to healthy pets healthy owners i'm your host dr insel cost me with my little buddy here talker and i'd like to welcome my friend and someone who you seen on our show before she's a she's a of a vast resource of knowledge for animal health tanisha lasky tony thanks for coming the healthy pets healthy owners to tony founded a store called healthy pet products and how long ago did you do that tony two thousand and eight and why what why did you do the store to increase the awareness for humans about what's really in pet foods and supplements and how important it is so being an animal lover that you are and throughout your life having animals and you going to the average pet store the average grocery store and buying products and reading the labels and seeing ingredients in there that just aren't healthy correct and i couldn't find things that i was feeding because i was feeding raw at the time so and you couldn't buy it so i had to make it or have some of it shipped in so i decided to just start my own retail business and now we're up to three stores so of things as well to again try to take educate people on a healthier per healthier approach to skin and coat care because a lot of the products that are using grooming have toxic chemicals absolutely they do most of them have toxic chemicals them and the groomer often will see your pet more than your vet well so your groomer is going to notice things before your vet well so we're starting a whole body approach at the grooming shop where we weigh your dog every time you come in that way we can monitor a weight closer we are going to make note on a chart of your dog if we find a lump and make a measurement of it so that we can monitor those things to help to help you monitor those things so in healthy pet products and i used to have a company called healthy pet systems and all enough i had the same color company yeah you did and we didn't know each other back then and it is kind of interesting but when you walk into your store you're selling products that have a natural base to would a chemical free base to would be good proteins good supplements things that are intended to improve the wellness and health of the animals  and no easy feat to acquire right products and right so tell us how you started to assess products and get to the point where you you agreed to even sell products so i the made in base was no b products no chemical preservatives no food coloring no we no corn no soil so that was the main criteria and no ingredients from china because a food can be made in the united states but  ingredients can still be from china which includes toys and so absolutely so we sigh sources much from the united states including toys supplements treats everything because toys i mean your dog sucks on toys and if they're from china they're already proven to have lead in them so your dog sucking on lead or cat and cat toys a sit in the same way so we have to consider everything everything and i'm referring to a store order or open and you had a limited number of products and there you had a number of products but it was limited because you were so selective and the products went out there used and i know your store is full of products now last thing at the seams actually now which is a good thing in a way but in a way it's a bad thing because this natural approach and this you know healthier approach is exploding so everybody wants on that bat they end wagon including the big companies like purina so it's actually getting harder to really get down to the nitty gritty of what these foods are made of and where they're sourced and what are the right ones to bring in now ya know but that's a good in the bad because good thing is now there's a bigger variety even small mom and pop companies or have done their thing properly yes and then a lot of times what happens with the big companies is they they do a marketing ploy and they buy a small mom and pop shop they already has a record reputation and then they modify the ingredients and modify and you're unaware that generated prices are in that that's happening a lot  and consumers are easily fooled and because of that marketing so you know it's it's a double edged sword so the interesting thing that i found with you and your your shops healthy pet products you have knowledge and people have knowledge to what to recommend and what to avoid and why you do it and why you don't do what i mean what we take in our bodies and our pets bodies is as important as what we don't take in and or what we don't years and the clerk said no we don't carry them i don't you must stop walk around walk around there they are sitting on the shelf and you sit and go you don't even know what products to carry in a store so how do i go to you and say you know i have a that has has this problem with their coat what food do you recommend using the food they have no idea right when you walk in healthy pet products you're employees your staff are educated on what is what and what you should do and you know whether fish oil helps right or good higher protein food helps or whatever yeah they are and it is an added expense to me but it sets us apart and it helps it's helping me to fulfill that mission of educating as many people as i possibly can to understand how important pet foods are i mean last night for example this company did a phone conference with my employees for two hours last night and i paid my employees of course to attend but they were first hand trained from this company on all of their supplements and what to recommend for certain situations and why theirs is better than others write and  talk about this product a little bit what's what's wonderful is people people pick up things by bits you know little bullet points for marketing and advertising and there's really not an understanding of why and and not and you're able to go to hell to get products and say you get an explanation why do i want to spend maybe a little bit more money for this product because they your employees understand the benefits and that's a crucial what you did is what i did and some other companies that i'm aware of that they got in the business the pet industry not because they thought there was an opportunity to make money but they thought there was an opportunity to make improvement on the health of the animal right and i know you're all tests this people tend to worry more about their animals than they do with themselves and so once they get educated on the animals they start applying some of the same philosophies