Wedderspoon x Gussy’s Gut

Well, first and foremost, I am absolutely a dog guy to the end of the earth. I am all about dogs. Everything in my life is about my dogs. And I just am one of those people that thinks that dogs give you life. So my dedication to their healthspan and lifespan is personally super important to me.

Over the pandemic, I started to ferment foods for my dog, Gus. He had a gut injury and I had a bunch of time. Eventually, batch by batch, I became more and more specialized and more and more interested in the benefits of fermentation.
So I really took a deep dive into it and saw just miraculous results with my dog, Gus. 

I then had the idea that maybe this was a bit of a challenge for most people to do in their kitchen. I saw what a mess it was and how much work it was, and honestly, it was pretty expensive the way I was doing it. And I thought maybe there's a way I could do this for other people that could help their dogs and also make their lives easier. So I reached out to a friend of mine who had a pet company, and she said, “Oh my gosh, you'll never be able to keep this in stock. It's going to be so important and so successful.” After I met with her, I went to my old mentor, Dr. Ian Billinghurst, who is the father of raw food and biologically species appropriate feeding for dogs and cats. 

He studied the diets of dogs and cats for millions of years and takes the ancestral approach to the way they have eaten all those years. So I knew that fermentation was thousands of years old, and I also knew that dogs for millions of years have eaten other animals, whether it be out in the wild or on the farm, whether that be a lizard, a chicken, a bird, a rabbit, etc. And those animals had gut contents that were to some degree, fermented. 

So dogs for millions of years were getting fermented foods in their diet. Not to mention, dogs have also for millions of years buried bones, not to hide them, but to actually let the microbes in the dirt work on the bones and ferment those bones. And usually after about a week or two of fermentation in the dirt, dogs would dig those bones up and chew on them, as Dr. Ian Billinghurst says, “with great relish”. 

So I reached out to him 25 years after I originally hired him to teach me how to feed my first dog, Buddy, raw food. And he said this is an absolute genius move and he's surprised he never thought of it, and he would absolutely love to be involved. 

From there, we started to formulate the most amazing ingredient list that we could think of that would help dogs with healthy aging, immune support and resilience, and of course, gut health. And what we quickly realized is that we assembled what is now called Gussy’s Gut Daily, a list of ingredients that deliver the most incredible profile of nutrition that we've ever seen in a dog supplement, and it was 100% whole food based. 

We have been very pleased with the results for our customers' dogs over the many years that we've been in business, and we're looking forward to creating new innovative, groundbreaking products for our dogs’ microbiome health. We also quickly realized that gut health is much more than just probiotic treatment or taking probiotics. Gut health is about the terrain and the diversity of your dog's gut. That requires more than just microbes in the form of probiotics. It requires prebiotics, postbiotics and it requires deep nutrition. Nutrition that can be absorbed, and fermentation just so happens to make it easier for all dogs to absorb those ingredients that are fermented.

2. What sets Gussy's Gut apart from other pet supplement brands in the market?

We're whole food-based; we ferment our products by hand, and we freeze-dry them to protect the integrity of the product. Then we package them fresh, making it easy to put on top of your dog's food or mix it in. Our focus is primarily on being 100% whole food-based, alongside our vertical integration with our supply chain and the meticulous care and attention we devote to selecting our ingredients.

3. How did the partnership between Gussy's Gut and Wedderspoon come about?

Well, I was a customer of Wedderspoon personally for a long time, so I knew they were an incredible brand. I had already done a ton of research for myself. When the time came to create what I wanted to be the most amazing treat, it really came down to ingredients, and I wanted a touch of honey to be included in every treat.

As you know, a lot of honey is just made of junk or mixed with other stuff that isn’t honey, making it hard to find really high-quality honey. On top of that, we wanted Manuka honey for its gut-supporting benefits and its natural, healthy antibiotic nature that I really love. Also, the Manuka plants that the bees use to make the honey are second to none. These bees live in South New Zealand - probably the most pristine, cleanest place on the planet still. They live amazing lives, and that's an important part of our story.

Like I said, the entire supply chain and the care and attention we put into our ingredients are really important to us. So this treat is made from regenerative ranch heritage pork and we went to who we think is the best, which is White Oak Pastures, to supply us with our protein. Then we added a custom blend of Gussy’s Gut and the best honey that we know on the planet, Wedderspoon.

