The Live Lightly Podcast

Jessica (00:00)
Hello and welcome back to the Live Lightly podcast. I am Jessica Franklin, your host

Today I'm joined by the co-owners of The Kind Pet, Jennifer Roberge and Laura Dolgy Welcome Jennifer and Laura. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Jennifer (00:16)
Thank you, we're happy to be here.

Laura (00:18)
Definitely happy to be here.

Jessica (00:20)
So I found you guys because I have a pet. I have a dog who is actually almost seven years old. And when I interviewed Aiden from the Earth Day Organization, he talked a lot about the effects of plastic on pets. And so I immediately started looking around my house going, my gosh, I've done all the things for my house and for my family.

to eliminate and reduce our plastic use and exposure, but I haven't really addressed that with my kind pet, my sweet little Izzy. And so it sent me on, do have a chapter in my guide, my sustainable living guide on pets. And there are, the only thing I had done is a bed because I knew that her bed was all plastic when I took off the cover one day to wash it.

Jennifer (00:54)
Yeah

Laura (00:55)
you

Jessica (01:14)
and I do this pretty routinely, but on this particular day there's just more pieces falling off of this foam insert than usual. And I was like, my gosh, that's plastic. And this outer fuzzy thing is plastic too. It's so soft and cuddly, but definitely plastic. So I did replace her bed about a year, maybe a little over a year ago. But none of the toys and none of the other things really came to mind. I was just trying to buy

Jennifer (01:20)
Yeah.

Laura (01:22)
Yeah.

Jessica (01:44)
toys that were made of recycled water bottles to be a little bit better. But when I had this conversation with Aiden, I think it's episode five or six, I'll definitely put it in the show notes. It made me want to write a guide just for pets and just like a little supplement to the chapter in my full guide. it took me hours and hours and hours to find

things like a bowl, because some people don't like stainless steel, like my dog doesn't like drinking out of stainless steel. So just things like that that were specialty items and to find your website took sifting through probably 30 websites that were claiming to have very sustainable pet stuff.

Laura (02:29)
So.

Jennifer (02:33)
that was a great episode with Aidan. I listened to that and I thought it was really good. He had a lot of good stats in there, a lot of shocking stats. They were really incredible, and that's why we started the Kind Pet because we had the same trouble when we were shopping for our own pets, and it was just really sad, and the selection was underwhelming, and it was really hard to find things that we thought were safe for our pet and for the planet,

Jessica (02:39)
Mm-hmm.

so if you could talk a little bit about, first off the journey of what.

brought you to decide that you were going to be the ones to do something like this because it's quite the venture, I would assume.

Jennifer (03:05)
Yeah.

It's been a challenge, that's for sure, but it's been a passion too, so that helped motivate us and get us to this point. So I guess it started probably, my gosh, almost 16 years ago now when my son was born, he had eczema from the start, and we did the typical like steroid path and you know, doing what your doctor says, you're new parent, you're worried and you want your baby to be okay, so you do all that and then things progressed and got worse.

Laura (03:09)
Yeah.

Jennifer (03:34)
At some point we started looking at holistic means because the conventional medicine was just making him worse. It just wasn't for him. And my intuition, my mother's instinct was like, this is not safe. What are you doing? Why do you keep putting stronger steroids on my child? So I started looking holistic. We did all the natural health practices you could possibly imagine. And we moved to Montreal, so we were really lucky because it's very naturally minded here and very European. So we have a lot of access to like...

just amazing and some very obscure natural health practitioners. I like I've seen everybody. So, but in the end it ended up being a combination of diet for him, allergen, like seasonal allergies actually, clothing, like, you know, protecting his skin and then wearing like, wearing natural creams and things instead of the steroids. So that was kind of what worked for him. But during that path, like he developed also like, well,

During the food part of that journey, we did elimination diet and we started to look and see what was causing his skin to flare. And that's when you start to read all the ingredient labels. And I'm like, my gosh. I mean, I was eating, I don't want to list any brands, but when I was pregnant with him, I was on a typical American diet. This is in the, I don't know what, early 2000s. I was eating frozen dinners for lunch. I was eating canned soup. This is how I was raised. My family wasn't a really healthy family. And so I didn't know.

Jessica (04:43)
you

Laura (04:48)
Oof.