to themselves yes my customers often say my pet it's better than i do i hear it all the time yeah yeah and in it's not widespread in the industry we're where your pet can you can eat better because right go to the grocery store right junk after junk after junk up and people price point they're looking to shop for price right but what is not understood is they end up paying it in vet bills they end up paying it in emotional distress absolutely and that's a bigger price yeah and our pets are like our children and more and more people you know another thing we're seeing in the stores is first time pet owners and they're in their fifty's so you know they're also very very vulnerable because they are empty nesters or they've never had children and they're they're getting pets now so and consumers automatically will just you know just look at a ballpoint a bullet points right on the marketing technique and if they see chicken they think it's just chicken well that doesn't necessarily mean that it's just chicken so very few people turn around and look at all this and then once you even turn around you have to know they can digest and neither can we right so so becomes it becomes a foreign body and inflammatory response occurs so you really have to have someone that has the knowledge i was lecturing at in las vegas at super zoo two thousand and fourteen and tony walked into the lecture is always nice to see here and can you test of this tony there is a big demand for holistic  business expo it's not open to the pub public so these are people that have stores that are veterinarians to do a lot of things in the animal field and they're coming to learn knowledge so there's a dynamic change and so you started in zero eight so where we're that's what eight years ago and you've seen that change every year getting oh every year getting bigger and bigger and more and more people coming in and you know i think they're frustrated with just getting the same answer for the same problem when they go to a traditional that and you know and about it's the recommended for an upset stomach or diarrhea or whatever and you know it just starts this vicious cycle and nothing ends up getting actually fixed it's fixed temporarily so i think there's a lot of frustration with americans which is what's kind of pushing this natural approach a little more so it's super zoo bigger this year than last year sure he said it's supposed to be bigger next year it is i'll be lecturing again next year as well and  they make the rooms larger because the demand is there so i think that's that's a wonderful dynamic change i know you're happy you got into this i know there was a lot of stress with you when and when when you started it and anytime you start a new business there's a lot of stress but over these years it's that change as well because even though this business stress you know that you're doing well for people in their animals oh absolutely and i know it's an ongoing chore for you to find good quality products and you're always adding those fish to your store how do you find those products boy sometimes customers bring them to me believe it or not because i have a unique clientele so some of them are really always looking for really great products or the best thing for their pet so and the other thing is through the super zoo yeah y super's is pretty amazing i used to go to it years ago and i had been to it for a number of years and i couldn't believe the change yeah and yet i just three shows really i've found a lot of great products out and some of my clientele m my employees find things and the internet and you know but this one i actually had someone walk in my store that was representing the product and i think she was just the person that represented and checked into it did my research on the company it looked really good so the cataract in the specifically for dogs with cataracts and my dog was exhibiting signs of developing cataracts and my that took out of my bed and he proved that and i started that is right i mean they offered to treat it nothing they offered to treat it traditionally and i got a holistic that as well and he you know really had nothing to say for cataracts until just like with humans they get to a certain point and they can remove them well she's already fifteen so so i started this product and as they recommend doing it and i took her to the vet first of all i noticed symptoms reducing probably in about a month a month so she was no longer hesitating on the steps she was walking in the dark find around the house you know that those sorts of things so i took her back to the vet six months later he looked in our eyes and he looked at me and he said what are you doing  company sells and you sell and your store will be back in a moment to healthy pets healthy owners  our family was drifting apart until we found the connection you have the power to change your child's life the boy's town national hotline can help of this company primal x and they make a number of products but i've talked to hours on the phone with him and his story is he did this for his pets initially yeah so he's a biochemist and he saw all the response to his pets were getting and then people started the the word started to get out there and then he decided to deduce company he did it from his heart again just like you just like i did not we worry about making money we were about getting the stuff because we saw the response from supporting the body and this company is all organic everything that uses organic it's all american it's actually tucson arizona everything is manufactured and this this guy will sit and talk to you about things for for an hour and i did not say oh i got to be here i go right there right now because his interest is getting out there right and they make dental care products they make products for thyroid they make and they're all herbal holistic and your big promoter of the of this company i have their full line of products that is vast it's he's adding more every year really and we saw all of them you know it was really funny we're sitting in the lecture and i'm talking and there's a dialogue between the the audience and myself and questions are being asked and tony turns around and says cataract and it really works and i know for a fact that people began to order the product just because of what you said yeah i mean bring it on the stores everywhere everyone thinks that there's nothing you can do for cataracts and there is so everybody needs to know that yeah and see