Social media has become a go-to source for pet nutrition advice, but how do you know who to trust? In this episode of Zoomies, Jordan Tyler and Dr. Stephanie Clark sit down with Bryce Francois of BK Pets to talk about his journey from following and promoting unsupported pet nutrition beliefs to questioning the evidence behind it and becoming an outspoken advocate for science-backed information. Bryce shares his experience of publicly changing his mind, the personal and financial consequences of challenging his former community, and why pet parents should verify credentials and be open to changing their minds when evidence evolves.

Plus, Jordan and Stephanie recap what caught their attention at SUPERZOO, from a growing focus on digestion and functional products to buzzwords like “longevity” and “vitality,” and weigh in on the latest pet food news and recalls from August. It’s a spicy, fast-paced conversation about misinformation, marketing, and what it really means to make informed choices for our pets.

Show Notes

🐶 Check Out the BK Pets

• On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebkpets/?hl=en
• On TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thebkpets
• On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thebkpets

⚖️ Learn More About DOJ’s Civil Complaint against Darwin’s Natural Pet Products: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-files-complaint-stop-washington-firm-manufacturing-and-selling-0

🐾 Read About This Month’s Recalls

• Fromm Family Foods: https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts/fromm-family-foods-voluntarily-recalls-turkey-pate-wet-food-dogs-and-diner-classic-milos-meatloaf
• Oma’s Pride: https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts/updated-omas-pride-voluntarily-recalls-one-lot-woof-complete-canine-chicken-recipe-6-lb-bag-because
• Years: https://www.years.com/pages/care?srsltid=AfmBOorx8UptZjCpMIoZirDrcP-f2nn7e13nRcZsNjBeXhmxe0hQ1yCZ

https://www.petfoodindustry.com/safety-quality/pet-food-recalls/news/15833010/years-recalls-fresh-meals-over-dog-eye-illness

🎧 Listen to Past Episodes of Zoomies here:

• April 2026: https://bsmpartners.net/barking-mad-podcast/april-zoomies-headlines-from-the-world-of-pet
• May 2026: https://bsmpartners.net/barking-mad-podcast/may-zoomies-growing-meat-recalls-and-pet-food-goes-to-court
• June 2026: https://bsmpartners.net/barking-mad-podcast/june-zoomies-boy-kibble-recalls-and-one-nasty-fly
• July 2026: https://bsmpartners.net/barking-mad-podcast/july-zoomies-beagle-backlash-pet-food-lawsuits-and-superzoo-bets

Episode Chapters

00:00 — Welcome to August Zoomies

01:01 — Where are You Getting Your Pet Nutrition Info?

02:26 — Introducing Bryce Francois of BK Pets

12:05 — Publicly Changing Your Mind

20:20 — Evaluating Pet Food Claims and Credentials

27:02 — Our SUPERZOO Impressions

36:18 — This Month's Pet Food News and Recalls

45:37 — That’s a Wrap! See You Next Month

Jordan Tyler

Back to our high speed lap around the latest petcare headlines and trends.

Stephanie Clark

While we could spend an entire episode discussing all things Super Zoo and what was seen over the three day event, since you all have been such good boys and girls, we have an extra special treat for you on today's zoomies. Not only are we covering the hottest pet food updates for the whole month of August, not that it was already a hot month, but we will also be sitting down with Bryce Francois from BK pets to get his story on how he was influenced on social media to feed his dogs a specific way, then he influenced and now he's made it his mission to call out fear mongering influencers on social media.

Stephanie Clark

Stay tuned because we are diving in.

Jordan Tyler

Jordan Tyler

Right? As long as you've got a flashy video and a hot button health philosophy and you show up on my news feed, the idea is we just trust you. And that's really interesting because we care more about our pets than ever today. And in the process of seeking out more accurate information, I think we're actually maybe looking in the wrong places being, you know, misled by some influencers instead of informed by people that actually have the credentials and the wherewithal to teach you about pet nutrition.

Jordan Tyler

So today we have a very, very special guest with us. It's Bryce Brinkworth. He is with BK pets and he has been on both sides of the influencer line. Been influenced, been influenced and now is influencing on the right side of that equation. Bryce, we're so happy to have you here. And just to kick us off, would love for you to kind of introduce yourself.

Jordan Tyler

Tell us a little bit about yourself and then how you found yourself at this juncture in the pet nutrition space.

Bryce Francois

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Jordan, Steph, first of all, thank you so much for having me here. You are both people I very much look up to in the pet food space. And I love what you do. So beyond honored to sit here with you today. But I would say this this really all started when I got my first dog, Harper.

Bryce Francois

She's now eight years old, and she is the first pet I've ever had in my entire life. So I always wanted animals but never grew up with them. And of course, when you get that first animal, you also get the crippling fear of losing said animal. And so I think that's probably what really started my interest in pet food.