Jennifer (04:55)
When I started reading ingredient labels, I'm like, my gosh, what is this? What does this mean? I can't even identify half the things in my food, you know? So that was the start of the journey. that was like, I like to say that eczema was the best worst thing that ever happened to us, or it helped to really improve our lifestyle. that's when I started hoping.

cooking with Whole Foods and really watching what we ate. And so it really helped us all health-wise. So eczema was like a blessing in disguise, I guess. It also helped me start my business back then.

and which was a marketplace for people with eczema and natural healing. It's called the eczema company. It's still around. You can check it out. So yes, that was the start of all of that. And so then, you know, I was helping people heal naturally with eczema and my son was like 96 % better. He's even better today. It's amazing, like super thankful that we figured that out for him and that we can help other people.

And just as the years progressed, it was like I kind of went more and more down the rabbit hole. I'm sure a lot of people listening can probably relate, you too, Jessica, and even Laura. It's like once you start to learn something, that's not enough, and then you just hear more and more. so that led to like looking at waste, you know, like all the excess waste we have in the packaging that our healthy food is in, you know, and can we cut back on that? And so like I went down the whole zero waste rabbit hole and

So yeah, so then when it came time to get a family pet and Laura, so we decided to get a dog for our family and Laura got a cat. adopted a cat and we realized that, you know, there's not a lot of good options out there. It's like you go into the store, it's like plastic everywhere.

just excess packaging, there's like the materials or things that you probably wouldn't use yourself, you certainly wouldn't use for like a baby, and like they're giving it for pets, and it's just really sad. We went to one of the, last year we went to one of the world's largest trade shows for pets, and it was like 95 % plastic, and we were walking up and down the aisles, and people were trying to approach us to sell us stuff, and we were like, no, we're plastic free, like we don't look at that, and they're like, what do mean?

What is that? Like, how are you plastic free in the pet industry? That doesn't make any sense. Like, we got called out on so many times and we're like, we're doing our best, you know? And you could see them kind of snicker and like whatever, but you know, it was, was very disappointing. Anyway, so that's how we got there. We were shopping for our pets and we realized there just weren't a lot of good options. And then, because I had had,

Laura (07:09)
Who's plastic free?

Jennifer (07:30)
had the eXima company, had another company, URINATURALS, we both like online eCommerce. Laura was like my first, she was my marketing director for many years. And so together we really learned like eCom and then she went off and became a shop, she has her own Shopify agency called Dolgify and like became an expert in all of that. And so like when we were going shopping for our pets, I was like,

find anything good. She's like, I can't find anything good either. And like, let's create something. We can do this. Like, we got this. This is no problem. So we put our heads together and just decided that why don't we do it? Nobody's created this truly sustainable marketplace for pets yet. And so that's what we did. We created that marketplace and started selling other people's products. And so we sourced brands that were really ethical and sustainable and small and doing really good things and making really a big effort.

trying to do as much plastic free as possible. That's something we always ask about with our packaging. Some things which we can get into later, it's really hard to be plastic free and it's like if it's just in the packaging for protection, like is it okay if it's not the actual product? So there's that whole thing, but we did this whole crazy...

Laura (08:36)
No.

Jennifer (08:39)
Analysis of all these companies and really came down with I don't know I think we had five or six brands was all we could find to start with and that's what we did with lunch with those and then What happened then is we were selling those bands and then our favorite company Boba and Vespa they were going out of business So they just got really they were just overwhelmed They'd had a new baby and the husband was making a career change. It was a bad time for them So they wanted to sell and they sold to us because they our visions aligned

Jessica (08:54)
Hmm.

Jennifer (09:05)
So it was a really good fit and we took over and now we're not just a marketplace. also produce products now through the Bobo & Vespa line that is now the Kind Pet and it's products made from like natural materials like hemp and cotton, USA made where possible. And you know, like we're getting a catnip and buckwheat for sound and things like that. yeah, so that's, that's the Kind of Pet and that's our little journey and how we got here. It's kind of long.

Laura (09:30)
Thank you.

Jessica (09:30)
Yeah,

no, it's not a short thing to talk about journey. And I actually wanted to ask Laura a little bit about what the challenges are when it comes to educating the consumer from a marketing standpoint about why it would be a better choice to buy sustainable pet gear.