that's your philosophy and i love it it's not you don't have to buy it for me but get out there and get get it yeah work tony tell us about this product so it's funny  said he's a biochemist because she's a biochemist so that's how the owner of this company is from ohio originally and this is her dog and she her and her first product developed was connected and she did it because her pet was aging and she was in the human supplement world but want to do her own thing it was for pets so what's unique about this is i mean it is the basic but she adds some herbs in that are are anti inflammatory and this product is tested and proven with they use these weighted plates to test how much weight dogs are putting down on each on each foot which is connected to how their joints the other joint pain right now so they did before before and after and then the difference is amazing so this is my number one joint support that i sell and my customer feedback on it is off the charts and i personally use it connect in soft so they're a little soft  but there's also a powder and there's also crunchy tablets and they also make it for cats so they change the form a little bit for taste and want to farm a little bit for cats i think mostly the herbal part of it cats are a little more sense ye because because sometimes companies don't know what they're doing right and they're only about making money making money and you know everybody has to and you have to keep your store open and you have to do all these things were factory open yeah but when the philosophy is correct behind it that  company prospers absolutely as a result of that absolutely no so tony when people come in the store what's what's the biggest question they ask you my gosh  i think what we see most are skin problems ear infections kidney function so how do you address that i mean you're not a vet so you're not telling you you're not telling people like you know do this and do that directly related like medicine and and so forth or but you're approaching it a different way which is which is the right way and what your first the first change that you would sell suggest as somebody i usually ask what they're feeding with feeding that's the first and so is what what you're in their ingesting and what's missing and sometimes they say oh i don't even want to tell you so at that point i don't know where they're already over the hogs because sometimes people will end up  crying realizing and if i mean sometimes i will say to people i would rather you get food from a dumpster than see that's you know i've i've been doing this for animals twenty years so i go around the country and lecture and i would use some of the brands that we see on t v the big name brands and i would hold this up and i'd go there's more to trish and in the bag that this is in the yeah than the food people people look at yeah and i say no really really less damage more neutrally and and some that are killing our pop some of them are killing and that's not to mention all the recalls that we have right that right because of the source of and you know you know when i'm not talking china other good things come out of china are a lot of bad things come out of the ana and the palazzo fees are different and pets die i had you know this is this is for the dog sitter to give i was away what happened to be one of the recalled cans that i didn't know about and she developed kidney issue as a result i didn't lose or she stuck around for a while right and then toward the end you know she had can she ended up having kidney disease and i treated her for a whole year with kidney disease and she was fifteen years old when she when she left yeah and i attribute it to the can after the can was used i found out of it had been on the recall list one can a doctor and so how do you keep abreast of these recalls on food there's a couple of websites that automatically send out the recall to me like susan thinks that has a great website how she stays on top of the industry is amazing because often she knows this for i even get the e mails from the companies because e mails are i mean i will get notified from companies or distributors that carry those those company's products so there's a couple of different avenues that we use and that's important to stay abreast of that yeah yeah yeah things even happen during the many manufacturing process by the good companies so it's something that people were i mean well it happens  will take that bag of kibble and dump it into a plastic bin never never wash the plate think to wash the plastic there now or the dispenser the spoon or the cover whatever and we tell them between each bag you really should wash that plastic bin out if it has to be in plastic plastic is poorest the oils build up on the inside and can go rancid and a lot of people keep their bags and it's important to keep your bag because of the code so some i am to the point that i try to tell people just keep your food in your bag put the whole bag in the bin that way you've got everything for those bags developed for food storage so you've wife is a hole with holistic health practitioner for humans and for pets but they together have developed a lot of products supplements and things what's unique about their flea and tick is they take a multi layered approach which is what i recommend for customers so they do an internal power they have a topical spray and then they also have a shampoo so and that's what we usually educate customers to do is you h so they kill everything including the animal that you're putting them on i mean you read some of those things and it says minister with rubber gloves right so if it's toxic for one hundred fifty pound man how toxic is it for a ten pound dog with a very small liver and kidney right you know so it all doesn't make sense to me so you know you know what you need because you're hitting it you're hitting it a softer approach so you need to hit it from from different angles i look at the when i read a label i look at what's the bad stuff before even the what's the good stuff yes all good stuff yes yes so this is a product that we use with great success i do well tony it's always a pleasure to see you and talk with you keep up the good work and that's what you're doing and thank you i appreciate you coming on the healthy pets healthy owners and spreading the word i hope to see you again next year and yes super zoo tony the healthy pets products here in the pittsburgh area quickly were bought out of time but you sponsored the pittsburgh