We took Discussing Dogs in the D on the road! 🎙️🐾 In this special compact episode, we’re coming to you from the Global Pet Expo in Orlando—aka the Super Bowl of the pet industry. From insightful sessions to incredible products, we got a firsthand look at what’s shaping the future of pet care. But of course… we had to bring it back home. 🇺🇸✨ We made it our mission to highlight amazing Michigan-based companies making waves in the pet space—including Advanced Pet Products, Great Lakes Pet Treats, and Dog Nip. From 30-year industry veterans to exciting new brands, this episode is all about local innovation, single-ingredient treats, and supporting independent pet stores. Tune in and discover some of the brands you might just find at your favorite neighborhood pet shop. 🐶💙
All things Global Pet Expo and The Pet Summit
https://globalpetexpo.org/
Dog Nip
https://dognip.com/
Hey friends, welcome back to Discussing Dogs in the D the podcast where Detroit's dog lovers come together. Hi, I'm Christine and today's episode is a little bit special. We're taking this show on the road. I recently traveled down to Orlando, Florida for the Global Pet Expo with my friend Mandy. And let me tell you, it's basically the Super Bowl of the pet industry. We had the chance to sit in some really insightful sessions, connect with some incredible brands, and discover products and services that are shaping the future of pet care. But for this episode, I wanted to bring it back home. We made it our mission to seek out and highlight some amazing companies representing Michigan, because there is so much innovation happening right in our own backyard. We want to share it with you. To kick off our adventures, we sat down with Shell Singh from Advanced Pet Products to learn more about what they're doing and how they're making an impact in the pet space. Let's get into it.
00:00:51 Speaker: We're, sharing our experience here at the Global Pet Expo. My understanding is you're a Michigan company. Yep. So we've been in Michigan for the last thirty years. We started the company in nineteen ninety five. Incredible. That's amazing. And we used to do only stainless steel bowls at that time. Now we're doing all organic natural dog toys, water buffalo body parts. Oh wow. These are incredible. All the things you have here. Yeah. All are organic. And then we have yak shoes also. They're all organic over here. And all these kangaroo we have, we do kangaroo jerky also. Okay. And our office is in Waterford, Michigan. So you got a Waterford Metro Detroit. Yeah. Yep, yep. So thirty years? Yep. Thirty years. Incredible. So you're tested and true. And what brought you down? You just want to share your stuff. Your supplies. We do. Over here. Mango wood also. Oh, wow. And these are all hand-washed dishes. Okay. Excellent quality. And they're perfect for high end stores. So our audience is out of metro Detroit in Michigan. Where can they find your stuff? Mostly you will see at the Premier Pet supplies. Excellent local store and online also. Okay. Gotcha. Okay, I appreciate you. Thank you so much for sharing. And the name of your company, Advanced Pet Products.
00:02:05 Speaker: So next up we have Matt from Great Lakes Pet Treats And I know we're highlighting Michigan, but this one's even more exciting for me. Great Lakes Pet Treats is out of Burton, which is just outside of Flint. And if you don't know, I'm from the Flint area, so I kind of feel like we were probably neighbors growing up in a way. But yeah, here's his story.
00:02:25 Speaker: you're Matt Okay. Do you like Matt or Matthew? Matt's fine. Okay, so you're the founder of Great Lakes Pet Treats. And how many years have you been in business? Great Lakes pet treats. Been in business six years. But I've been in industry for thirty nine years now. Thirty. That's a long. Whoa. Okay. That's I mean, that's a lot of experience. So you're bringing a lot of knowledge to the table and tell us about all the products you offer. I know there's like, I mean, it looks like hundreds of different treats here, but what in general describe them. we carry over three hundred different products. The majority of what we sell is single ingredient items, which is a very hot, items right now. People want the single ingredient, all natural type stuff. So, right, we have all those and you know, other items too. I gotcha. What do you have like a handful of items that you're like hottest items that fly off the shelf. You can't keep them on the shelf or that people really, really love to buy. Bully sticks always. Number one, everyone loves the bully sticks and pig ears. Those are the two very big ears are the number one consumed in my household for my two dogs. So I get that that my dogs love pig ears. So where can they find you guys? Great Lakes Pet Treats is a brand that we protect. The independent pet stores. We only sell to independent pet stores. Gotcha. We don't sell online. We don't sell, to mass merchants or anything. We are truly for the independent and we protect and preserve their margins. We're grateful for that. We like to go local ourselves. We like to promote going local. And I love that you're there. So if they wanted to find out more information about you, we don't have a website. We're old school. That's okay. But, if you check your local pet store in your area, probably we're in there. one of our big customers in Michigan for us is the premier pet supply stores, right? You'll find a big selection of all of our Great Lakes pet treats and all their locations. so the independent stores you're going to find and it's this gorgeous, I mean very simple but gorgeous blue, green and white packaging. Right? Correct. Yes. So we'll find you at all the independent stores and and are you just metro Detroit? Are you throughout Michigan? we're throughout the United States. Sure. Oh my gosh, Michigan mainly. That's our hometown, right? But we do have customers all over the United States, I love that. What city are you guys out of? We're out of Burton, Michigan, I love that. Oh my gosh, you're going back to my roots. I'm from Flint originally. So that's so it's so great. The street is Flint. Yeah. I know, it's so awesome. It's nice. Nice to meet you, Matt. And thank you for letting us talk about what you do. I appreciate it. Thank you.