Bryce Francois

You know, you start to hear in the human space how important nutrition is. And that just starts to make you think about the pet food. And I've talked about this many times, but there was basically a moment where I was feeding Purina Pro Plan and I came across a podcast with Steve Gundry, Karen Becker and Rodney Habib. And in this podcast, I basically heard that the advice I was taking from my veterinarian was slowly killing my dog, and that was hard to grapple with.

Bryce Francois

It was it was a weird polarization of having a personal vet that you trust. And then, just like you said, having this really flashy video that's saying a lot of things that logically makes sense, especially if you're a pet parent without a science background, you know? And it was at that moment that we changed everything. We completely switched over to homemade raw food.

Bryce Francois

I remember driving for hours round trip to pick up these ingredients right after this podcast, and I spent $200 that I did not have at the time, came home, spent four hours in the kitchen producing all of these raw meals. Set the ball down in front of Harper. She sniffed it and walked away. And that was like, that was not a reality I had prepared for.

Bryce Francois

I didn't know that I could spend all of this time and energy, and then she wouldn't eat it. In hindsight, that was my first red flag. Regardless, we kind of kept pushing and got them to eat it and and they did fine. On raw food. I think the interesting thing about our journey is there was never a moment where I made choices because my dogs were struggling.

Bryce Francois

I was never that pet parent that had tried a bunch of things and then was like, oh, raw is a last ditch effort. I'm going to try this. And I think I got into all of that because I started hearing and asking hard questions about kibble. Where is the evidence that dogs can eat processed food like this every day and be fine?

Bryce Francois

Where is the evidence that kibble is better than fresh food? And in my opinion, they're not bad questions like I don't think it's bad to ask, where is the evidence? But throughout that journey, I started to realize that I had never turned that back on raw food. I had never asked about raw food. Where is the evidence that this is safe?

Bryce Francois

Where is the evidence that this is better than the same food cooked? And once you kind of ask one of those questions and the answer is not what you expect it to be, you go, okay, what other questions would have answers that I don't expect? And so somewhere in this process, I decided to go back to school, and my motivation was that I was going to go back to school and become a veterinarian and basically be like, see, I was right, I'm a vet.

Bryce Francois

I just went to vet school. It's so corrupt. Pet food is sponsoring everything, and I was going to be the person to have the credentials and expose it. And I got into my I had to do my like, prerequisites. Right. Because I have a journalism degree, I don't have a science degree. So I had to go back and get my prerequisites and do all of that.

Bryce Francois

And I remember being in like my second semester taking a biology class, and my teacher said something that literally made my stomach drop. She said, nothing in science is proven. And of course we have leading theories, right? Gravity, evolution, relativity, all these different things. But nothing in science is proven because you can't prove that something is true forever in every single instance.

Bryce Francois

And I thought to myself, okay, if nothing in science is proven, how are all of these other people, including myself, so confident that they have the right answer? And so then you start looking into it more. And one weird thing that I've realized now, looking back on all of this, is when I was deep in the holistic space.

Bryce Francois

My biggest fear was somebody that was formerly holistic, coming out of being holistic, then exposing the reality of the holistic community. And don't get me wrong, there are holistic aspects I still follow. There are natural things I still follow. When I say holistic, I'm talking about more of the extreme beliefs, the fringe beliefs, the things that are not supported by science.

Bryce Francois

And I became that person that I was terrified of and what I had found when I started looking back at the research that all of us were quoting and stuff, was study after study after study, either misrepresented, misquoted, misinterpreted, and it was like, I talked about this in the last video that I did. It's one thing to realize that you are wrong about something.

Bryce Francois

I'd be like, oh, I thought this. And it's another thing to realize that not only the people that you look up to, but the people that have more influence over pet parents in this country than any other veterinarian combined are also wrong. And it was just this moment of like, holy, like so much of what I believed was not true.

Bryce Francois

And my wife and I have this quote that we always come back to, and it's that if we shared something with our audience that we were doing with our own dogs, and we are now no longer doing it because of evidence, we have found we have an obligation to tell them. And so it was it was a moment of being like, okay, this is going to suck.

Bryce Francois

But we kind of have to say that we were wrong about all of this. And so my wife and I got on the camera and we recorded a 2.5 hour podcast where we went through everything. Everything we believed why we changed our mind, where we were at now, how it felt to go through all of this and overnight loss, brand partnerships, friendships.

Bryce Francois

There were defamation lawsuits threatened against us. I mean, it was extremely hard. And as all of that stuff started happening, it validated what I did because I then realized none of this was about good information. It was about aligning with people that believe the same thing you believe. And another word for that is an echo chamber. And, you know, looking back on it like we wrote a book, The Modern Dog Parent Handbook, that talked about all sorts of holistic stuff, and without even asking for our credentials, without asking for our background, we had one of the top holistic veterinarians write the forward for it.

Bryce Francois

And so now looking back, it's like, okay, it doesn't matter who you are, what your background is, as long as you're saying the right things that align with this community, they will accept you. The moment you stop saying the wrong, the right things, they will exile you. And so now I guess this is where we're at currently. You know, our goal is to share evidence based information.

