Meet Elle: How a Dog Walker Built a Treat Brand Dogs Actually Deserve
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Woofy didn't start with a business plan. It started with a question I kept asking myself on dog walks: why are we feeding our dogs this rubbish?
The dog walking chapter
In September last year, I quit my office job and went full-time as a dog walker. It wasn't a backup plan or a gap year — it was the thing I'd wanted to do for years. Within months, I had 20+ regular clients and a pack of dogs that I genuinely consider family.
Walking dogs every day teaches you things you can't learn from a textbook. You learn which dogs are fussy eaters. Which ones have sensitive stomachs. Which ones will eat literally anything (looking at you, Archie). And you learn that the owners who care most about their dogs are the same ones buying treats off supermarket shelves without realising what's actually in them.
The lightbulb moment
One day, a client handed me a bag of treats to give her dog on the walk. I flipped it over and read the ingredients: wheat flour, glycerine, sugar, "meat and animal derivatives", artificial colour. For a product marketed as "natural" and "healthy".
I started looking at every treat bag I could find. Supermarket own-brands, premium brands, the lot. The pattern was the same: long ingredient lists, vague protein sources, cheap fillers, and clever marketing hiding the truth.
So I thought — what if I just made treats with one ingredient? Actual food. Nothing added, nothing hidden.
Testing on the pack
I sourced single-ingredient, air-dried treats from UK suppliers and started testing them on my walking pack. The dogs went absolutely mad for them. Fussy Bella who turns her nose up at everything? Obsessed. Sensitive-stomach Millie? No issues whatsoever. Even the dogs who'd been on supermarket treats their whole lives switched instantly.
The owners noticed too. Better coats. More energy. Fewer digestive problems. And the simplicity of knowing exactly what their dog was eating — one ingredient, clearly labelled.
What Woofy is today
Woofy Essentials is now a proper brand. We've got branded packaging on the way, a growing range of single-ingredient treats, and a community of dog owners who trust us because they know exactly who's behind the brand.
I still walk dogs every day. The walking pack still taste-tests every new product before it goes on the shop. And the rule hasn't changed since day one: if I wouldn't give it to the dogs I walk, I won't sell it.
That's it. That's the whole story. No investors, no factory, no boardroom. Just a dog walker who decided dogs deserve better.