Laura (09:52)
first started the Kind Pet, we knew that there was never going to be the option of just selling sustainable products and thinking that that was going to go far. We always knew there had to be some sort of educational component to it. And we've actually managed to grow the Kind Pet quite significantly, like from an organic side. You know, most of our marketing.

our marketing brain has gone towards SEO and developing our organic strategy. And that's because we've done a lot of education that doesn't necessarily always promote our products, but help people make those changes, those conscious decisions and those sustainable changes either gradually. Because we know that this process is not going to be something that's overnight. It's a big process. totally understand that.

sustainability is a huge overhaul of a lifestyle. some people might not find it interesting and others, you know, are in different spots in their journey and they need to have different education for where they are. So a big part of our business is educating. We've always considered that like really, really important. Sometimes a little more important than always selling. So for example, if

We believe that there's products in the house that people can find, you know, to create, to repurpose into toys. We'll always suggest that that's done first before purchasing something new.

Jennifer (11:25)
our gift guide for example for the holidays is all about do it yourself and buy from the thrift store and make your own stuff and if you can't here's some of our stuff

Laura (11:28)
Yeah.

Jessica (11:32)
Is it

Laura (11:32)
It's been really challenging from a business perspective. We've gone out and done a lot of, I wouldn't say pitching, but applying for different grants and so, and it's very difficult as a very small business that's also bootstrapped for people to understand the concept of this growing to something big, as big as it can for the sustainability market. But we know that

There are people like yourself who are interested in these types of products and interested in this type of education. We really believe that, you know, we can help people make better decisions, not just for themselves, but for their pets as well.

Jessica (12:04)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer (12:14)
Yeah, and I like the idea of making ones, what are the small changes you can make today that are not too painful, not too hard? And one of my favorite ones that I think is overlooked a lot is what's the protein that you give your pet? So, you know, when you're looking at the carbon footprint of beef versus chicken or pork, for example, it's a vast, vast, vast difference.

Laura (12:20)
Exactly.

Jennifer (12:38)
And if you're feeding your pet beef or lamb, it is not a complicated hard thing to switch them over like a period of a month or a few weeks to switch them to another safer, or not necessarily safer, it depends, but a healthier protein and a safer protein for the planet for sure.

Jessica (12:38)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Mm hmm. Yeah, that's something that I would love to dig into a little bit because that's a huge shift for their health as well as the waste that comes from all of the food and the packaging and everything. I'm kind of in that in between phase where I'm intimidated to always cook for my pet 100 % of the time I also do all of my meals at home home cooked.

Laura (13:08)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica (13:21)
So that's a lot. every now and then she gets a special meal where I throw chicken in the insta pot and no onions, it's just for her. And she gets a few special meals out of that. But I always worry about like all the nutrients that the dog needs in the right proportions for their size.

Laura (13:38)
Yeah.

Jessica (13:41)
And so like I said, I'm worried more about her getting her nutritional needs Like for humans, it's like, okay, I know what I need to eat to get the nutrients and whatever else I supplement, but for a dog or a cat, I would have no idea. And so can you talk a little bit about the resource that you have

because cooking for your pet is definitely a much more sustainable option in the long run for so many different reasons. Not only because you can definitely know exactly what the sourcing is of the food that you're purchasing so you can make sure that it's organic and maybe even,

picking it up at your local farmers market and supporting your local farmers as well. sometimes that can help reduce packaging as well.

Jennifer (14:20)
Yeah.

Laura (14:21)
Yeah.

Jessica (14:25)
But, how do you supplement those nutrients? There's a solution on your website that I was so excited about.

Jennifer (14:31)
Hmm

Yes, but I do want to clarify quickly on the first thing where I was talking about the meat. That applies to home cooking and it also applies to kibble. Kibble is not the greatest thing. I know you have a, I think you have a review of different types of kibble that's safe and what's good. So that's a great list to look at, but I would again clarify like anybody that is, you know, we'll talk about home cooking. I think it's great, but like even before you get there, like you can just switch your beef kibble to chicken kibble. That is the next best easy step, right?

Jessica (14:46)
you

Laura (15:00)
Yeah.