Bryce Francois

And, you know, I think what's coming becoming more important to me, and almost like a bigger call to action in my system, is getting more scientists on social media. Because you just said the statistics are incredible around how many people are taking advice from social media rather than their veterinarian, and somebody could easily say, oh, like, you shouldn't do that.

Bryce Francois

That's the problem with social media, or that's just the times. And if we want to combat that, we have to have individuals like yourselves who are willing to get on here and make content and be in the place that people are getting this poor information. So excuse my tangent. That's that's the quick and dirty.

Jordan Tyler

No, I mean, it's such a fascinating story. And it really, I think, crystallizes so many pet owner experiences in this industry that are framed by guilt and framed by fear and framed by just we don't know what we don't know, and we trust other people that are really confident in telling us what they think they know is truth.

Jordan Tyler

But when it really comes down to it, there's not one single right way to do it. There's not one single wrong way to do it. And I think that's a really like what you were as you were kind of telling the story, you know, coming around to the idea that, oh, like, it's not so black and white. There's actually a lot of gray area here.

Jordan Tyler

And maybe it's the fact that we're trying to break it out into black and white that's causing us to be so confused and so easily misled. And, you know, it's a shame, too, because we're really just trying to do the best we can for our pets.

Bryce Francois

Exactly. I firmly believe that every single pet parent, whether they're pro vaccine, anti-vaccine, pro raw, anti raw, like I think all of them are trying to get their pets to live the longest possible life. And I think it helps to be able to recognize that because it feels less like we're just enemies here when it's like, no, we all have dogs that we love.

Bryce Francois

We're just trying to figure out how to get them to live as long as possible.

Jordan Tyler

Yeah. Swirl on the same team.

Bryce Francois

Exactly.

Stephanie Clark

So I have so many follow up questions. If you've listened to Jordan and I before, you know that my follow up questions like they're a mile long. So I will try and contain myself as much as possible. But my first and foremost is what is your take on? So you, you, just you and your wife decided to come come clean on.

Stephanie Clark

Hey, we we don't think we've been doing things maybe the most appropriate way for our pets. And you got slammed like you got rigged over the coals. You've lost friendships, you lost deals, you lost probably income from it. Like you lost credibility in the social media space. Do you think because of anyone who wants to step away from maybe a narrative that they've been sharing so hard, if they step away from it, that the fear of all of that really keeps people in the in the narrative, whether or not they're really for it.

Stephanie Clark

I don't know if that makes sense. Like, do you think we're now just an echo chamber because of fear? Like no one wants to admit they're wrong, let alone they're wrong to like the entire world?

Bryce Francois

Yeah. No. As somebody who has done it, it it was hard, you know, like my wife and I lost our entire community that we were a part of. And so I definitely think that's part of it. I definitely think there's this idea that if you are wrong, you will be seen as not trustworthy. You will be seen as bad.

Bryce Francois

I would say, though, that maybe the bigger emotion that plays into it is the shame. It's it's the shame that like, you are a bad person. If you were wrong, you failed. If you were wrong and like sitting here together. Steph Jordan, have you both ever been wrong in your life? I okay Steph has not. No, no but yeah like.

Stephanie Clark

Many a times one of those right.

Bryce Francois

Exactly. It's one of those things where as a human it's absolutely inevitable. And I think there's this beauty in being able to accept that and being able to say, hey, we're all wrong at some point. Here's where I was wrong. And so I definitely think that's a part of it. I would say maybe the bigger part of it for me, what felt like harder to let go of for me was who I was.

Bryce Francois

Like, I had done so much with raw food and so much with the holistic space that it had become my identity. And so it was almost less fear of what the backlash is going to be. But it was the fear of who am I if I am not this person? And that's something I still deal with to this day, because past me it was very easy.

Bryce Francois

I was the holistic canine nutritionist that taught you how to feed your pet better. Now I'm like, I'm just kind of this guy. I have this weird story I like, I like making videos, but it's not this cut and dry. This is who I am. This is who I make it for. And so I think there's a lot of validity in being afraid to admit when you're wrong.

Bryce Francois

My advice is be afraid and do it anyway.

Stephanie Clark

Yeah.

Jordan Tyler

And I just want to say, I know Stephanie, you probably have more follow up questions, but I want to say your identity this whole time has been a good dog parent.

Bryce Francois

So wow.

Jordan Tyler

Thank you. Don't lose sight of that.

Bryce Francois

Really appreciate that. Yeah. It means a lot.

Stephanie Clark

No, I think that's a valid point to Jordan is especially like in pet industry we always get like the big bad pet industry versus the vets versus holistic. And we have all these like micro groups who think we're against everyone, but no one enters into any one industry saying, I want to do bad, I want to do harm.

Stephanie Clark

Like we all go into pet because we love our pets. We want to do right by them. No one's like today. I'm going to make dog food because I don't like dogs, you know? It's like, that.

