You haven't heard a lot from us these past few weeks, but that doesn't mean we've been sitting around eating cheesecake from Chris' Cosmic Kitchen. (Although that is a fun thing to do.) We are now deep in our fall festival schedule, and that is keeping us incredibly busy. It all started on September 26th with Aunt Kerry's Pet Stop's 3 year anniversary party. The day started out with some light rain, but that didn’t deter many of the vendors or guests from showing up to the parking lot at Aunt Kerry’s. There were various vendors there, including Monty’s Home, Port City Candles, Cape Fear Golden Retriever Rescue, Carolina Boxer Rescue, NC Rottweiler Rescue, CAT, DogWatch, and Saving Animals During Disasters. In the early afternoon, the rains came. We moved deep under the tents and had a great time chatting with others who braved the storm. All in all it was a great time, even with the less than perfect weather. Thanks Aunt Kerry for having us and for providing a wonderful place to buy pet supplies and be treated like family! If you haven’t stopped in at Aunt Kerry’s Pet Stop yet, you really should. It’s on the corner of 17th extension and College Rd in Wilmington. The next weekend (Oct 2nd-3rd) was Riverfest. This is a huge fall festival in downtown Wilmington. They estimate that there were over 100,000 people who walked down Water St. checking out all the vendors. We had a prime location, right on the corner and we set up along with Jackie from Port City Candles. After a few revisions to our booth set up, we just enjoyed the GREAT weather and spoke with a lot of wonderful people. People we knew stopped by, people we didn’t know stopped by, and we just had fun chatting with everyone (and selling soap). We were able to educate people on the need to stop using chemical flea treatments on their dogs (and cats), and on the importance of using soap for themselves that was free from all the nasty chemicals and preservatives. On Saturday, Gayle was interviewed for an article in the Wilmington Star News. On Sunday a lady stopped by with her son because they wanted to meet us. Turns out, her son had to do a current event for school and he chose our article as the basis for his current event. It was great fun to meet them and good to see education in action. We had a wonderful time at both events and are looking forward to 3 more festivals in the coming weeks. Come out and see us: Hanover Kennel Club Dog Show, Legion Stadium in Wilmington – October 10th-11th Salty Paws, Carolina Beach Lake Park – October 17th Dog Fest, Empie Park, Wilmington – October 24th (This festival marks our one year anniversary! Come share the fun with us.)

I am sure it will come as no surprise that the sales manager and I spend a lot of time talking to people about soap, especially our dog soap. We are marketing the heck out of our dog soap. There seem to be two major questions we are asked regularly. One, why soap? Two, why dog soap? Why make soap is an easy question to answer. Jenn had been talking about and reading about soap for over a year. When she finished her masters, she began to put her words into action….she made soap. Eventually, there is only so much soap two people can consume. It has to go somewhere and our customers are the beneficiaries. Why make dog soap is still a very easy answer and yet the most difficult to put into words. It is still in a lot of ways an open wound for both Jenn and me. It began several years ago, and yet it was quite sometime before we really grasped the relevance. Here is our story: It begins with fleas. Yep, the common everyday flea. If you have a dog then you probably have faced the dreaded flea. We live in a warm climate (near Wilmington, NC) and fleas are our nemesis. We have always had dogs and therefore always been on the front line in the war on fleas. It seems like a simple matter. Go to the vet pick up the latest and greatest in flea treatment. Come home, put on rubber gloves and administer between your beloved’s shoulder blades. Only our dog Franklyn got sick each and every time we did this “treatment”. Within a week, we would be at the vet and he would be diagnosed with pancreatitis. Home we would come a few hundred dollars lighter with antibiotics and a “special diet”. Later, after doing our own research we came to the conclusion that the flea treatments we were giving him to “help him” were poisoning him. In fact, we believe that it eventually killed him. (Although we could never get a doctor to say anything that would reinforce our beliefs) The ingredients found in the topical flea treatments are long and difficult to pronounce. They include things like fipronil, ethonal, polyvinlpyrrolidone, butylhydroxytoluene and carbitol. The last four ingredients are listed on the packaging as “inert”. Makes them sound harmless, doesn’t it? However, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the inert ingredients on topical flea treatments seem to be MORE TOXIC than the active ingredients. The EPA highly regulates the active ingredients in a product, but there is barely any regulation of the inert ingredients. This is allowed to happen because the inert ingredients are thought of as the “secret recipe” and are allowed to be kept hidden from other companies that might steal that recipe. What are some of the health effects seen from these pesticides that we so eagerly put on our pets? Well, fipronil can cause organ damage, thyroid cancer and damage to the nervous system. Ethanol can cause birth defects. Butylhydroxytoluene causes cancer, and carbitol can cause nerve and organ damage. So, what is the alternative? Living with fleas is dangerous in its own right and, let’s face it, annoying for everyone. The safest way to keep pesticides off your pet and keep them flea free is to use a comprehensive approach including herbal supplements, cleaning with all natural soaps and essential oils that repel bugs, and other environmentally friendly pest control alternatives. So, we make all natural dog soap to keep our fur kids safe from harmful chemicals and also to hopefully keep others from having to go through the same agony that we endured. Gayle (with help from Jenn when I became too emotional to write more)