome flavor. So somebody didn't believe me a couple weeks ago at an event. And they didn't believe it was natural stuff.. I was giving someone on his treats to the dog dogs that came to my tent. I said, you don't believe it's natural. I put it in my mouth and ate it. It's natural stuff. It's not gonna hurt you or your dog, which I'm not gonna go around and eat dog biscuits. But I just wanted to prove point because, if it wasn't natural for my dog I wouldn't give it to my dog or I could give it to myself, is the point he was trying to make. So Dr. Sagrera really was. The eye opening person for me because she really made me understand what I was doing and I didn't realize is that it was, partially my fault and it broke my heart. I still carried this guilt around and I know it really wasn't my fault 'cause I was naive and didn't know any better. But it still hurts. It still hurts, and I wish I could have done something to save my baby. I just couldn't. I know that I don't wanna do this with the dogs I have now. I want them to be happy and I want them to be, living a normal life. And I want 'em to live a long life and spend more time with me, 'cause hey, ain't like coming home from a hard day at work or whatever, and come home, snuggle up with a big old dog. I got two big dogs. I love my big dogs. I'm not gonna lie. Something about coming home with that big dog. At the end of the day. I just, like it. They are my babies though. And so I'm gonna do what I gotta do to take care of 'em. And I know a lot of people like me who feel the same way about their cats or the dogs, what have you. I'm here to try and help as many dogs as I can, and for being open two months I've helped three dogs already. It makes me warm in my heart. It makes me feel so good to do that, and that's why I got into this business,

how is it that you came to find pet wants? Was this a recommendation by your vet

No, she didn't recommend it to me. I hadn't seen her in quite a while actually, but I need to go see her. I wanna get blood work constantly on my dogs, like at least once a year just to make sure everything's okay. But I found out about it. Actually thru another friend of mine. I was looking for a franchisees because I wanted to work for myself and. Honestly, I was thinking of a UPS store or something like that, but there's, so many of 'em, so I'm like, Lisa, why don't you do your passion? I have two passions, my music and my pets. Okay, i'm not gonna make money in music. So I said let's look for something pet wise. So all of a sudden I found PET wants on, and I heard about it through a friend and I looked it up and it looked promising. And I liked the fact that everything is fresh. They never mass produced anything. It's not even made until I'll order it. Okay. Which is amazing to me. It's not sitting in distribution center for a year. Lose nutrition the whole time. They have shelf lights on everything. You can't just let 'em sit in a distribution center. For a year two and expect 'em to still be good and nutritious. So we take pride in delivering fresh food to our customers. It's fresh. It's not maybe a couple weeks old when it gets to, to your dog's bowl. That's, to me, that's a beautiful thing. That's the way it should be, and they cook everything slow and low like a roast. So you jam packing those nutrients in there. There's no byproducts, no soy, no wheat, no gluten, none of that stuff is in there. That's harmful to a dog. And so that's what they take pride in and that's what I'm taking pride in, so I went to my warehouse early today. I got a delivery coming tomorrow for some food that, that I order a lot. Two weeks ago, something like that. Like I said, they don't make it until I order it and they're coming tomorrow and bring, so I went to the my warehouse to rotate my product, and I put little stickers on it when it gets here, because I do not want to give anybody anything old when I'm selling you food, it's gonna be fresh food. When I bring it to you, it's gonna be fresh, if I could bring it to you, now i would. But so that's with the kibble and we have freeze dried product as well. Freeze dried food as well. And then I have a whole line of bones and chews and treats and biscuits and those kind of things. I even have some supplements for dogs to help them calm down we make some small products like heal Sav and a Paw Wax. We actually make those. It's all made natural ingredients because there's nothing made that's harmful to an animal. If I'm gonna sit there and eat a biscuit in front of somebody I believe in what I'm selling, and I really do believe in this company and their products, it's pretty amazing what they're doing. When I first started talking to him last year, last April, I started talking to the development director, and I was thinking about it, right? She told me they had 159 stores. They're almost at 170 now, and that was less than a year ago. So they're growing leaps and bounds, and how long have you

been feeding this food?