Jordan Tyler

Doesn't.

Stephanie Clark

Make sense, right?

Stephanie Clark

But I think we forget that. And it's. So I didn't want to, like, call you out. And I hate the word wrong. It feels so strong, you know, but. And I know that you are getting ready to enter into your parent phase where, like, there's even more guilt and shame. And if you say, like being a pet parent was rough, like, just wait till you're on the playground.

Stephanie Clark

But like, at least for me. And that's why I like I joked, like I've never been wrong. Like this morning, you know, here I am apologizing to my five year old because like, I thought I did one thing and she was like, no, mom, I'm telling you this. And I'm like, sorry, I was wrong. You know? Like it's almost become just a natural word that comes out of my mouth so frequently because I'm just trying to do right by my children, you know, whether that.

Stephanie Clark

Be two, three.

Bryce Francois

And it's just. Okay.

Stephanie Clark

Right?

Stephanie Clark

Yeah. Exactly. Like you still loves me. So we're still doing their thing. But, so with your whole identity transition, and I totally get it, like, right, like, I never thought I was going to be some voice that people heard on a podcast. And I'm still trying to figure out, like, where do I fit in? You know, I'm R&D, I'm in the background.

Stephanie Clark

It doesn't look like you've really lost any traction with with your audience. Like they still. Appreciate you being genuine and authentic and really just saying, like, hey, I'm just trying to do right? Like, here's some information that helped me. It may help you. Like, that's that's the external vision that I'm getting. Is that what you're feeling too? On the inside?

Bryce Francois

That's definitely a part of it. You know, we have such an incredible community that has grown and learned with us and is so supportive of us. And we also have a lot of people that were very holistic, that have chosen not to consume our content anymore, which is totally fine. Like I, there are many pieces of content that I don't want to consume for X, Y, and Z reason.

Bryce Francois

From a business perspective, if I can just be kind of real with you for a second, since all of this has happened, we've lost about $200,000 per year in sponsorship revenue. So this has taken quite a hit on our business. We've lost tens of thousands of followers. And not that that's what matters, because when I sit here and think about it, I would do it again every day of the week.

Bryce Francois

But it presented a lot of new challenges that I did not know. We're going to come with this, and I think I didn't realize how much of my life was dependent on saying the things that the holistic industry agreed with. You know, at the same time, I now have this newfound freedom to excuse my language, say whatever the fuck I want.

Bryce Francois

You know what I mean? Like, I I'm not free any more brands. I'm not tied to anymore ideologies. My focus is, how do I get the best information in front of parents that I can? And so that's what drives me now. We make less money now for sure, and we we navigate that. But it's worth it ten times over to now have like the freedom to be a student rather than the burden of trying to convince people I was an expert.

Stephanie Clark

Wow. That was like we made that on the teacher. That's a good quote.

Jordan Tyler

That was like, whoa, really crystallized this for me. But again, like coming back to Stephanie's point earlier, we're all in this because we love pets. And so like, that's you putting your money where your mouth is. And I don't think everybody in the industry, certainly not everybody on social media that claims to be an expert can say the same.

Bryce Francois

I appreciate that, and I just think.

Bryce Francois

Experts or non-experts, the world could benefit so much more from people just being real about what they know and what they don't know. And instead of trying to posture as an expert. And I did it too. Like I get why people do it, fake it to you, make it all these different things that we think about. But it's just when it comes to health and science, there's a very small subset of people that should actually be talking about it and giving advice.

Stephanie Clark

Yeah, yeah, that's well said.

Jordan Tyler

That's cool. Do you want to shout out your channels really quick? And then Stephanie hit us with the spicy questions.

Bryce Francois

You can find us anywhere you want at the BK pets. So TikTok Instagram, Facebook, YouTube we're pretty much everywhere. The BK pets.

Stephanie Clark

Yeah, you know me. We got to add a little spice into everything we see that formulated everywhere. What is your take? Should we be promoting more of that formulated or are we missing a bullet with the vet? Has all the information and those who study nutrition or are nutritionist animal nutritionist, we should actually be putting them forward on the formulation and saying nutritionist validated or nutritionist formulated.

Stephanie Clark

And I'm not. You could say whatever you want as I'm a nutritionist, so clearly I'm biased, but I also am a doggy nurse. So. Right.

Stephanie Clark

No. No judgment.

Stephanie Clark

Well, what is your take on it?

Stephanie Clark

I think.