Jennifer (15:00)
But

we love home cooking because home cooking is like you said, it's just, it's such a sustainable choice really. it's so obvious when you look at it, you can cut back on packaging because you're buying local from local suppliers. You can buy seasonally, you know, and you're not shipping like asparagus from Mexico in refrigerated trucks, you know, that kind of thing. You get your from local farms and.

we're talking about small independent farms and you know, they're treating their animals really well and they're feeding them really well and it's just honestly, it's just the best thing. so there's two things that hold people back. One is it's scary because you're worried about what's in it and is your pet getting what they need? And the second thing is it's, it's more work. Like we're busy, we have a lot to do. Kibble is so easy. Like I get why people are into it. It's like, it's just the easy thing, right?

Laura (15:46)
Yeah.

Jennifer (15:48)
So it takes a, it's a labor of love to cook for your pet. So it's not easy and we know that. So we offer it and we like to promote it because we think that it is the best choice, but it's not for everybody, so with the supplement that we carry, it's called the Holistic Vet Blend and it's made by a holistic veterinarian. And she worked with a nutritionist, I think for a year to define these guidelines.

And what she did was, so you have the supplement that contains all these vitamins and minerals and she has some, so they're they're divided by dog and cat And then what happens is you take like a predetermined amount based on like the size of your pet and you add it to these bulk made recipes that she provides. So it's like, you have to use her recipe guide to combination with

these with the supplement to make sure your pet is getting exactly what they need. And so the nutritionist and her have this, completely balanced program and it's amazing and it's super easy. And the way she does it, you batch cook. it's, you could do one recipe for the entire week, and then the next week you do another recipe. like on Sundays you get all your materials.

and you can do it in the crock pot, I think instant pot, like super easy and you just throw it all in. It's not as complicated as like some of the human cooking that we do. But I like to encourage people to try doing that and even before you put the supplement in, maybe put some stuff on the side, add seasoning and make it fun and spicy for you. And maybe then you're not having to cook for you and your pet. So that's a possibility too.

Laura (17:14)
Yeah.

Jennifer (17:15)
you know, so why not? Why not share it with your pet? yeah, home cooking is an excellent resource. And this takes the guesswork out of it. Another idea is another option that I've been told recently. Our local vet, she has a, you can go and actually work with a nutritionist, veterinarian nutritionist, to create your own meal plans as well. So that is an option too.

Laura (17:39)
Yeah, I was going to say that, a lot of this depends on lifestyles. And not everyone can afford buy that supplement.

monthly is too expensive. So I think like Jen was saying, the best step that someone can make tomorrow is really just not tomorrow completely, but gradually switching into a new kibble that's more sustainable to the environment and has better ingredients. That's probably the most effective method to switching into sustainability because

the stark difference between Jennifer and I is that I'm younger and we don't have the budget to buy a supplement every single month. So for us, what we find is fine is we just source.

sustainable kibble. So my cat has Open Farm and my dog is on, Go Nature and they're both sustainable brands, one of them from Petcurian, the dog food's from Petcurian, and that's good for us right now. we can't do everything sustainable at the moment. It just doesn't make sense for our lifestyle and our budget constraints.

what we've learned through this process is that everyone is on a different journey and no matter what steps you're taking to be just a little more sustainable, that's really all that counts.

Jennifer (19:03)
Yeah, we're just here to provide the education. You make the next best choice that you can. we know that sustainability means different things to different people and they have different values around that. So that's why we also, when we start the company, we have different, you can shop by your values. So is it like, you want to be plastic free? Do you need to be upcycled products? Do you need to be recyclable products? although we know the recyclable system is a bit broken, but you know, we try our best.

Laura (19:26)
Yeah.

Sustainable isn't it's not having to do absolutely everything across the board and be zero waste. There's, yeah, there's different ways to be sustainable. And there's different ways to, if you do choose to be zero waste, there's different steps that you can take gradually over time as your lifestyle and maybe your budget changes to reach low waste or zero waste.

Jessica (19:28)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer (19:33)
all at once.

It's just important to be conscious about it. So as you're going along the journey, you can make the best choice you can make at that time. Yeah.

Jessica (19:51)
Mm-hmm.

absolutely.

as long as you have the right resources to help you along the way, I've made so many mistakes over the years and years and years that I've been on this journey that I spent money on things thinking, my gosh, this is so good. And then you get it and you're like, but this thing.

and this ingredient or that packaging or the material is not great. Just like I was buying the toys that were made of recycled plastic bottles thinking that's so much better. And then Aidan was talking about like, but that's all shedding off the microplastics in their mouth. I'm like, my gosh.

