In this episode of Discussing Dogs in the D, Christine sits down with Kara Roberto, the founder of Angela’s Treat Stash, a Michigan-based small business creating natural, human-grade dog treats. Kara shares the incredible story behind the company—one that began with a rescue dog named Angela. Angela came into Kara and her husband Dom’s lives as a medical-needs foster from Detroit Animal Care and Control just days before the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. Severely underweight and later diagnosed with diabetes, Angela required intensive care, strict insulin schedules, and specialized nutrition. As two graduate students struggling to cover veterinary bills, Kara began researching natural pet nutrition and experimenting with homemade treats to help support Angela’s health. What started as a small kitchen experiment quickly grew into something bigger. After family and friends saw how much their dogs loved the treats, Kara—while grieving the loss of her grandmother—quietly launched an Etsy shop that would eventually evolve into Angela’s Treat Stash. With help from friends, local supporters, and partnerships with independent pet stores and farmer’s markets, the business steadily expanded. Today, Angela’s Treat Stash offers a wide variety of baked dog cookies and single-ingredient dehydrated treats made from human-grade ingredients, fruits, vegetables, and responsibly sourced proteins. Kara also explains the science behind animal nutrition, the fascinating concept of zoopharmacognosy—animals instinctively seeking foods that help heal them—and what it takes to operate a licensed pet food business in Michigan. Christine and Kara also discuss the importance of supporting local businesses, women entrepreneurs, and rescue dogs who change our lives in unexpected ways. Angela’s story is a reminder that sometimes the dogs we rescue end up rescuing us—and inspiring something truly meaningful in the process.
Find Angela's Treat Stash online:
https://angelastreatstash.com/
https://www.facebook.com/angelastreatstashLLC
https://www.instagram.com/angelastreatstashllc
https://www.tiktok.com/@angelastreatstash
Angela's Story with Rocky Kanaka -
https://www.facebook.com/rockykanaka/videos/1942173849641473/
00:00:00 Speaker: Hey friends, welcome to Discussing Dogs in the De podcast where Detroit's dog lovers come together. Hi, I'm Christine and whether you're a rescue volunteer, a pet parent, a shelter supporter, or just someone who can't pass a dog on the street without saying hi, you're in the right place. Let's talk about all things dogs and how they change our lives and how we can possibly change theirs.
00:00:22 Speaker: welcome to the podcast. I appreciate you sitting down with me today, we have Kara and it's Roberto now. Roberto. Roberto. Roberto. Because I always want to call you, you know, my your maiden name, but because I've known you for a few years now. Exciting. How many years have you been married now? It'll be two in May. Two in May. And you. Not that this podcast is about this, but. And you guys just bought your first. Just bought our first house right down the road from here. Oh, is it really? Yeah. It's excited. I'm excited to have you on the podcast today. So the reason why I asked you here is because, I feel like all the awesome, feel good things that you're doing. I know you have a business and we're going to talk about that in a second, but you embody like giving back just to like you, I, I don't have kids and we have dogs and you have a dog and they're are family. There are children, and I know that you. Your life revolves for a reason around Angela So Kara owns Angela Street stash? Yes. And Angela is your. She's our dog. She is our rescue. And about. She'll be eight in June. She's gonna be eight. Yeah, we've had her for six years. Holy cow. So six years ago. And there's a big story about that. So I want you to because she's the inspiration. So tell us about how you came to adopt her. Okay. Dom and I, my husband met in twenty nineteen, end of twenty nineteen, right? He started fostering for dogs right around the time we started dating. so twenty twenty comes, you know, there's rumblings about a big pandemic coming. He finally gets this foster that's been with him for six months out. Okay. And the very next day he gets a call and says, we have this dog. It might be a life or death situation. I know you wanted to take a break, but no one else will do it. She's diabetic. She can't be around other dogs. Like I don't I don't have any other options. Can you please take it? And he's really glad he did. Because we were two months into dating. We weren't living together. Nothing like that. And it was this day that right before Whitmer locked down the state. Oh, wow. He got her, so. Oh. That's incredible. Yeah. Okay, so right before lockdown, he's thinking we've got to save her. And he. Okay. And she was at the shelter. She was at Detroit Animal Control. She was at DACC the rescue that pulled her got her adopted. Okay. And then she became diabetic during all of this and the adopters ended up returning her to the rescue. So I think she was in foster at the