Bryce Francois

I don't put any stock into vet formulated, and not necessarily because I think vets don't know a lot or because they don't get a ton of nutrition training, which of course that is its own topic. But it just I think more from a brand perspective. I'm like vet formulated could mean so many different things. Like it could just mean a vet was in the room while you're executives formulated it and you formulated it with effect, like what I think would be an ideal scenario and that I that I'm seeing some companies like Adjust Food for dogs using is promoting the team that formulated it saying, hey, a PhD nutritionist has a ton of knowledge, but

Bryce Francois

they haven't gone through vet school and don't have all of the nuance about animal health. Whereas a veterinarian goes to vet school, gets all of this information about animal health, doesn't get a ton of nutrition training. So for me as a pet parent, if I came across like, I think this is what would make me almost instantly by a food if I came across it, which is something to the effect of formulated by a team of scientists, PhDs and vets or veterinary nutritionists.

Bryce Francois

Because I think if you have like a veterinarian or a veterinary nutritionist, some sort of nutritionist, PhD, vet, nutritionist, whatever, and then like food science, food safety experts, that's where I'm like, oh, you kind of you seem like you understand that this is an all encompassing thing. I mean, you guys working at BSM know better than anyone is pet food is not about one specific thing.

Bryce Francois

It is never one thing that makes it good or bad. And so I think that if we if we promote more of this like team approach where we have multiple experts looking at this, collaborating on this, I would feel much more confident as a pet parent in that food. What say you.

Jordan Tyler

Really quick? We swear we didn't pay Bryce to say that.

Stephanie Clark

I absolutely agree and to say I've tried to do that with like my credentials. Everyone's like, you have alphabet soup after your name. And I'm like, yes, but I have tried to hold myself accountable. Not that I should create one food and no one should ever go anywhere else. Like I obviously need a huge team, but like, you know, I wanted to be a vet.

Stephanie Clark

Decided that wasn't for me because I fell in love with research. Some days I regret that. Some days I'm like, I don't know if I would have wanted to be a vet, but, you know, went and did my animal nutrition, then realized I should do some clinical nutrition on top of just like general animal nutrition. Then I got into formulating and being in the pet space and I was like, I need to be a certified food scientist because that's great if I put something on paper.

Stephanie Clark

But what if it doesn't run through the extruder or the retort? Or if something goes wrong, like because I didn't consider the fiber or the carb content or. And so I was like, well, now I need to learn that. So then I learned that too. And so it's like by no means again, I need a whole team. And the team knows that I need a team.

Stephanie Clark

I am all about like pulling people in. But it's so interesting. Like as I was like going through this, I'm like.

Stephanie Clark

Oh.

Stephanie Clark

I don't know this. I need to start learning this to, oh, I don't know this. I need to start learning this too. But I it would be nice. And maybe anyone listening, how do we market that. How do we put that as a marketing claim. Because I think yeah you're right. The vet formulated, the nutritionist validated like it's much more than that.

Stephanie Clark

Like you can have great some, you know, great nutrition on paper, but if it doesn't run or the process of getting those ingredients to the facility or during the facility is not safe, it's junk. Like it's.

Stephanie Clark

The whole.

Bryce Francois

Thing is like you can be a veterinary nutritionist all day, but like as you as a veterinary nutritionist, do you know how to run a sanitary pet food facility? Because I can't imagine they're really teaching that.

Stephanie Clark

So I know I just want to be respectful of time. And Jordan, you can usually wrap us up, but what is one thing that you would give pet owners who take their advice on social media? What's what's one thing that you would like them to take home from all of this? I know I've just sizzled it down to one thing, but it could be a couple more.

Bryce Francois

No, I like it.

Bryce Francois

I would say. The biggest thing for me is verify if you if you have somebody who you're taking information from and and you just don't, you don't really know much about them. Verify their credentials and verify their information that they're giving. And if the information that they're giving is not in line with the greater body of evidence. I'm going to quote one of my favorite doctors, doctor Mike.

Bryce Francois

If somebody tells you something that goes against the evidence, they have to have an overwhelming amount of evidence to convince me, because how are you? Right. And the entire other organizations that have been doing this for decades wrong. And so verify credentials, verify information and and challenge yourself, ask ask yourself, what if I'm wrong about this? What would that look like?

Bryce Francois

And explore it because it's scary. But like some of the best things in my life have been really scary, you know?

Jordan Tyler

Beautiful note to end on, man.

Stephanie Clark

Thank you.

Jordan Tyler

Yeah, I think we can all take something away from that. Pet food related or just life related. This is like wise words with Bryce Wall right now. So thank you so much for joining us. I know we could pick your brain all day long, but we'll be sure to link your channels in the show notes for this episode for sure.

Jordan Tyler

Go check them out. Seriously, some really, really entertaining calling out happening on social media from this guy. And you're going to love it, I promise.

Stephanie Clark

So I appreciate that.

Bryce Francois

Thank you so much for this. I huge fan of what you both do and I hope I can become a recurring guest.

Jordan Tyler

I was just about to say, hopefully this won't be the last time.

Stephanie Clark

Definitely not awesome.

Jordan Tyler

Thanks again.

Jordan Tyler

Definitely go check him out. Links in show notes. But we also have something else very important to update you on and that is super Sue. If you heard last month's zoomies, I think that we would all be a little bit disappointed. We all showed up to the show and we expected there to be a huge grooming portion, as there always is, but we found out that they broke the grooming portion of the show into its own separate show.

