About Us

It all started with a passion to help our own aging cats and dogs get healthier. After a lifetime of eating processed food and a consequential lack of graceful aging, we felt a responsibility to repay the enrichment they provided us by looking out for Dexter, Pepper and Boofy's best interest. We soon realized that there was clearly a better way to feed them. We immediately started adding generous portions of real food to their commercial processed food. Not only did their quality of life and vitality increase by leaps and bounds, we believe they lived years longer as a result. Our beloved eighty-five pound dog Boofy (Rufus) lived sixteen years and both our ten pound dog Pepper and our cat Dexter made it past seventeen. This only after the four years of fresh food additions to their diets.

Over the years we started noticing the same trend with all the pets we knew. The pets fed name brand commercially processed food maintained what we called “surviving” mode, yet the fresher fed pets were always healthier! We called that “thriving” mode. These cumulative and clear-cut results were a driving force for us to open up our store; we wanted to offer pet parents better, fresher and healthier products for their pets.

Our family business continues to focus on educating pet parents about the best ways to feed and care for their individual companion carnivores. In addition, we strive to offer the absolute best collection of health-oriented cat food, dog food and pet products available. Our food selections are free of low quality ingredients like by-products, animal digest, corn, chemical preservatives, artificial colors or gluten meals. For the products and services we are unable to offer, like vet care, grooming, pet sitting, training and behavior management, we have a networking and referral system to help find them.

Beyond the products, we share general principles that can be helpful to pet parents. The most basic of these principles revolves around building relationships with our pets. After all, they are family too! They enrich our lives and in turn we should enrich theirs. Over the year’s we’ve incorporated several programs that focus on how to positively impact our dogs’ lives utilizing gentler handling techniques, positive training methods and expanded enrichment. For this, we encourage pet parents to think outside the bowl to keep their domesticated wolf-descendents and carnivorous cats mentally and physically stimulated during their comparatively sedentary lifestyles.

Another aspect of our philosophy involves the support of local, independent retailers. In fact, our entire store was originally set up utilizing local businesses. Despite the potential online savings, we sought out a variety of local independent retailers to supply everything from basic structural shelving to the finishing touches of décor. We continue to buy local whenever possible, including saleable pet products, general supplies and produce for both us and our pets.

With regard to local rescue organizations and shelters, we applaud and support their efforts as best we can. We encourage potential pet parents to always consider adopting homeless pets and to spay and neuter. We consistently open our facility to adoption clinics and we maintain a relatively high rate of adoption, thanks to the generous nature of our customers. Our 2009 commitment to homeless pets included providing adoption goody bags for one of the largest adoption events in New Mexico history as well as donations and gift baskets for various fund raisers throughout the year. We also sponsored the T-shirts for Animal Humane New Mexico’s May Furry Fiesta adoptathon. All tallied, our monetary participation in New Mexico’s homeless pets for that calendar year topped $10,000. Our hope is to continue this giving trend to the extent possible each year.

We feel very fortunate to work with pets and the people who love them. It is impossible to quantify the gratitude that we feel for the pet parents in New Mexico for their interest in nutritional pet care as well as their support. Our journey has been rewarding to say the least and we hope to continue working to make all New Mexico pets healthier, one pet at a time.

Thank you for supporting your local pet food & supply store.