Laura (20:21)
Yeah.

Jennifer (20:34)
that's a big thing right now that's really hard

because a lot of companies are recovering ocean plastic and that's amazing. But there is a time and a place for what to do with that plastic and it is not to make dog toys out of. And there's companies that are doing this and are proudly, proudly selling it that way and I just... It's tough. It's really tough to see.

Jessica (20:41)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Because if you're not thinking along those lines, which it's, think, not even like me, who's been thinking about reducing plastic for the last seven years, I was thinking more along the lines of like, that's good. It's sustainably made because it's taking plastic that would have otherwise gone into the landfill or the ocean and it's making it into something useful. But then,

Laura (20:55)
Yeah.

Jessica (21:21)
not in the mouth of my dog, thank you. And all the stuffing of it, which how many times do you get a toy and the stuffing stays inside? Yeah.

Jennifer (21:25)
Mm-hmm.

Laura (21:29)
we've tried to

do with the Kind Pet is really come from a plastic-free standpoint, first and foremost. And we found that there's no brand at the moment that is doing that. Instead, you have a lot of brands, and I won't say specific brands, but you could search Google where they've always created plastic products, plastic-based products, and now they're switching to ocean-bound plastic.

Jessica (21:35)
Mm-hmm.

you

Laura (21:56)
that

is great in itself and their marketing obviously promotes that it is more sustainable. We believe that starting your product, looking at it from like how it can be the most sustainable from the get-go is the most important to drive pure sustainability. What we've noticed at so many of these conferences is that big brands, even smaller brands are

having to work backwards, especially for pet packaging, which is its own thing on its own, especially for food products, because it's just so difficult right now to create sustainable pet packaging. But what we found with so many brands is them trying to catch up to sustainability. So being reactive more than proactive. And we've tried to take a more proactive approach. And I would probably say

Jessica (22:31)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer (22:37)
food packaging.

Laura (22:51)
that we've taken more of an activist approach in promoting plastic free in the pet industry.

Jennifer (22:57)
Can we take a minute and talk about actually like plastics? it's the phthalates and the plasticizers that are hiding and all the toys and everything. And when they chew it, you know, what happens? It gets, they get exposed, gets in their gut. And then it even comes out the other end and gets into the waterways and everything. And we know that phthalates are impacting the reproductive systems of animals. I know you probably talked about this a ton on your podcast, but

Kids toys are regulated, but pet toys are not. So that's something that we have to keep in mind. And then there's also the microplastics that, you know, they're finding in internal tissue and in feces and like, we know it's crossing the blood brain barrier in humans and it carries metal and bacteria and viruses. And there's studies in process to better learn like the dangerous impacts, but the fact that it's like being dispersed throughout the body in humans, that's quite scary. So.

Laura (23:21)
Yeah.

Jennifer (23:44)
you know, it's something that we know is not good for our pets. what we found, Laura and I, with all of our research and why we decided it was important to, well, that's why we decided that it was important to avoid plastic in our toys. But it's just everywhere. like, in places you wouldn't, people don't think about it. And that's the whole education aspect Laura was talking about. So you have these nylon bones. It's like, my dogs growing up, they all had nylon bones. We had them all over the house. And you pick them up and look at them. And the ends are like,

Laura (23:58)
Yeah.

Jennifer (24:11)
destroyed right they're like super chewed and you're like and then they get down to like nothing and you're like huh where does all that go hmm I wonder so that's nylon it's a form of plastic you know and the rubber toys they start you know they start as natural rubber and you'll see all the like all the rubber toys most of them these days say made with natural rubber yeah well they're made with natural rubber but what happens so part of the binding process is they have to add plasticizers as a filler to keep the

Jessica (24:17)
go.

Jennifer (24:40)
the rubber together. And that is like an ugly known, it's like an ugly kind of hidden truth in the pet toy. like all, like everyone, even me.

Until I started this company, I had no idea. We even still have some rubber toys and it's like, you think about what's in it and that nobody talks about it they're all natural, you know, it's the green washing. And then you have things like polyester you know, like everyone loves the plush toys that are soft and cute and fluffy. And then the inside is that awful poly stuffing. Well, that's polyester, which is a form of plastic. So those aren't good. You talked about Jessica, your bed filler was probably polyester, polyfill.

Jessica (25:18)
Hmm.