Jordan Tyler

That thing happened already in March, apparently. Did you know this? I didn't.

Stephanie Clark

Know I didn't.

Stephanie Clark

I was completely sugar. I didn't find out until overhearing someone at the airport, so I fly in. Oh, gosh, I fly into the Saint Louis. I am in the Saint Louis hub, and so it's a really big hub for pet. And I'm sitting there minding my own business, drinking my coffee, eating my breakfast, and they're talking about this.

Stephanie Clark

And then I'm like, what? When did this happen? Well, our zoomies are going to be womp womp because we thought we were going to see tie dye dogs everywhere. No.

Jordan Tyler

I did see a couple. At least. I did see a dog that was dyed like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh. That was great. And then I did see another dog.

Jordan Tyler

I can't remember the theme. It was just a lot going on, you know, and I was like, oh, what's going on there? And then it was it was gone before I could really identify.

Stephanie Clark

I don't know what a group of giraffes are, so I'm going to call it a gaggle. I saw a gaggle of giraffe dogs. I know a gaggle of geese. Not the appropriate one, but it just worked.

Jordan Tyler

Jacobs looking it up. Don't worry. We'll know here in a second.

Stephanie Clark

Appreciate it.

Stephanie Clark

Just a regular herd of giraffes. But I saw a bunch of giraffe dogs.

Jordan Tyler

Okay, so when they stand all together, a group of giraffes is called a tower. When they're moving in a group, it's called a journey.

Stephanie Clark

A journey so.

Stephanie Clark

That.

Stephanie Clark

The dogs were definitely moving. They were in strollers. So I saw a journey of giraffes. I'm gonna push it.

Jordan Tyler

And they were on a journey.

Stephanie Clark

They were on a journey.

Stephanie Clark

It didn't tell me what journey. And I was like, stop. Let me take a picture. I have to prove that I saw you.

Jordan Tyler

You're like walking backwards speed, walking backwards, trying to get a video of these dogs and strollers.

Stephanie Clark

I was like, around this lady. And then she's like, well, you better tag me. And I was like, oh, I'm not using this for social media. I'm using this to prove that I get my bet. One picker didn't happen, right?

Jordan Tyler

Jordan Tyler

Jordan Tyler

So let's start a little movement. Right. Where is Rufus today in your life? Send us a picture. Well, if you post on social media, if you send it to us directly, we will reshare it and we will engage with it because we love Rufus and we love that you love Rufus. So let us know.

Stephanie Clark

What I say without showing my age. Or maybe it's kind of like a flat Stanley, but this is like the round Rufus, right?

Jordan Tyler

Round Rufus. It's like round robin, but round Rufus that's. That's what it's called. Round Rufus, send us your Rufus photos and we will round Rubus hashtag.

Jordan Tyler

Love that. Okay. Lastly, from Super Zoo, we have got to share. Like what? What took our breath away, if anything. And what made us go, stuff take us away. Because I think you safely saw a little bit more of the show floor than I did this year.

Stephanie Clark

Yeah, my leash was a little bit longer. Sorry. That's. I had a tethered. I had the retractable. So I got to extend a little bit further. Just kidding. But so here here's what I saw. And then I will provide my hot take, which is not really a hot take but it's an interesting take. So I think it's definitely safe to say that we love our pets more than we love our kids.

Stephanie Clark

And then maybe I'm just in my mom era, my young mom era, but pouches. Hello moms! We all love pouches for our toddlers. We now get them for our dogs. Yogurt melts little. I mean, I knew my beagle loved it because she will like swipe them. She'll shark them from from Ruth when she's eating them. But now we have them for our dogs.

Stephanie Clark

The craziest is we have single served applesauce for your pet, not for your toddler. Like the individual, they come in six. Yep. That was that super zoo.

Jordan Tyler

Did you see the doggie popcorn?

Stephanie Clark

I did. I've had that in the past, so I appreciate it. The only caveat is it does make my house smell very cheesy, so it's like I have to make sure I only pop it when I can open the window.

Jordan Tyler

See, I never would have thought of that being a consideration with doggie popcorn, but there you go. It's a little cheesy.

Stephanie Clark

The dogs love it, right? Like absolutely go bonkers for it. But then having my husband complain about, like, why does it smell like she's in the house? And I'm like, oh yeah, because I popped the dog's popcorn.

Jordan Tyler

She asked for it and he asked for popcorn.

Stephanie Clark

And I mean, she she deserves it. She gets. So the other thing, digestion is here. It's here to stay. It's here to slay, is doing its thing. Like digestion is almost like humanization. Like is it even a trend anymore? It's just the standard. So what I did think was interesting is the two buzzwords longevity and vitality. Now I will raise the bar and ask a question.

Stephanie Clark

What does that mean?

