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Article in "Edible"
Can you believe it?
Dee Stuff's dog treats have been featured in:
"Edible-Shasta-Butte" a magazine "Celebrating the Abundance of the North ".
The text of this article:
"LOVE YOUR DOG
Denis Benoit, with his partner Cris Williams, makes treats for dogs. They also make and sell cat towers, bandanas, reusable shopping bags made from recycled pet food bags, and soaps for dogs, such as citronella and lavender soaps, which repel fleas, ticks, and mosquitoes, and have also, in some cases, been found to clear up flea infestations and itchy spots. Their enterprise is called Dee Stuff 4 Pets.
I met Denis and Cris at the Saturday Redding Farmers’ Market. Every quarter, when the magazine rolls off the truck and into our garage, I load up magazines and take them to the Saturday morning Redding Farmers’ Market, where I am often allocated a spot next to Dee Stuff 4 Pets.
I thought it strange for pet food to be vended at a farmers’ market, but after noticing the steady stream of customers visiting the Dee Stuff 4 Pets location, I came to understand that people love their pets and want to treat them, and feed them, as well as they can.
The relationship between humans and dogs goes back many, many years. Darwin in On the Origin of Species was clear: all dogs descend from wolves. Darwin wrote, “Who will believe that animals closely resembling the Italian greyhound, the blood hound, the bull-dog or Blenheim spaniel, etc.—so unlike all wild Canidae—ever existed freely in a state of nature.” And yet, he said, they had. In a recent New Yorker magazine entitled Dog Story: How did the dog become our master?, Adam Gopnik reports on DNA analysis suggesting that, while dogs broke with wolves at least one hundred thousand years ago, “the earliest unequivocal archeological evidence for domesticated dogs dates to just fifteen thousand years ago or so.” So, in archeological time, dogs are pretty recent friends. And friends they are. Gopnik continues: “The dog sits right at the edge of our first circle of caring . . . The deal that the dog has made to get here, as all dog scientists point out, is brutal. I’ll act all, you know like, loving and loyal, if you feed me.”
In reciprocation for the dogs’ loving and caring, then, plenty of dog owners visit the Dee Stuff 4 Pets tables at the Saturday Redding Farmers’ Market. These owners purchase the best and healthiest food they can for their beloved pets. Farmers’ market shoppers highly value organic food and, indeed, the pet treats that Denis and Cris sell are “as organic as possible,” according to Denis.
They avoid ingredients, such as corn, soy, and wheat filler, that can cause dry, itchy skin and digestion problems, as well as those ingredients that may be constituents of cheap commercial dog food, such as rancid oils, feathers and hooves, diseased organs of animals, and road kill.
Denis and Cris add organic barley to the treats to provide the fiber dogs need to digest their food. Denis reports that the dogs on their pet treats “poop less and it doesn’t smell as bad.” Because the dog treats are constituted of fresh organic ingredients, Denis and Cris recommend freezing them to preserve them over an extended time frame.
One customer I spoke to regularly stops by the market stall to purchase Crazy Carrot treats—a blend of rye, brown rice, oat and barley flours, carrots, rolled oats, eggs, and oat bran—to soothe her dog’s finicky stomach during long car trips. Other temptingly named treats are Peanut Butter Pups, Chewy apple-cinnamon, Liver Licks, and Makin’ bacon Balls. They sound so darned good! In fact, sometimes, when business is low, I glance over and catch Denis chewing on one of the treats (just kidding).
Another customer, a summer visitor to Redding from Alaska, bought her dog some treats, then returned the following weekend for an assortment to take back to Alaska, because she wanted to conduct a longer term taste-trial with her dog. Cris expects to be filling a regular order to Alaska following completion of the trials.
The company’s silent (so to speak) partner is Zak, Denis’ and Cris’ Australian Shepherd.
In addition to the Saturday Redding Farmers’ Market, Dee Stuff 4 Pets can be found at the Tuesday Marilyn Miller Farmers’ Market in Redding and the Thursday Farmers’ Market in Anderson."