Jennifer (25:18)
You get

plastic balls, right? Like all kinds of different plastic balls that are soft or hard or whatever. And then we talked about the ocean recovered plastic. It's still plastic. And one thing like I've noticed, people are starting to kind of throw terms around to make it seem safer. So they'll be like BPA free plastic. And you're like, okay, well that's great. But I think in one of your episodes, you guys were even talking about like, what was it BPA and PPS now they're using that instead, which is almost as bad or something like that.

Laura (25:26)
Yep. Yep.

Jennifer (25:45)
That's something that was new to me, it's still, you know, they might be throwing these terms around to make it seem safer, but it's still plastic and it has a lot of, there's a lot of dangers to it. So

Laura (25:52)
Yeah.

an uphill battle to say the least.

Jessica (25:56)
I love it.

Yeah, but I think it will shift because when people like us start having these conversations now on a podcast and also listeners are going to go out and they're going to have this conversation with all of their friends who are pet owners and they're going to be like, my God, did you know this? I didn't know this until I listened to this podcast. You've got to listen. And it's just about.

Laura (26:16)
Yep. Yeah.

Jessica (26:22)
you know, raising awareness in our own families, amongst our own communities, people at work, you can talk about it with anybody who has a pet. So that's the biggest way that I think we can all participate. Maybe we're not shifting every single item that our dogs coming to, or our pets, our dogs and cats come into contact with on a daily basis, but we're gonna.

maybe shift the one thing that they come into contact with every day, which, and for the amount of hours that my dog spent on a bed, I was like, okay, that's something that I can easily shift today but then,

The realization didn't come until I had that conversation several months ago with Aiden about the toys. So I'm in that myself kind of doing the same like okay, well all of her toys I'm just going to next time I buy a toy I'm going to buy from you guys instead

Laura (27:14)
if you are looking for something that's chew related I would suggest the better bone. They're made by a really cool company that we were in contact with about a year and a half ago. We met them at global pet expo. They're called Blue Standard and they're creating products across a bunch of different verticals for creating more sustainable products. A lot of it has to do with

either repurposing products or creating like biodegradable products. So for example, they're creating bowls out of like they're taking jeans and they're repurposing that into bowls. The better bone that they created is cellulose and sorry, what was the other product Jen? It's cellulose, sugarcane oil and cellulose. It's only two natural ingredients.

Jennifer (27:59)
Sugar cane wha- sugar cane.

Laura (28:05)
And the bone is very, very durable. It's biodegradable. It's an absolute great toy. I had one for my dog, but she's gone through three. And Jen's dog has gone through a ton of them as well. They're really, really great bones. So I would definitely recommend something like that. everyone just needs to kind of, whether they're purchasing from us or purchasing from any brand, think.

research just needs to be done, know, taking a look at not just the ingredients of the products or the materials of the products, but what does the brand stand for? What are their values? What are they doing not only at the sustainability level, but the economic and the social levels as well? But that's a conversation for another time.

Jessica (28:50)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer (28:54)
You

Jessica (28:55)
Well, it sounds like you guys are taking those things into consideration as well. And that is part of the sustainability model that I try to follow is finding companies such as yours where you're doing all of those layers. You're keeping in mind the materials, the ingredients, the packaging, the sourcing, and then all of the people who are part of the process,

I could tell that that's how you are running your

Laura (29:24)
Yeah.

Jennifer (29:24)
so that was the Boba & Vespa acquisition that we had was one of the brands we were selling and then we acquired them and then we started making their toys and we're shifting that into The Kind Pet So like the Hemp Bones for example, we have moved the manufacturing, it's always been the US but now we're in Minnesota and we're making them with an all female owned, what is it, like a cut and sew house.

Jessica (29:36)
you

Jennifer (29:48)
female founder, female team, it's really cool. They're really great. So they're making all of our bones now. They're these hemp canvas bones with organic cotton, USA grown stuffing. It's really cool. So those are fun for the cuddly dogs. They like to like hold stuff in their mouth and like cuddle. But yeah, so we are now, we are making our own products now, just the toys for now.

Laura (30:09)
Yeah.

Jessica (30:09)
Okay,

You acquired a company that was doing all the right things that you were sourcing from. That's awesome. Love that.

Jennifer (30:10)
Yes. Yes. Yeah. And now we get to be creative.