Jordan Tyler

I, I kind of think they mean the same to me. They mean very similar things. Right? I guess you could have vitality at any age. And I think think of longevity more for like older age because like that's when it really counts, I guess. But they're so close together in my mind, see.

Stephanie Clark

And I took a different.

Stephanie Clark

Angle on it.

Stephanie Clark

Like, what does it mean.

Stephanie Clark

Like longevity. Does that mean an extra day, an extra two days, an extra two years? 20 years? Like what does your study show?

Jordan Tyler

No.

Stephanie Clark

What did your studies show like.

Jordan Tyler

To my next.

Stephanie Clark

If I start giving this longevity tree to Annie who was going on 14, is she going to see my children's children? I don't know.

Jordan Tyler

Probably not, but it does beg the question.

Stephanie Clark

Just just have a definition or like a little asterisk that, like, has been shown to extend life by five extra days. I don't know, like, what is it like if you eat a hot dog, you lose like three minutes off your life.

Jordan Tyler

Cigarettes like 7 minutes or 9 minutes or something like that.

Stephanie Clark

I think we should have a claim like that. Like extend dog life by two seconds.

Jordan Tyler

Extends dog life by half of a dog year.

Stephanie Clark

Or like helps your sanity, the longevity of your sanity for five minutes so you can get something done while your dog is not underfoot, I don't know. Anyway, I won't I won't beat that claim up, but it's just really interesting that those were some buzzwords that I noticed. But yeah. And then lastly, it kind of goes with digestion, kind of goes with humanization.

Stephanie Clark

Functional is everywhere. I mean, right insert start making fetch happen mean girls clip. That is.

Speaker 8

So fetch.

Speaker 9

Gretchen, stop trying to make fetch happen. It's not going to happen.

Stephanie Clark

It's worked like everything is functional. I think the toilet paper is functional in the bathroom at Super Zoo. Like, rightfully so. But maybe it provides you some longevity. Like, I don't know.

Jordan Tyler

For me it's vitality. Oh.

Stephanie Clark

That bums got to be vital.

Jordan Tyler

I just feel really invigorated.

Stephanie Clark

That's fine that we want to use these words, but like, let's put some meaning behind it so we can add some clarity. Sorry, too many hot takes.

Jordan Tyler

I totally agree and I think we could we could ask that of really any buzzword or claim that's happening in the pet space right now. So let this be a lesson. You know.

Stephanie Clark

If I come by your booth next year, I'm going to ask you show me the data.

Jordan Tyler

Anyway. Shall we do recalls that.

Jordan Tyler

Everybody's favorite. Okay, this one is so, so juicy. And then I'll shut up and let you roll with it stuff. But Darwin's Natural Pet Products has had recalls. It's a raw pet food brand, consistently had a recalls for the last, I want to say nine, almost ten years. They have been having recall after recall, after recall recognized by the FDA.

Jordan Tyler

And according to the FDA, they have discussed and planned for controlling safety issues in their plant. But obviously recalls are still happening, and so the precautions that they're taking aren't good enough. Well, this just in the DOJ, the Department of Justice has filed a civil complaint to stop manufacturing at Darwin's Natural Products. And this is like the FDA, the DOJ.

Jordan Tyler

They don't do this just for Shigella. Right. This is serious. These people messed up and they are in trouble. So months and months of recalls without proper solutions, failing to follow preventive controls, causing uncooked pet food to become adulterated, things like salmonella, E.coli, listeria, pathogens in the food and their argument. Part of it is at least pets aren't as susceptible to these pathogens, so it's really not a safety issue for them.

Jordan Tyler

However, it's still a safety issue for us. So this remains an issue, just kind of a PSA. It's escalated all the way to the federal level at this point. So honestly, I'm glad that this is coming to light because I've been watching these recalls happen my whole career in this industry. And it really is like, hello, is anybody going to do anything about this?

Jordan Tyler

And finally, we are so definitely keep an eye on that. Will keep a link in the in the show notes with that civil complaint. So you can check out more if you'd like to. But pretty spicy.

Stephanie Clark

Jordan Tyler

Stephanie Clark

And then next on our recall is almost pride. So they had recalled some raw chicken dog food for salmonella. My husband's not going to listen to this, but I'll give him some credit. Last night when I was reading over this, he was like, hey, did you see almost pride had a recall? You should add that into your zoomies.

Stephanie Clark

And I was like, love you so much. Yes, of course we have it. But I appreciate your help. So thank you, Jonathan. And the most important thing and kind of going back to what you were saying, Jordan is, well, dogs don't get sick over this. Three dogs have actually become ill because of this. So just because the average dog, or more times than not dogs will not get sick, doesn't mean it's not impossible.

Stephanie Clark

So Alma's Pride Wolf complete canine chicken recipe again. Show notes below. Lock code, all that fun stuff. But the risk you have when you feed raw chicken.

Jordan Tyler

This next one stuff. I'd love for you to take us through this, because I know you're going to do it more justice than I will, but this next one is maybe the most bizarre recall I've ever seen.