00:04:51 Speaker: Next up, we have probably one of the newest companies we interviewed at the Global Pet Expo. And his name is Greg. And he has a company called Dog Nip.
00:05:02 Speaker: you're like new. Yes. Okay, so new company. Tell us about you. Yeah. So just a new company. I'm second generation in the pet industry. So this was my chance to break into the market. And so now looking at the market waiting for it, I seen how many dogs have protein sensitivities right now. When you get into how many pups have allergies to chicken and beef right now, and there's less and less proteins out there where dogs can turn to and pet lovers can turn to for their pups. So now we created a brand new line. First the market with camel, goat and geese. And with these new brand new proteins, there's going to be a very less less chance of them having allergies compared to a lot of the other items in the market currently. Well, you mentioned chicken whenever I'm. Oh, does your dog have a tree allergy treat allergy. It's usually poultry or chicken, right? Yep. And so poultry. So the and that's a good thing about the GS protein is because it's not a land based protein. So this waterfowl is actually a different antigen altogether than your land based turkey and chicken. So there's less of a chance of them having that allergy when it comes to it. And if you want to stick with the poultry, it's just a different antigen class as them, but two totally different things with the waterfowl. I didn't realize this. You said second generation. So what was the first company free range dog chews. So my parents had a company called Free Range Dog Chews where we had bully sticks and pig ears and everything like that. So then, I wanted to be back into the business. And so I started dogging it. So dog nip is all yours? Yes. So this is your company and you founded what year? Last year. This year. Yep. This year. Okay. So you're on the market now. You're trying to get into different places. Do you sell online or do you have a retail space? Tell us about you. Right now we don't have a retail space. We are on chewy right now. That was our introduction. kind of into the market just to get the brand out there. But we're specializing in retail and distribution. We're going to stay off Amazon. We're very strict with, where we're allowing it. we don't want to have some of these big stores come in there, get better pricing and kind of hollow out the market for independence, where I want to do this within the independent market and stay off Amazon. So we, we have a treat line that is dedicated to retailers where we're standing behind them They help build a brand. And all of a sudden the that manufacturer sells out to one of the big guys or goes to the mass. And then it hurts them that consumer that they spend a lot of time and education and resources to get now leaves because they get priced under. And that's the that's not what I want to do with all. So you want to get into the independent local stores? Yes. That's awesome, because we're all about going local. But what city in Michigan are you out of? Shelby Township, you're in Shelby Township. Stop it. Okay. So one of my favorite one of my favorite pet stores, Premier pet supplies. Shelby, the owner, Jeff is a good friend of mine. So maybe. Jeff, I don't know if you're listening to this, but anyway, so I mean, you're, you're like my hometown right now. So you're out of Shelby. You're, you've been in, you've done this, but you have experienced, even though you're just launched, you're just trying to get, you know, you're at the global pet expo, you want people to learn about you. So you're one ingredient, right? Single ingredient, single ingredient. Okay. And you dehydrate. Is that what it is? Yes. Oven cook actually. Okay. Oh wow. So we oven cook them. And that's the difference between with like our our goose hearts compared to a duck heart is everybody's right now is getting into freeze dried. Yeah. And with that when it takes, it's not a bad thing, but it does take a lot of the nutritional value and flavor out of it. So when you look at it, it's a bland color where if you look at our goose hearts, it still has the color to it. It what it feels like a natural product. So I feel like we're going to have to sit down for a whole podcast episode where you describe this process to me, because I think I need to learn more about this because I always hear about dehydration. And like you said, the freeze dried. So. So where can they find you? Are you on socials and your website? Yep. We're on all the different social media platforms. Just if you look up Dog Nip, we're on there. we have our website nip dot com as well as we're also on chewy at this time. Okay, so dog nip dot com that's as simple as it gets. find Greg at dot com and all of his one ingredient. Yeah, I appreciate you. Thank you so much.
00:09:12 Speaker: All right, friends, that's a wrap on this first special compact episode of discussing dogs in the D Coming to you from Florida at the Global Pet Expo. Thank you so much for listening and for coming along on this little adventure. We loved getting to share a glimpse into the pet industry and highlight some amazing Michigan based businesses. We were hoping to do a second and possibly a third episode where we highlight some more businesses. But until next time, stay kind, stay curious, and give your dog a cookie for me.