Laura (30:10)
Yes.

Jennifer (30:16)
Like we get to take it to new places. So we're looking at doing, nobody's making plastic free, really natural, enrichment toys. So that's kind of the direction that we're headed to now is like, how do we create these fun toys that are educational and stimulating that are not plastic

Laura (30:34)
We're looking into creating

Jessica (30:34)
Yeah.

Jennifer (30:34)
Even

Laura (30:36)
biodegradable slow feeders as well. There's a lot of silicone. The silicone trend is on the rise and we don't see an end in sight for that. Jen could explain that.

Jennifer (30:40)
Yeah, because the slow feeders have silicone.

Jessica (30:43)
Mm-hmm.

and you don't like silicone.

Jennifer (30:51)
Silicone's

tricky. There's no really regulations around how to make silicone. So just like with the rubber, a lot of companies will add the plasticizers and things to it. So you don't know which ones are good and which ones aren't. So there's a big debate out there whether you should have any bakeware that's silicone because heating it to high temperatures if there's plastic in it, obviously that's carcinogenic. So I'm not...

Jessica (31:17)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer (31:20)
saying that any one company is doing those things because I don't have the exact research. This is just, I know in the rubber industry it's not good and I know that in the silicon industry it's not good either. So proceed with caution.

Jessica (31:31)
Okay,

yes, yeah, it's tough because, know, again, it's one of those things that you want to trust as another option, but yeah, unless you know exactly where they're sourcing it from,

Jennifer (31:46)
I've been able to work with some companies to see the list of ingredients, you know, and there are plasticizers in them I haven't met any company yet Doesn't mean they don't exist but I haven't met any company yet that is for sure plastic free in rubber, silicone is kind of the same thing

You do your research. Some places say there's plastic, some say there isn't, and I think it's just kind of like a cover-up, personally, but that could be a whole conspiracy theory. I don't know, but I don't trust it because I don't trust rubber. I mean, you have to have some binders with silicone, like you do rubber, right?

Laura (32:16)
Yeah.

Jessica (32:16)
Yeah,

and then I guess it's one of those things that I've always wondered how well it's breaking down in the environment

Jennifer (32:24)
I don't think it is.

It's heavily altered. It's like taking natural rubber, melting it, doing other things, and adding stuff so it can be hard and stable. Sand to silicone, that's a heavy process.

Jessica (32:26)
Right.

Laura (32:30)
Yeah.

Jessica (32:33)
out hard.

Yep.

Same with, obviously plastic, right? Like it comes from crude oil, petroleum, and then it's turned into plastic. yeah, it's just these conversations. We got to start having them more often. Yeah, thank you so much for, thank you. I really am having so much fun meeting people like you who are out there.

Jennifer (32:48)
True. Yeah.

Laura (32:55)
Yeah,

Jennifer (32:56)
Your podcast is free for that.

Jessica (33:04)
you know, boots on the ground, trying to figure it all out and do it in a time where it's something that you actually have to put a lot of energy and effort into your marketing and educating customers. And I really like that I heard today that you're more about educating the consumer and about making

the small, simple change that you can make today and then moving to the next one. And I really like that you are focusing on that and highlighting that because I think people get overwhelmed when they're like, my gosh, there's all these things I have to swap out. And it's almost like deer in the headlights. can't, if I can't do it all, I'm not gonna do anything.

Jennifer (33:42)
Yeah, and there can be a lot of... There's a lot of guilt too, and you get frozen

Laura (33:43)
Yeah, absolutely.

Jennifer (33:48)
with fear. And that still happens to me all the time. And we just have to take a breath and you're like, you know what? I'm doing a good job. And not to compare yourself to anybody else, but it's like, I'm doing better than I was yesterday too, right? Like you gotta try to make those changes slowly and feel good about them and try to, the guilt, cause the...

Jessica (33:50)
Me too. Me too.

Laura (33:51)
Yeah,

me too.

Jessica (33:58)
you

Laura (33:59)
I'm.

Jennifer (34:03)
The guilt, the guilt's a big one. You're like, I could do so much better. You're like, but I'm doing the best I can today and that is good enough. It's

Laura (34:05)
Yeah.

I'm doing better than I was five years ago. My inner circle

Jessica (34:10)
Mm-hmm. Hmm.

