Hello everyone, this is Krista with Episode #174 on the Wag Out Loud pawdcast. Have you checked out all of the amazing trusted brands that I highly recommend? These are products that I've researched and I've tried, that I know like and trust. Products that will help your dog to thrive. So just go to WagOutLoud.com and check out the trusted brands section. And I've negotiated discounts for most of the products, so why not see what can make a difference in your dog's life? And don't forget to also check out the resources page as well, because it's filled with some very important info for both you and your dog.

Here's something I found interesting, the presence of a leash, the sex of a dog's owner and the sex of the dog itself all play a part in the aggressiveness of a dog when they're being walked. So dogs being walked by men are four times more likely to attack and bite another dog. Why is this? Well, it's because many dogs not only react to the behavior and posture of other dogs around them, but also to their people.

Welcome to the Wag Out Loud pawdcast, where we are obsessed with bringing you helpful tips on canine health care, nutrition, and overall wellbeing. If you'd like to support the show, check out the amazing online events, products and resources that I personally recommend on the Wag Out Loud website. I'm your host, Krista and I'm super excited to be bringing you yet another tail wagging episode.

Nathan Dewsbury is a seasoned expert in the animal health and wellness industry, with a track record of launching successful product-focused companies. His unique blend of scientific and business development skills has been instrumental in developing, manufacturing, and commercializing innovative nutritional supplements and testing programs. His extensive experience includes participation in multi-national health testing programs and guiding product development from R&D stages to commercial launch, giving him a comprehensive understanding of the entire process. Nathan received his graduate degrees in science and business from Texas A&M University and has numerous scientific publications to his name.

Welcome dog lovers to yet a another informative Wag Out lLoud pawdcast episode. I am so excited to chat with Nathan Dewsbury and we are going to talk about applying science correctly for dogs. So Nate, thank you so much for being here today.

Oh happy to be here, Krista. So thank you.

Well, before we get started, if you could please introduce yourself and tell us when this passion for canine health started for you.

Oh, no worries. So I am one of the co-owners and founders of rogue pet science. And so we've been for me, I've been doing this for the better part of 12 years, but we've been publicly available for the better part of six years now. And, you know, I'm a scientist by trade, a lot of diverse background in production animals, solving health problems the world over. I'm also a business trained scientist as well. So I've ran labs, I've developed diagnostics to help develop early stage research for vaccine development, dog cancer development work with Texas A&M and lot more of the dog trainer I competed in protection sports, you know, I've kind of done it all. And this diverse background allows me to see not just health issues, but a lot of issues from a multiple points of view. So I'm very well rounded. So not very silonated in just one little area, though, I've been in multiple silos. And so early on during my early developmental time as a, as a trainer, training my dog competing with my dogs helping others with, you know, raw diet and all that conversions back in the in the late 1990s. That's really weird to say that. I was, you know, there were three books published on this topic. I mean, back when you had to read books. So, you know, I was doing this I was traveling with the dogs, living with them full time, you know, as we traveled multiple states, and really realized that, you know, there's so much more than we can do on the dry food side that it wasn't a solution. And even on the raw food side. It was you know, it was helping a lot of people we were getting a lot of abatement, but we weren't getting resolution on a lot of issues. They still reoccurred but they were definitely diminished. And then the inconvenience of raw for those if you've ever traveled with dogs, even when I was getting it for free, it was still inconvenient and the timing of it so that was kind of starting a seed in my mind. I was like there's gotta be a better way. At the time. I didn't know exactly what it was I was studying immune systems immune responses, development in like vaccine development research work in animals so didn't know exactly what all was going on until I got exposure globally into the gut health side of it and understanding those factors. So when you fast forward later in my career after grad school, I'm traveling still globally helping production animals, dairy, swine, poultry, still in the dog food side of things as well, and started realizing that it wasn't that, you know, it was this really defining moment, other than I'm constantly asked by, you know, a lot of my working dog guys that have kennels, with the dogs, you know, bird dog guys, hunting guys. And production sport guys, they're like, you know, when are you going solve these problems, Nate when you can solve these problems, so they knew what I did and what I was what I really enjoyed working dogs. And so it wasn't that there was a defining moment, Krista, it was more like, at some point, I felt an obligation. And that obligation was that I had knowledge, I had the experience, I know what needed to be done. So I'm obligated to do this for other pet owners around the world, which has been our mission. And thankfully, we're around the world, literally, with our products, helping pet animals everywhere. So that's the short of it, I would say there was no defining, oh, I tried everything in the world. I solved this, and so I created something, it's like, I had to create what I did, because no one was doing it because I did look around. And it wasn't that I didn't try, I did look around, I did try. And it just none of it made sense from a fundamental scientific standpoint, from a nutritional standpoint, because you got to remember, both my co owner, Blake Jackson, and I, we've been longtime friends for a very long time. And we, we started training dogs together, we were working out together, we competed in our respective sports personally, on our own. This is not like high school or college, it's beyond that, that we were competing ourselves. So we were constantly and still to this day students of nutrition, gut health, you know, meta genomic, you know, these nutrigenomics, you know, all this information is still ongoing. But we were applying this to dogs. And of course, we knew this about ourselves. And it was not a lot of rollover from the human world circulating down to the pet world. Only if you were involved in production animals, which are 20 years ahead of the pet space. That's how far they are in of course knowledge and what works, what doesn't work and why they're doing things. So I was able to apply all that exposure and private research that was seen and know what works and what didn't work and was able to develop that over six years into developing the first product, which was our, our Origins 5 in 1 product not to plug that product. Now that that was our plug that's our flagship product, and it's changed. It's helped a lot of people around the world.

That is awesome. Well, Nate, you're going to chat with us about the science that is available for our dogs to realize optimal health and nutrition. But with so many different food choices and supplements on the market, how do we know? What is really going to help our dogs to thrive when it comes to the science that's available to us today? Yeah, big question. Right?

How to Navigate the Dog Food & Supplement Market

Yeah, it's huge question. And I think it causes a lot of stress. And in grief for for pet owners, whether they're experienced or not, you know, your average, you know, say, pet owner, and then also your training or your working dog level, guys, it causes them some stress and grief. Am I doing enough? Is this working? I don't know. I hope so. So it's a lot of emotional factors in there, that aren't exactly rooted in, in knowledge, or, as far as the science goes, being able to understand any science to understand you know, how to make better decisions. And that's not that's not on the owner, not entirely for sure. There's a lot of confusion out there, because we've always had this, saying that from the very beginning, you know, we're we're not a marketing company that happens to have a pet product line. We're a pet science company that develops functional nutritional tools, that solves problems, that we happen to do marketing, to sell the product to get in the hands on that. So that has been our biggest differentiation point, by anybody out there, as far as any quasi associated products to us, or the brands related to us in our space. So that leads into like, that we need better products, not more products. And unfortunately, you know, I mean, unfortunately, but fortunately, you know, we're, we're in the United States. So, we have that opportunity, anybody can create a product, you know, we say the market has potential for any good product. Well a good product is, is situational. And the market will always tell you what's a winner, but not always the best product ultimately be a winner at the end of the day, but we've been fortunate enough that we do have the best products. So we say we need better products, not more products, better products, meaning that not only the background information or the background science of why maybe individual components work, right there's a lot of focus, you know, narrow focus on, you know, enzymes, probiotics, the nutritional Things like