time or was about to go to foster. Okay. But she can't be around other dogs. So it was either the foster had other dogs or she was going to be in boarding. And that's even worse for a reactive dog. Incredibly. So. A lot of times if they're emaciated, sick, we don't. They're like, just shut down. And then when they start eating regular meals and they fatten up a little bit and they gain like a good body score, then you start seeing that personality. You start seeing and also underlying health issues. So sometimes we don't know that they're diabetic or sometimes we don't know they're incredibly reactive until they're like, oh, I feel great, by the way. I'm going to get feisty. Oh yeah. So it happens. But anyway, yeah, so so you you fostered her. Were you anticipating that you were going to adopt her? Not at all. Oh, no. Because we were both two broke grad students. We were both getting our masters at the time. He just moved into Michigan in August of twenty nineteen before he got her. Oh, wow. Okay, so he had he had no intention of adopting or keeping her. it was just, This dog needs my help. Who am I to say no to it? Wow. That's incredible. What a good husband you have. You picked a good one, girl. He's so good. Oh, yeah. So he's like, we got to save her. And then you had her for a while. We had her for a while. We had her for about three months. So state shuts down and she's trying to get this dog adopted, but every single person that gives interest is like, well, I really want to take her to a dog park. I really want to be able to take her to my friend's house, who has other dogs, stuff like that. Or the twelve hour diabetic, insulin injection schedule just doesn't work for my lifestyle. Oh yeah. So no one really wanted to be tethered down by by this dog. And it takes a unicorn adopter, unicorn foster. Right? Yeah, yeah. And like you said, with once they start getting their health in check and their personality starts coming out, you really see a new dog. And that's kind of what did it for him. So took about three months. And he looked at me and he's like, I can't let her go to another family. Like, this is my dog. And it made me cry. They say three days, three weeks, three months, three months is when they settle in with this is my home. That's the same time frame. We adopted her. Yeah. So you adopted her? Well he did. I'm not on any of the paperwork. Oh, come on. Okay, I know, I know. Isn't that frustrating? This is ours. You know she is ours. But. But she inspired you. Yeah. Okay. So tell me about how that led to Angela's treat stash. So it's a long story, and I'll try to cliff note it as much as I can. No worries. so I never had an intention of starting a business. I spent my entire life saying I'm going to be a pediatric neuropsychologist. I was going to work with kids with brain issues and I was going to be a doctor. Okay. Nothing to do with animals. Do you still want to do that? No. Okay. Not anymore. Okay. All right. It's incredible. Yeah. How life pivots us. It is. It is. So, we got her. She was not great. She was thirty three pounds. She's skin and bones, everything like that. Dom had to keep taking her back and forth to the vet because she would just have these random episodes that we didn't know what was going on. We didn't know diabetes at that point, especially with pets. so as two broke grad students who are trying to help this medical needs dog who are already paying one hundred and fifty dollars a month for insulin on top of prescription foods and vet visits and everything like that. We were like, we can't do this anymore. around fall time, my mom always gets into a very big soup, mood and she'll make a new soup every single week. Well, this year she just happened to make dog treats one day. And we, I brought them to Angela and she tried them and she went nuts for them. I was like, okay, maybe there's something here. On top of that, her diabetes was back and forth. We were changing her vetsulin dosage like every other week at that point. and it was so stressful for poor Dom because he was alone at that time. So I was like, all right, let me do some research. So I started reading, looking into natural pet health, um, learning about Doctor Richard Pitcairn, Doctor Karen Becker, Rodney Habib, all these different, veterinarians. So you did your research. I did my research. So you're going to grad school? Um, boyfriend's going to at the time he's your at the time he's going to grad school and you guys were you, I know you were working on your MBA, right? so this was my master's in psychology, my MBA currently. Oh, so you're still working okay. Yeah. So master's of psychology. And then he's also working on a master's, also working on a master's in psychology. That's how we met. Okay. So incredible. So you're doing research and more research and more research. Research. It's like just stack it on. Yeah. So I'm like looking at all of this and I'm like, I really think there's something here. We need to, you know, let's give it a try. So we just start throwing in like little carrots or green beans into our food. Um, little berries. We had those, those dog