For most, a sick dog means a trip to the vet. For Conor Wooley, it became a business plan.
Wooley, who has four dogs, said his two bulldogs had trouble stomaching food and had allergic reactions to several brands he had tried.
Finally, he stormed his fridge to find something that was better with them.
“He was everywhere,” said Wooley, 23, of St. Louis. James, about the first batches of dog food he made. “We just moved away from dog food, so it was turkey, potatoes, rice, basically human quality food and we changed it every week. It was a bit of what we had left in the house. “
It wasn’t until he and his high school classmate Rick Orlandi decided they wanted to start a business that refined their recipes precisely to get consistent batches, and many of them.
“We just saw this as an opportunity to help other dogs with the same problem,” said Orlandi, 23, of St. Louis. James, who has two beagles.
The two formed Natural Hounds in 2018 and submitted their freshly made food to the United States through their website.
After building a solid subscription base, they decided it was time to open a brick and mortar store.
His first Natural Hounds store opened in Port Jefferson at 216B Main St last April.
“It was very hard for us to find a place, because we wanted to be right in a walking area, like a main street, where it’s a destination where people could walk with their dogs and discover it,” Orlandi said. “Port Jeff is very suitable for dogs. Before we had the store, when we created our subscription base, we were big in the farmers markets. And the Port Jeff agricultural market was practically our most successful market and, therefore, we already had followers in Port Jeff ”.
“everything a dog needs”
Natural Hounds ’main product is their line of moist foods. The store makes two batches a day. The food is cooked slowly in what Orlandi compares to a casserole.
It is then sold and shipped frozen, to be served cold or hot with dried food if desired, or by itself.
“When people cook at home for their dogs it’s often not completely balanced,” Orlandi said. “That has everything a dog needs so you can feed it alone.”
Natural Hounds wet food comes in four varieties: the original recipe, which is a mix of turkey and veal, as well as veal, pork and lamb. Orlandi said each recipe follows a breakdown of 80% muscle meat, 10% organ meat and 10% vegetables, oils and nutrients.
This final 10% includes carrots, blueberries, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, broccoli, kale, brown rice, flaxseed oil, coconut oil and vitamin D, among other ingredients.
The store also sells peanut butter and pumpkin cookies, chopsticks and frozen Greek yogurt-based candies, as well as leashes, CBD dog oil and some toys. Like its food, the Wooley and Orlandi store is great for dogs.
The wide surface of the ground leaves room for even the largest breeds to enter and sniff.
Most importantly, there are free samples of the four varieties of Natural Hounds ’freshly made on the front table, for all the good boys and girls who come into the store.