Laura (34:13)
knows that I'm sustainable and, you know, hears it enough from me. So I am more vocal about it. and they're supportive of it.

Jessica (34:21)
Yeah, maybe start pulling in the wellness conversation to it. And, merging the health aspect of why you're being sustainable. I don't know if you already do that, but I think that, you know, ears perk up a little bit when, you're kind of talking a little bit about how this connects not only to, being a good citizen of the planet. you know, I think a lot of people think, well,

Laura (34:31)
Sure.

Jessica (34:42)
the corporations and the businesses making this stuff should have to take responsibility for that. And it's true, they should. And are they going to? No. So that's why we have to be educated and empowered as consumers And other than that,

let's focus on the health aspect and sustainability because what benefits Mother Earth is also going to benefit our own health and wellness on the back end and in the long run. So also just kind of keeping that in mind and feeling good about making those changes for your own health and wellbeing and all of the people who maybe also share the home with you, whether it's pets or your family or your...

know, partner or whoever it is, everybody's gonna benefit from these changes. And like you said, over five years, maybe you're not making a ton of changes all at once immediately, but over five years, you've probably made considerable progress in your journey. And yeah, and I'm still working on it seven years later. There's still, you know, I don't know. Yeah.

Laura (35:39)
Absolutely, yeah.

Jennifer (35:45)
I mean you constantly learn, you

Laura (35:45)
Yeah, think.

Jennifer (35:47)
know, and your podcast

you're probably learning new things every time you talk to like, you know, guests and it's just it's so interesting. It never ends. Once you start you can't stop really because it's just so interesting and like it just keeps opening new doors and yeah.

Jessica (35:57)
Mm-hmm.

Laura (36:01)
Yeah, exactly.

Jessica (36:02)
Yeah, and then it becomes something that is on your mind at least. When you're buying something new, you're like, okay, maybe I can make a swap here because I need to buy something new anyways, a new cleaner or a new makeup item or self-care product. And so is there somewhere, and oftentimes they're not always more expensive depending on what you're buying before. Sometimes they're comparable and sometimes...

Laura (36:10)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jennifer (36:17)
Yeah.

Jessica (36:30)
you know, depending on what you're buying before, might be a little bit more pricey, but then you maybe find ways that you can cut out things that aren't necessary that you're buying also, and find that that can help you afford the slightly better item that you're using quite a lot that is a more sustainably made, less chemicals for your body item. So, you know, you just figure out little ways to make it happen.

Jennifer (36:56)
Yeah, you balance it

Laura (36:57)
Yeah.

Jennifer (36:57)
out.

Jessica (36:57)
and to balance

out.

I thank you guys so much for taking the time to join me. You're a woman-owned business, so congratulations on that as well. And just let us know how listeners can find and connect with you on Instagram and find your website

Laura (37:06)
Thank you.

Yeah, of course. So on Instagram, you can find us @thekindpetco And then if you want to shop from The Kind Pet, you can check out thekindpet.com a bunch of the products that we talked about on this podcast are available there. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, we send a weekly blog newsletter, for tips and

information around sustainability and and sustainable pet ownership. And we also launch different products from time to time. So you could get updates that way. And then maybe you could talk a little bit about the coupon that you'd like to share with your audience.

Jessica (37:56)
Yeah, so thank you both for offering my listeners a 10 % off code. It's LiveLightly10, so you can use that at checkout. I will also link directly to their website, and that link will give you the 10 % off if you don't want to enter the code. So if you're using the link from the show notes, then that's already embedded in there. But yeah, thank you guys so much, and I will second.

that you should definitely sign up for the newsletter. It's so informative and it's just a really high end resource that you want to have coming into your inbox every week. And then I also want to remind everybody that I have the resource for the whole house on how to reduce your plastic use and plastic exposure as well as all toxins. And that sustainable living guide is available on livelightly.eco under

the free guide tab or again I'll just have a link to it in the show notes as well. And then I will also be offering the pet only guide I added to the pet chapter and so there are some additional resources in the guide that's just specifically for pets.

I will be including a link to that guide in my weekly newsletter for the next several weeks. So just a heads up that you can tap into that resource as well. So thank you very much, Laura and Jennifer, for joining me again. It was a wonderful conversation.

Laura (39:21)
Thanks for having us.

Jennifer (39:23)
Aw, thank you! It was a lot of fun talking to you! Thank you!