treats that my mom made. And I'm like, there's something here. Like she, she's getting so much better. So we ended up just kind of taking the dive into putting her on cooked food, gentle cooked food. And she kept getting better and better and better. and so I started making dog treats. I was like, well, she loves them. Like she's doing really good on them. Let's try it. and so we were doing that for a few months. I was sharing them with friends and family. They were getting, you know, similar results with it. And I was joking like, you know, this could be a business, but I had no intention of doing it. I hear you say that I but I'm, I'm very glad you did. I just knowing well, one woman owned two and I get it that you, you do this business with your husband, but you're the pioneer in this doing this, and then you're local to Michigan and they're healthy. So you're like the trifecta for me when I'm thinking about dog treats. But anyway, but please continue. So you, you're, you're in the infancy of this thinking about a business and then you just, you jump in kind of, like I said, I was just playing with it. my grandma and I were super close, so we would talk all the time and we were talking about this and kind of throwing it back and forth. She hadn't met Angela yet. so I was like, oh my God, grandma, I can't wait for you to meet her. Like, see all this stuff. And then we would joke about like making a business out of dog treats. And then she died. and I, like just blacked out for a week. I don't remember starting my Etsy shop, but I did and I didn't tell anyone. I told mom because we were living together at that point, but I didn't tell my parents. I didn't tell my family. I didn't tell friends. I just kind of, I found recipes that I liked, that Angela liked. And I started an Etsy shop and I was like, let's see where this goes. Okay. so you're kind of like in a fog. Yeah, one hundred percent. And then you're like, okay, I'm just, I'm just gonna do this. Was it kind of like this grief driven, I need to do something or was it. No, I need to help. I mean, what, what? Like where? You have no idea. I have no idea. You're like, because I just blacked out, Like I didn't leave my couch for two or three days because I just could not. Sorry. Thank you. That's the worst. When you. That absence and that loss and like. We all grieve differently. But when it's something so big and you. You can't wrap your head around it, you know, you have to moment by moment. You know, one day at a time kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So where did it go from there? It took about nine, nine or ten days before I saw any kind of movement. And I just, like, casually mentioned it to my cousin, like, oh, I started this Etsy shop. She was doing, a small business of her own doing, like glitter tumbler cups when those were really, really popular. So she was like, oh, cool. She was my first sale. Okay. She bought like three bags And so that was super cool to see. And then I told my mom about it and I was like, oh yeah, Kelly just bought dog treats. My mom bought dog treats as well. and then I was talking to one of my best friends from college who actually officiated my wedding. oh, I love that. Okay, so she has a full circle. Full circle? Yeah. She has a marketing degree and she works in PR marketing. All of that. So. Oh, man. Yeah. Okay. He's like, listen, I did a thing. I don't know what I'm doing. I know science and brains and all of this. I don't know. Also the chemistry, the chemistry of the nutrition, you know, how things are going to mold together. And that was something that always really interested me in my studies. I've always really been into nutrition. So I don't know why it took me so long to get into animal nutrition as well. You just needed Angela. Yeah, the motivation I needed was the dog. Okay. So so you you're this is your cousin that she's marketing. Oh, this is my best friend. Best friend. Okay. Your cousin was the first. Okay, so your best friend was in marketing. I was like, listen, I did the thing. I just started getting some orders from people I don't know, so it could be bigger, but I go, my logo's not great. I don't know what I'm doing. What can you do to help me? So she did like a whole Swot analysis, like looked up all the different competition, looked up what I was doing, put together brand logo colors, fonts, like the themes just oh my goodness, everything you're supposed to do in the planning stages. I don't even know. I didn't even know to do this for my business. Okay. Oh, can I give her a card? Yeah. She's so good. She's so good. This sounds incredible. And she just was like, here. Here you go. Yeah, she did everything. She started. She started my Instagram account. I didn't have one of those yet. I only had a Facebook page, which was super small. She went and did a bunch of stuff to that. She started my email. I didn't have a business email. It's incredible. Yeah. What an amazing friend. Okay. What's her first name? Her name's Morgan. Oh my gosh, we gotta give some props to Morgan. Morgan's the best launching. You love her? Yeah. Okay, so she got you