The Organic Hound Co.

Who We Are

There are certain things in life, that once you’ve had them long enough, you start to take for granted – things like electricity, cable TV, and a job.  At the time Jess and I started forming the idea for The Organic Hound Co., we still had electricity and cable TV.  It was that last thing, a job, which we found ourselves without in April 2010. We worked together at a financial newsletter company in New York, Jess as the creative director and me as a writer.  When you abruptly lose your job, you can respond in one of two ways. You can curse the universe for delivering you such an unlucky lot or you can seize the opportunity to figure out what you really want to do with your life and well…do it.  Fight or flight, so to speak.  

This is the story of how we fought – against the mounting bills, the disbelievers, the logistical nightmares, the little obstacles, and the big hurdles – to turn a dream into The Organic Hound Co.

One day, post job loss, I was on my way to visit Jess at her home in New Hampshire when I got a call from her on my cell phone. The conversation went something like this (I paraphrase loosely):

Me: “Hello.”
Jess: “I have an idea that I think you are going to love.  We’ll talk when you get here.”
Me: “C’mon, you have to give me more than that!”
Jess: “I’ve been thinking about what we can do for work, and I think we should start a company for dogs that carries environmentally friendly products.”
Me: “You’re brilliant. That’s it.”

I knew what Jess described was the exact mental image that played over and over in my head while daydreaming from my windowless cubicle. It made sense, perfect sense.  So, we went to work.  We brainstormed company names, researched products, reviewed industry stats, and even discussed ways in which the company would grow.  And that was all on the first day.  

By day two, Jess’ original idea had already evolved into something entirely different. During one of the many informal meetings conducted in pajamas over coffee, we asked ourselves a crucial question.  Wouldn’t it be more rewarding to sell a product we make ourselves?  Since neither one of us could fashion a dog toy out of hemp, we thought of the next best product we could put on the market – dog biscuits. So, we went to work again. We bought ingredients, researched recipes, dusted off some old bone shaped cookie cutters, and baked our first batch.

By day three we had baked peanut butter, liver, tuna, and pumpkin flavored treats. We were on a roll, but we felt like something was missing. So, we put Jess’ original idea back on the table for yet another round of revisions. We wanted to bake biscuits for dogs. That much we knew for sure.  But we wanted to do more than that.  We wanted to set our biscuits apart from your everyday average dog treat.  See, we wanted to bake the healthiest treats for dogs made from the best ingredients available.  This is the mission we established when we became The Organic Hound Co. In the months we spent fully developing The Organic Hound Co., life threw us one proverbial curve ball after another.  But remember, this is a story about how we fought, and trust me when I say that the challenges we faced only made us fight harder to uphold our core company values.  

We set out to make nutritious organic biscuits for dogs and we are pretty proud of what we’ve created.  We hope you enjoy our products as much as we enjoy making them for you.


What We Do
We bake nutritious, great tasting organic biscuits for dogs.  That’s the basic description of what we do, but we want you to know what we’re really about.  The process of developing a healthy dog biscuit can be as easy or as complicated as you make it. For some people, it is a hobby.  For us, it is an art form.  When you look at a stunning piece of art, there isn’t just one factor that makes it remarkable.  Artists rely on multiple elements to create a true masterpiece. We take a similar approach when baking our dog biscuits.  

When you purchase any of one our homemade treats, you can be sure your dog will enjoy a snack that contains no wheat, corn, or soy – the most common sources of food allergies in dogs.  We also make it a point to only use easily digestible grains like brown rice and oats that won’t be harmful to your dog’s system. We hold our organic dog biscuits to the highest standards of health and nutrition. Nothing makes it into our organic dog biscuits unless it has a positive nutritional impact on your dog’s daily and long-term health.

So that’s what we do at The Organic Hound Co., but if anyone ever asks, you can just tell them that we bake the healthiest treats for dogs made from the best ingredients available.