Our Story
The story of how it all began. . .
Our journey into raw feeding started when our first Great Dane arrived into our family. Brutus was about 9 months old when we started to notice a change in his coat. He went from a beautiful, mostly white, colored dog to a rusty red spotted dog within months. He began to have postules all down his back that would pop and lose the hair. That was when we realized we were having a reaction to something; and all fingers pointed at his food. At first we switched to about 5 different high-end dry dog foods to see if we got any relief. He was never a real enthusiast about meal time, and nothing helped; not even grain free. So after much research online, we were introduced to the idea of starting a raw diet.
What happened next was a disaster. We decided to take the plunge and switch everyone to raw. We started our two dachshunds, our great dane Brutus and our foster great dane, at the time, on raw. The experience was challenging, to say the least, but we were lucky enough to have some mentors that helped us get through, without quitting. We had one dog who refused to eat for five days, meanwhile I was have mini panic attacks because the whole concept of "tough love, you eat what you are served" was new to me. Another dog was having diarrhea... everywhere. So we started to doubt ourselves, and my decision to switch, after a rough week into raw.
We didn’t give up! I thought about it, but knew I just needed to get the hang of this. I was one week in, with two stubborn great danes, a ravenous dachshund hiding food around the house, and a bunch of frozen raw meat falling out of every corner of my freezer. I kept wondering what in the world did I get myself into.
Eventually everything settled down and we got the hang of it all. Over the next few months, we acquired a stand up freezer in our garage. I was spending hours sourcing good meat deals all over town. Feeding two XL dogs and three little ones was no joke. I began to order cases of meat because I could not keep up with our dogs consumption. And then, it was some sort of divine intervention, when one day, I was chatting online with some friends and I came across a woman who lived a few blocks away from me that was also a raw feeder! Never in a million years did I imagine finding someone else, who was into this style of feeding, so close near by. She eventually started to buy meat with me and when the word got out, there were more people jumping in on our orders.
It has been over two years since things started to unfold for us in the raw feeding community. We have our own warehouse and walk in freezer now. We ship all over the United States. And we still aim to always provide excellent customer service, and take care of each of our customers as if they were our only customer. I know that I had support when I first started out, and if it was not for that support, I probably would have quit raw feeding before I even really got started. That got me thinking. How many people out there must quit before they even get to reap the benefits of the diet?
As a dog and health enthusiast, I genuinely care about your dog's health; especially after everything I have learned so far in this industry. We still search for the best deals around town, as long as it does not compromise the quality of the meat for the dollar sign. My motto is if I would not feed it to my own dogs, then I don't think you should either. Forget denatured meats, or meats coming from condemned or dying or diseased animals. No "unknown" sources or origins around here, nothing imported from China either. The reason we feed raw food is to better our pet's health. And that will always remain the focus and the goal of Raw Feeding Miami.