all like she set you up. Okay, so where did it go from there? How did it it was it just like overnight or was it. No, you have to build. Yeah. So especially like, gotta quote Taylor Swift, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Without working, I would have failed one hundred percent. So thankfully we went back. We did the planning stuff. Yeah. Um, but so this was probably November of twenty twenty. By March, I started looking into craft and vendor shows because, you know, you start a business, everyone's got an opinion. And that was one that I heard and it stuck. so I found a craft and vendor show to get into and got a lot of really good feedback with that. Gotcha. but that show organizer too was very good friends with a local pet store owner. Okay. Ray of Rocco's pet store. Rocco's pet shop. Yeah. So I. And you sell your treats there? I did that was the very first store that stocked us. So I met with him that summer. So he's the OG? Mhm. He's the OG. I love that. I say this every time I go. I don't care if I am down money, any kind of event they have, I'm there. I'm selling. I like it's done. Like they those relationships are so important when you have that partnership and they just support you no matter what. It's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. Him. His manager. Mandy. Everyone there? It's been phenomenal. Okay, maybe future podcast episode. We got it. His name's Ray. Yeah, his name's Ray. So we got to get Ray on the pod. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So we got into Ray, into Ray's Rocco's that summer, kind of did it with Rocco's for a little bit. I think I went into a bunch of different, you know, hodgepodge artisan shops. Sure. And they're just trying to get my name out there. then within, I believe twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two time frame was when we started doing the Rochester Farmer's Market. And that's really when it started taking off. Oh, wow. Yeah. So we were living in Rochester Hills at the time. Someone again got a business. Everyone's got an opinion and everyone's got advice. someone mentioned farmer's markets, and I was a big farmer's market girl in college, so I was like, hell yeah. Supporting local. It's so important. Yeah. So I was like, let's check it out. I found it applied, got in and we had so many good people, like just coming, being like, oh my God, I tried these treats. My dog won't leave me alone. My dog broke into the cabinet and shredded the entire bag and ate everything in it. I have one of those stories. So, so Boomer, before he passed away, he's he's our very finicky. Well, like he will spit treats out. But never, never, never from Angela's, you know, so like, especially I think it was like a broccoli, broccoli cheddar. Yeah. That was his favorite. But anyway, I digress. Yeah. But yeah, so I mean, but he would, he just doesn't and especially hard treats you when you have the hard treats and dogs are super picky, you know, you just don't know. But he did like those. Yeah. It's incredible. Yeah. So I mean, the flavor, whatever you were doing, it's perfect. So there's this really beautiful phenomena that animals have. It's called zoopharmacognosy. okay, say that again. Zoopharmacognosy. So zoo animals, Pharma pharmacy pharmacology. Um cog Cognition. Cog brain. No. Si. Nos. So animals are able to smell things that will help heal them. They're able to smell in the wild. What? Yeah. I just learned something new in the wild, animals are able to understand something's not right. Yeah, and they have some kind of beautiful intuition that they smell the different herbs or compounds in these plants, and they forage them and they naturally heal themselves. So just a side note from same dog Boomer Tom, my husband calls, he used to call him our canary. So I made some mac and cheese ones and Boomer who would eat like people food if you gave them a little piece of something, right. I tried to give him a piece of this mac and cheese and he would not eat it. The butter was bad and I got sick and he was like, no, you know. And so after that, Tom was like, okay, is our canary gonna eat it? Because sometimes. Are you trying to poison me? Well, I mean, like, sometimes I would eat some questionable things. Like in the refrigerator, cause I'm, like, all about like, oh, my God, that was that was so good. But it's been in there for a little bit. Do we eat it? And if Boomer won't eat it, we won't eat it. Smart. So this makes total sense to me. Thinking about that, he could smell some. Obviously their olfactory is, like, insane. I think they have ten thousand times what we do. It's incredible. Yeah, but. So they can smell something. We can't. And then it's like, okay, I'm not eating that. And they can smell for up to a mile away. So this is also why we're trapping dogs. It's important. But anyway, so, so let's, let's talk about this though. so you, you grew your business and now we're twenty twenty six. You're in how many locations? A lot, a lot. It's on your website. Yeah. I think you say seven or eight at this point. Okay. So they can go to your website and I'll add all your contact details. So your Instagram, Facebook and your website. I'll add it in the show notes, but you have all these locations that you're selling out of and you have so many varieties, so do you. Tell us about all the little things that you not just hard treats that you do, because there's several things that I know. especially like the, the fish, the is it smelt. Smelt. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So tell us about your stuff. Yeah. everything is completely from human grade ingredients. that's usually just kind of a buzzword in the industry, but I take it to heart. so all of my cookie lines are oat flour based because, oats have the least amount, if any, gluten in them. And gluten can be harder for, for dogs to tolerate. Oh, and humans too. Oh, absolutely. Especially with how much we do now. so oat flour base. And then we use fruits, vegetables, broths and eggs as binding ingredients and other flavors. I don't add preservatives. I don't add, artificial colors. I don't add dyes. So your stuff is like all natural and yeah, Yeah. So the really beautiful thing about science is there's a certain moisture percentage where it can be considered shelf stable. So we've gotten to a point where we've gotten our moisture to that percentage. And I've had a storage unit when we closed down our store in the mall, and I found treats that were two years old and they were perfectly fine when I pulled them out. Oh that's great. Okay, so you're dehydrating, right? Or baking? I bake the cookies and then Dom dehydrates the meats. Okay. And then actually, let's back up. You are licensed, aren't you? Yeah, we're licensed through the state of Michigan. So it's not is it a department of AG? Yeah. So you as a baker, even even for human. But you're baking for dogs. and even some of your treats are for cats too. I saw that. but you, you are, you have to, is it yearly that you have to submit? So you are a licensed bakery So pet food treats are considered pet food in state terms. Okay. Yeah. So anyone with, a pet business has to be licensed by Mdard. They have to produce, tonnage reports every single year. So we have to track everything we make. and then they also have to do tests, through labs and it's great. I love working with the Department of Agriculture, but you have to send it out for a guaranteed analysis so you can get the protein, the ash, the protein, ash moisture. But we were talking about moisture. I knew this is something that is really important to them because of like making sure they're safe, testing them, but also they also want quantities of items you went through in the year. I mean, I understand. Former state employee. So I understand, um, like they want to know everything. They want to know everything. I have to send my labels every year. They have to know every single treat. At one point we were doing Sheep Brain and we only stopped doing it because we couldn't source it very easily. But they were like, where are you getting this from? What are you doing to it? Like, what's, what's the whole thing? Because I mean, like with cow brains, if I was trying to feed a dog a cow brain, you have, oh, you have the prion disease issue. So, you know, they're very nosy, but for the pet safety, it's for a good reason. Yeah. Well, and my specific Department of ag rep, we've had conversations about this and she's like, we do this because if you do something wrong, we'd rather us catch it than the FDA catch it and you get in trouble federally because then there's no getting out of it. They're looking out for you. They're looking out for you. Exactly. That's incredible. I never thought of it like that. Well, I mean, I, I, there are reasons why we do these things. And so any time I'm somewhere and I want to support a business that is doing dog treats, I do always look for the label. Yeah. Because Mdard requires a very specific list. You have to list out ingredients, you have to, you know, all those things. And your label has it all, you know. So I'm always looking for that. Making sure that people, you know, have that. So anyway, so you tell us about what you carry so you don't have to do the whole list. I know they can go to your website. That's a list. But you, you do have the hard treats, but you also have dehydrated items. Yeah. So we also have the dehydrated meats. so we've got, I want to say ten different cookie options. And then meat wise, that's closer to twelve, I believe. So we've got, everything with the meat option is single ingredient dehydrated proteins. So it's really good for our allergy dogs. the ones that come up to me and like my dog is allergic to everything except, we're usually able to steer them in that direction. So we've got beef, we've got chicken, we've got sheep, fish with the smelts. And then we've also got chews so we've got like, you know, your pig ears, your chicken necks, different things to kind of keep those. I know it might be gross for some listeners, but the chicken feet. They're huge. They're huge. Yeah, they're huge in my house If I shake that container because I put them in this plastic. Oh, they're both like. Like, I didn't even