Like I said, I just started, when I found out about pet wants is when I started feeding my dogs that before I was feeding them good foods. Okay. They're a little bit more expensive than they require subscriptions. Okay. I got enough subscriptions going on. I really didn't wanna get into all that stuff. You should, wanna give them a quality product for what they're paying. And those subscriptions get a little bit outta hand. I'm not knocking on those products. They really are good foods. I read the ingredients on 'em and they are good food. But that's getting locked up in a subscription. You don't have to do that, with pet wants. You don't have to, and I'm always getting special Right now. I got 5% off on my website till Saturday. And at the end of the day. That midnight or 5% off everything on my entire site. I'm always putting something on special because I believe in doing it, I'm just trying to like, get it out there, get the word out there and get people to, to try the product. Believe me, everybody's tried it. I've heard nothing but good stuff. Nothing but good stuff. Nobody's ever said anything bad about the product. I even check on 'em like a week later. Hey man

how's fido liking?

The salmon, none of those might like the salmon. I got other products I can sell, like I can sell lamb or we have some grain-free foods. Now, that doesn't mean that the other products have grain. All that means is that it's lower on the glycemic index. There's different ways of doing the food without making it dangerous, but it costs more because, that's what the grain free foods cost a little bit more, but they're not putting by products in there to make it, to fill it. They're not putting fillers, so that's what matters. That would be the best thing for an overweight dog too.

Have you talked to your vet about this particular food since you've been using it? Or have you gotten any feedback from any of your customers who use it with their, what their vets

have said. yeah. The customers are loving it. My, I told my vet about it and she loved it, and I didn't see Dr Sagrera yet, but I have two vets that go too. The other one's Dr. Kelly over at Healthy Paws. She's a great vet as well. And I go over there too. I got an appointment with with Dr. Kelly was two weeks ago. I brought him brought both of em in Kobe. I couldn't get his ear infection cleaned up. Those dogs have like different ears from us. You really could keep their ears clean. Unfortunately, he's got a big crop job, so I have to keep his ears really clean. So when I went to go see Dr. Kelly, I told her about it and she was all about it. She was all for it. I told her, I said, look, this is what's in the food. She's man, this sounds like really good stuff. I said, it is, but she also sells her own food at, her veterinary shop, and I'm not gonna, try and advertise with, her selling her own product, and Dr. Sagrera does also, she's got a store in the front, just got, a lot of healthy stuff. But I just asked for their approval and everybody that I've talked to, whether it's a customer and I talk them a week or two later and say, Hey man, how so and so liking the product, they love it. They love it. Every dog has loved it. Okay? Not every dog loved the salmon because some dogs don't like fishy stuff, but every dog's loved the product, period. So if they don't like the salmon, I put 'em on the lamb, and guess what? They love the lamb. So you gotta problem solved, and that's what you know, you gotta work with people and you gotta communicate. You gotta talk to 'em to find out exactly what's going on with the dog. If you don't, if you don't put your heart into it, you know you gotta do that because you gotta find out if it's actually working. And that's what I do. I've learned so much in the last couple years about pet nutrition, that I just wanna help as much as I can, and I'm not here for the money. It's to help people. That's what it's for. Believe me, I've only been in business two months, so I'm not killing it yet, but yeah, I'd like to get the point where I'm actually making some money, but it's okay. I'm just loving what I'm doing. It makes me feel good and warm inside. It's a beautiful feeling. Now we're seeing these things and we're taking the responsibility to help stay outta that because they don't know any better than dogs. But we get to teach 'em. And that's what, that's why I'm trying to keep an eye on her and stay on top of her because I do not want her to only live eight and a half years. So when I adopted Darby, Darby picked me at the rescue it was the westbank SPCA and she came running out. She just jumped in my lap and I just fell over with her and she picked me and I said, oh, this is my dog right here. So I brought her home and everything and that's when we made a little bond. But let me tell you something. She was only a year and a half old then, and then she only stayed with me seven years. And I'm like, oh my God, she was the only part of my life for seven years. That's so difficult to swallow. It's a hard pill to swallow. But I know that I gave her a good life when she was here, and I know I gave her tons of love, but I just still carry that guilt in inside of me. I'm just trying to help people care. I care. I care. I'm gonna help every dog I possibly can. Every dog, every cat. I keep saying dog, but cats too. I love cats too, but I just don't have 'em. 'cause they got dogs, and I don't know how good Kobe would do cats, he's a little on the frisky side. And they need our love. They need our attention, they need our guidance for sure. They're like kids. You gotta guide him in the right direction.