4. In what ways do you believe Wedderspoon's Manuka Honey enhances the nutritional profile of Gussy's GutAbles?

Manuka honey is important nutritionally because it is more than just a sweetener. It is a good balancer of gut microbes, it keeps the bad pathogens down, and it also does not harm the good pathogens. So when you think of manuka honey, you think of balance, and when you think of gut health, you have to think of balance and diversity.

We're also very happy to have bees as part of our cast of contributors to this amazing treat, which we want it to be the most nutrient-dense treat on the planet. Lastly, cleanliness is paramount to us. Using clean ingredients is so important to us and we feel like this honey and where it is grown and cultivated is the cleanest honey that we could find.

5. What are the main health benefits of Gussy's GutAbles for pets? Are there particular health conditions or deficiencies these treats aim to address?

It is gut-supporting throughout the day. So it allows you to give your dog a little gut boost through a treat throughout the day. You can also say that a healthy gut is usually part of a healthy mental attitude, and training and rewarding are part of that. I don't think it's a stretch to say that.

So when I think of giving your pet a treat, I think of a positive experience and giving praise like “good boy” or “good girl” and love, that's all really good for the gut. The gut is actually challenged by stress, anger, negative emotions, and even boredom. So treats are completely the opposite of that, and I think it matches up perfectly - the reason for giving a treat and the treat itself makes a lot of sense in terms of gut health to me.

Nothing in our line is ever meant to address any health conditions or deficiencies. It is meant to keep your pet healthy. It is a wellness product. It's there to support health. When you start to look at deficiencies or health conditions, there could be any number of reasons that a dog is suffering from health conditions or deficiencies that aren't just very straightforward. So when you get into the therapeutic purpose of foods or therapeutic treatments, that's really the job of a really great veterinarian to address and to treat mostly with food and nutrition, and we are part of supporting that nutrition.

6. How does the inclusion of Manuka Honey contribute to the overall well-being and digestive health of pets?

Really high-quality honey is considered a prebiotic. However, the benefits of the manuka plant and the bees gathering nectar from it to create their honey make all the difference in the world in terms of the quality of that honey compared to any other honey available today.

7. How do you incorporate customer feedback into the continuous improvement of your products?

We're constantly listening to our customers’ needs and desires. For example, our product called Daily is now in its third version. In the first year, we went through two versions, and the third version was completed in the second year. We rapidly incorporate critical feedback and make adjustments to the formula because that's super important to us. We have a mechanism for collecting customer support feedback and bringing it back to us.

8. How does Gussy's Gut ensure the sustainability and ethical sourcing of its ingredients, including Wedderspoon's Manuka Honey?

Firstly, we work with the most reputable companies that share our commitment to sustainability and ethical sourcing. We make it our priority to familiarize ourselves with all of our suppliers.

When you get into this business, you quickly learn that there is not just a question of how something is harvested or even created, but also how it is transported and how it is packaged, and if it is treated or if it is heated or anything else. Many of these details may not be disclosed voluntarily, and these are the questions we ask our suppliers. We think it's really important to understand everything about every ingredient we use.

9. Looking ahead, what's next for Gussy's Gut? Are there any upcoming product innovations or collaborations we should be excited about?

We have learned over the years that there are dogs coming to us with many different types of gut issues and sickness backgrounds or health challenges. Those can come from genetics, epigenetics, their life before they were adopted, their diets before they were adopted. So our customers come to us and want to clean that all up. And so I think we've got some really amazing ways to support our customers in that commitment for gut health. 

Gut health is not a one-time thing. It is something you do every single day of the year by eating well and keeping yourself healthy, and this includes our dogs too. So not over-medicating or over-vaccinating our dogs, feeding our dogs great food, keeping our dogs happy and living true to their nature depending on their breed, keeping them relatively stress-free and content, and also taking them out in nature are incredibly important. It's actually more important than giving Gussy’s Gut - taking them out twice a day in real nature. Hopefully off-leash if you can, and letting them explore and walk in between grass and bushes and jump in creeks or ponds or the ocean is incredible because there are literally trillions of microbes in the air, the water, and the land that we and our dogs play in.

 

10. How do you see the partnership with Wedderspoon evolving in the future?

I certainly would like to explore the power of the Manuka plant and Wedderspoon’s leadership in that product line. I think it really supports and enhances gut health, and I look forward to finding new ways to give little bits of sweetness to our dogs through our products and working with Wedderspoon.