know that they were there. Like, they just know like it's chicken feet time. Oh, yeah, I can I just start saying, do you want. And Ange is on her way. She loses her mind. It's so funny. Oh, that's so great. So but yes, broccoli. Cheddar. I think there was a strawberry one that was strawberry peanut butter. That was the one you always ordered. Yeah. That's huge in my house too. yeah, but I love it. So people can go to your website, they can order from you and you ship. I ship everywhere. Continental us or do you internationally. Um, just the US right now. Just regulations. Making sure I'm true, true. Hitting everything. Especially with, uh, Europe. They have a lot of different regulations there. Exactly. So just trying to figure that out. I think I've shipped to Canada in the past, but right now we're mostly just trying to focus on the US. I got you. Do you still have your Etsy shop or is it just I do, I do, I closed it for a little bit just because they're ridiculous with their fees. But I did reopen it and I've been getting a little bit of buzz, but majority of it comes from I'm going to add your website. You can people can go directly to your website, and then you also have a listing on your website where people can physically go if they're in the Metro Detroit area. Yeah. And I love it because it's a little map. So you can literally see what's closest to you. You can click on it. It gives you the address and everyone's information. So how is Angela today? Oh, she's so good. She I love your TikTok videos. I'm going to add your TikTok to this. Okay, so they can come see the one video where you, you, I think you, this is actually probably a couple years ago now where she's taste testing and you've got that microphone. Oh yeah. With the crunch. The crunch factor. It was hysterical. And I had to watch it like seven times. And I know and I'm one of those people that like, I don't like listening to stuff like that. Oh yeah. But I still wanted to listen to her charm because I was, because it was a cute, this cute dog chomping that. And it was like, hey girl, this is so cute. It's so dramatic with it too. So like, she'll smack her lips and oh man, they're the cutest. She's a cute dog too. She is. I say all the time like she's one of the few dogs that, like, she's objectively pretty, regardless of her breed, regardless of anyone's preferences. Like, she's just a beautiful dog. Yeah, I'll add links to all of that stuff with her. She's also had a Dodo video. And so I'll add the link to the dodo with Rocky Kanaka. Yeah, yeah. So she was, you know, it's just incredible to me. She needed a very special home and she found it with you guys and then inspired this business. So anything big in the future or is there something that's going to come down the pipe that you're going to try something new? Or are you is it sticking with treats and dehydrated? Oh, right now it's sticking with treats and dehydration. We're trying to get into another farmer's market this year. Oh, you're going to be busy this summer then? Oh yeah. I love the Rochester Farmer's market. Those the people, to be fair they come educated already. I feel like they already know. And then I see them when I was there. The people are walking by with their bags of treats and it's exciting to see. Supporting local sporting women. Yeah. that's exciting. part of the reason I wanted to talk to you is, one, a dog inspired business and it's a dog. It is a business that benefits dogs and cats because some of your, Is it spleens? What is it? That's cat. So all of my meat treats double as cat treats. Cats are obligate carnivores, meaning they need to be fed meat. dogs. Luckily, their hearts are able to produce a little bit of taurine, which is an essential amino acid. Okay. Cats don't have that ability, so cats have to be fed. cats have to be fed meat because taurine is only naturally available through muscle meats. oh, so so all of my meats are great for cats. We've had really, really, really good luck with beef and chicken hearts. Okay? And because they're super rich in taurine and a lot of cats are low on that. Yeah. And you can just break them up into pieces and like feed them a little piece. Yeah, no, I can't friends that I've done photos for that they get those treats because it's dog and cat friendly. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. I appreciate you sitting down with me and talking with me. I'm very excited to share everything about you because your treats, like I said before you I women supporting women, it's so, so important to me and women owned business. The fact that you, I mean, you're doing all the things, you're bettering yourself, educating yourself and making things from like the things that you learn is, I don't know, it's just so cool to me. So thank you so much for being here. And, and like I said, I'll add all of the links to the show notes so people can come find you on all your socials. So thank you, I appreciate you.
00:26:29 Speaker: I appreciate all of you for tuning in to Discussing Dogs in the podcast. And until next time, stay kind, stay curious, and give your dog a cookie for me.