I definitely, like I said, know where you're coming from. 'cause I just dealt with that myself and I almost feel guilty in a way that like, I should have noticed something sooner, even though but you

didn't know.

You didn't know. Again and honestly, like I don't think I really could have caught it any sooner, it's just these little telltale things. It's just one of those things, right? When you think something is off with your pet, don't hesitate and go get it checked out, even if it's something stupid,

right? Yeah, and there are vets out there that are pretty reasonable, none of every vet's gonna charge you normally just for a visit. Dr. Kelly only charges $65 per visit. That's a beautiful thing. That's cheap. $65 for a visit. Come on, man. You can't beat that. But staying on top of their health is part of our job too. If I can help tell people what to do, if I can help them, show them, teach them, whatever, if I can do that, there'll be a lot more dogs out here for a lot longer time, and I just the other day I found a dog. I almost got hit by a car right here on River Road. So I stopped, I pulled over, as soon as I opened my door, he jumped in my truck like, oh my gosh. So I was like, okay, we gotta try and find this guy's owner, because I could tell he wasn't malnourished. I could tell somebody had him wasn't neutered either. And I was like, oh man. So they probably breed this dog. 'cause he was a staff, he, it's like the staff too. And he was a blue staffer on top of that. I just don't want dogs to end up getting in trouble and I don't want them, I just don't. I just don't, there's so many dogs need to be rescued. That's my thing, right? So I got on Facebook and went on all these different sites to try and find out who this dog belong to. No answer. No answer. So I went to the vet. So Dr. Kelly said, can you tell me if this dog chip? Of course he wasn't. So on the way back to my house, I went back through the neighborhood and I saw some neighbors outside and right where he was. Where I've actually picked him up at and one neighbor said, oh, I know exactly where that dog lives. I know the dog very well. So she took me over there and we went and brought the dog back to his house, which is a good thing. That dog was lucky. He was close to be by an 18 wheeler, not just a truck. He didn't seem wheel, and he wasn't maybe a 15, 20 pound dog. He's still a puppy. I'm like, my goodness, yeah, I just felt compelled to do something with that to help. Yeah, it's just me. It's my animal love and heart,

Before we end the call, what role do you hope pet wants metairie plays in the local pet community?

I hope we're educators, hope that we are not just educators, but maybe motivators to help people to understand pet, nutrition, because, nobody else is gonna tell you. Nobody else is gonna tell you. They Walmarts and stuff, they're selling the food. I'm sure they don't know, I don't sell hide and stuff like that, those things can flip the stomach and make 'em sick, so it's just, I wanna be an educator and a motivator and just an assistant, if you will to help people, to help the dogs live healthier, happier, longer lives. That's my motto,

Good luck on your new endeavor,

thank you so much. I appreciate you having me. This is how we gonna spread the way. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Thanks again to our guest, Lisa from Pet Wants Metairie. I just wanna mention too, if something feels off with your pet, always start with a Vet. Visit your fur, babies Health comes first. And just a quick note, everything shared here reflects our guest personal experiences and opinions and are not a substitute for professional veterinary care. I wanna thank everybody for listening and supporting us. If you wanna take that an extra step, consider becoming a member. We just added this to our website, animalposse.com, scroll down, look for the support tab. Our membership program is going to help us directly support animals in need, whether that be through vaccinations, food or spay neuter efforts.