We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Domenic Roberto a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Domenic, appreciate you joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

We began fostering our dog Angela at the start of lockdown in 2020. She was an ex bait and breeding dog that had suffered a lot of physical trauma on top of a persisting gestational diabetes. After a year of trying out best to control her blood glucose with her vets, we thought that there had to be something we could do differently. Kara decided to start with making her simple dog treats with oat flour that would be agreeable with her condition; typically, commercial treats have endless amounts of filler ingredients that we wanted her to avoid. Angela loved them so much, so we then began experimenting with dehydrating meat like turkey breast and beef liver to get her protein in as well. We cut her off from all other treats, and her energy levels and blood seemed to both begin improving. Kara worked tirelessly at figuring out everything we needed to do to try and get what we were making to other dog owners: sending our treats in for lab analysis, making bags with nutritional labels, getting those labels approved by MDARD, and getting ourselves insured, for example. We brought our treats to a farmer’s market, with some added flavors to our cookies and dried meats, and started selling. We were already making these for Angela’s health, so once we went through all of the appropriate avenues, we could send them out into the community! Since then, we have began retailing in several locations around Michigan and have regular customer’s at a few different farmer’s markets.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

We are an all-natural pet treat and wellbeing business. We specialize in simple ingredients free from fillers or preservatives, and where many pet treats focus on making a treat reminiscent of a bakery item, our treats are more akin to supplemental feeding. Vegetables, broth, muscle meat, and organ meat are all foods that we feed Angela in a raw diet, and it has improved her health and bloodwork ten-fold. Our priority is quality nutritional value for the pets, and maintaining a variety of proteins and options for those dogs with allergies or other health needs to be accommodated. Customers don’t need to worry about scouring an ingredients label looking for hidden ingredients like “chicken meal” or “bone meal” when our labels rarely have anything more than a few total ingredients. We are most proud of our testimonials from our customers; some order every week or month from us because their dog will no longer accept basic biscuits from the store anymore when they know our treats are a possibility. Others call us or email us to let us know that our chicken feet have began to improve the joints and movement of their older dog, or that their dog is pouting because they just ran out of peanut butter pumpkin cookies. One customer’s dog in particular has become so focused on our dehydrated smelt fish that her dog will bolt to the same location at night to excitedly receive one and run off with it. We first were proud that our treats improved the life of our own dog, and now we get to be a part of making a community of customers’ dogs happier and healthier. We’ve since added enrichment items like snuffle mats, lick mats, and slow feeders to bolster our ability to improve the mental and physical wellbeing of our clients beyond just the nutritional side of things, and we offer education about what we know working with dogs for so many years to anyone who inquires.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

Kara and I met in graduate school here in Michigan; she grew up here in Macomb and I moved out here from Boston. When we first met, neither of us had any business background or desire to start a business. We both had a passion for animals, and that was just one of many things we had in common that prompted us to start dating and fall in love. Bringing our foster dog, Angela, into our lives, we created a family together first and foremost. Our devotion to Angela brought our potential for researching and creating our treats to the forefront, and our respect and love for each other made us a strong team for developing the business together with mutual respect and admiration for our different skillsets. I’m always in awe of how Kara can go from an idea to a product or fundraiser so quickly; it’s incredible how fast her brain works and how quickly she can develop a new skill. It’s encouraged me to further grow my own abilities to be able to support her and our business, and we want to grow this into something our future kids and family can be a part of.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

We manufacture everything, including our packaging, ourselves. Kara toils away at the oven baking and rolling out dough for our dog cookies while I handle all of the meat butchering and drying. We have a number of amazing farmers we work with who we purchase animal parts from that would normally get scrapped or shoved into a freezer: necks, hearts, livers, feet, spleen, etc. We had no idea what we were doing at first, but Kara picked up on ways to refine her baking skills quickly, and I experimented for weeks on getting the meat products to the right consistency at the right times and temperatures. Honestly, I used to be incredibly squeamish about dealing with the meat! The blood and juices were a lot at first, but now I confidently work with almost any organ or animal part. We all love so many types of foods, but not always do we see what goes on in the background of creating it. I love being able to use every part of the animal, believing in tail-to-tip eating, especially for those parts that would normally be thrown away despite their incredible nutritional value. I’ve learned a lot about the importance of trial and error and being okay with taking my time on things. Kara can quickly bake and fine tune her process all in the same day. With the meats side of the business, I sometimes need to wait close to a week to discover if my process can be improved from the dehydrator! I also have to factor in the consistency of the organ for the best way to slice it, most effective knives for removing excess fats, and paying close attention to neck and feet bones to maintain a quality and easy to chew final product. Studying and taking my time has been an important lesson in maintaining productivity and being able to work with any number of different proteins we want to add to our selection.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.angelastreatstash.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/angelastreatstashllc/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/angelastreatstashLLC/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/angelas-treat-stash/

Image Credits
Domenic Roberto Kara Pado