Stephanie Clark

When I send this to the group, I was like, is this a thing? Like, is this actually happening? But before I get to sassy, let me rewind. Years is a UK subscription based fresh pet food. It has recalled all of their products, all of their SKUs, and has stopped production due to dogs reportedly getting dry eye in the company.

Stephanie Clark

So here's where I have some like questions, right? The company has claimed it being from buckwheat in the food, and that the the fix to this is to remove buckwheat and replace it with quinoa. So again two things to this. There are other pet food products on the market that currently have buckwheat and supposedly don't have dogs with chronic dry eye or bilateral dry eye is what they're having.

Stephanie Clark

But let's also talk about dry eye. It's one of the most common eye issues in dogs. And so.

Stephanie Clark

They're claiming it spike wheat. There's really I try to do some research like in the past. Has there been anything related to buckwheat and dry eyes. There is an anti nutrient factor, but if you properly test for your raw ingredients, you can detect it early before it even goes into the food. But my second issue with this is it didn't do any scientific study.

Stephanie Clark

They didn't do any testing to isolate buckwheat. They just put out a report and said, we think it's buckwheat causing this. So again, we're demonizing an ingredient. And as a nutritionist, I don't think any ingredient should be demonized because when we start demonizing ingredients, we start creating this fear. And so now we have on top of this potential, on top of this recall and potential issue, we now have pet owners questioning should buckwheat be in pet food?

Stephanie Clark

So let's just clear the air. Buckwheat isn't bad. There are pet foods that do have buckwheat in it, and it's totally fine. However, like all of our raw ingredients, we do have to test for safety, whether it's mycotoxins or other toxins, heavy metals, or toxins that can cause dry eye because this toxin in it can basically dry up your tear ducts.

Stephanie Clark

So if yours is not doing raw ingredients safety testing, we can maybe, possibly more than likely definitely expect this to happen down the road again. And kind of like what we were talking with BK pets. It doesn't just take one person or one specialty. You can have a great nutrition as you can have a great food scientist. But if you don't have the safety, if you don't have the recall program, if you don't have the testing protocols, you can expect some issues to happen.

Stephanie Clark

So that is the recall. They're they're supposedly going to reformulate with quinoa. To each their own.

Jordan Tyler

Crazy. So crazy I this really comes back to, you know thinking about your DCM, thinking about, you know, copper thinking about these ingredients, these nutrients that we debate around in the care space, in the pet nutrition space, and boiling things down to a single ingredient or a single cause of something. When you have this incredibly complex matrix diet, sitting in front of you is so ludicrous.

Jordan Tyler

That's so ludicrous, you guys. I mean, maybe maybe it is the buckwheat. I don't know, because I haven't done the research, but I really hope that they do some kind of testing or validation and then some studies because, you know what, if it's the buckwheat interacting with some other nutrient in the food, you know, what if it's something a little more complicated, but the idea of them just being like, oh, it must be the buckwheat.

Stephanie Clark

And I will say dry eye is the is the most common eye problem. And I and it seems odd that, oh, hey, we had, you know, a hundred dogs report this. But when they gave the numbers of how many dogs eat their food versus how many dogs reported it, and you compare that with the global average of dogs that get chronic dry eye.

Stephanie Clark

It's very low. And so as a scientist and as a whole, poker in theories, I got to thinking like, is it a geographical issue? Is it an environmental issue? Is it truly even a food issue? Like, will they change this formula, go through all of this, stop dogs, because in the meantime, what are these dogs supposed to eat?

Stephanie Clark

Right. It's a subscription based. It's there's not out there on the market. What are they supposed to eat? But like, what if they still have dry? I, I don't know.

Jordan Tyler

Then it wasn't the buckwheat.

Stephanie Clark

And. Yeah, now you've got all these dogs who are going to a different brand in the meantime, if they come back from the subscription, like are they still paying for the subscription during this like five weeks, six week off time? Like there's so many questions. Right? So it's like I appreciate them doing their due diligence on the recall.

Stephanie Clark

But at the same time, did we do our due diligence on what is actually happening?

Jordan Tyler

Very bizarre. Very just such a weird situation, honestly. Can't wait to see how it unfolds because now I need to know was it the buckwheat that is our news? Those are our orgasms for you. We hope you found them helpful. And if you want to learn more about any of the things that we talked about in today's episode, go check out our show notes and stay tuned for next month's zoomies.

Stephanie Clark

Thank you for tuning in to the Barking Mad Podcast. If you'd like to learn more about BSM, please visit us at.

Jordan Tyler

Don't forget to follow us on your favorite leading podcast platform. And if you found today's episode useful, share it with a friend and we'd like to thank the very loyal good boys and girls on our podcast team Jacob Parker, Katie Wolfe, Millie Boden Lewis, Anna Guilfoyle and at Thomas. A special shout out to David Perez for the original music.

Jordan Tyler

See you next time.