"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute." — Proverbs 31:8

I want to start with something I don't talk about often, because it matters to why this story exists at all.

In December of 2024, I lost my dog Callie to sinus cancer. She lost the ability to breathe through her nose, which meant she couldn't sleep — dogs can't sleep with their mouths open — and there was nothing left to do. Three months later, in March of 2025, I lost my elderly dog Butch. He had been blind for years, and Callie had been his seeing eye dog. When she was gone, he grieved himself to death. After Butch, I gave everything away. The food, the bowls, the leashes, the beds. All of it. I didn't want the reminders. I had no intention of another dog. I wasn't ready. I wasn't looking. I was just trying to get through.

Nine months later, in December of 2025, I scrolled past a post on Facebook from Rowan County Animal Control — and I stopped.

His name was Shane. Twelve weeks old, pit mix, male. He had only been at the shelter for a day or two — they had just received him as a stray, along with eight other puppies someone had dropped off. He wasn't being listed for adoption. This post wasn't a rehoming notice. The shelter had assessed his condition, determined he was a medical case who might need a partial or complete penectomy — a word I had never heard before and had to look up — and without a medical foster by 3:30 PM that day, he was going to be euthanized. There was no other plan.

Before I got in the car, I called my vet. I described what the shelter had posted. The response was honest and well-meaning: a dog who needs this kind of surgery faces surgery after surgery. He may never have a good quality of life. Are you sure you want to take this on?

I said: can I just go get him and see if there's any way we can help?

I was the only person who called. Not one other person reached out to save him.

There was one complication: I don't live in Rowan County. Their policy only allows medical fosters from within the county or neighboring counties. I didn't qualify. I called anyway. At 3:00 PM — thirty minutes before his deadline — the shelter called me back with special approval. I live an hour and a half away. I drove as fast as I could, and I prayed the entire way there. I prayed for healing. I prayed that he would be better. I prayed that he would be okay.

I arrived at 4:15 PM, forty-five minutes past the cutoff. They held him. Because at least one person was on the way.

Before they brought him out, they asked me: if he needs the surgery, will you keep him? I told them the truth — I wasn't sure. If he truly couldn't have a good quality of life, I would bring him back. I wasn't making promises I didn't know I could keep. I just knew I wasn't going to let him die without someone at least trying.

Then they brought him out to me.

The shelter worker looked at him and said she couldn't believe how much he had already changed — even just in the hours since they had sent the photos to the consulting vet. She showed me the photo they had submitted: the tissue fully exposed, covered in black, matted in weeks of filth. Looking at that photo, I understood exactly how the recommendation had been made. I also understood that what they were seeing wasn't dead tissue. It was what happens when a puppy can't clean himself — likely from being in an overcrowded situation from birth, dropped as a stray with eight other dogs, finally given a small clean space at the shelter where he could at least begin to groom himself. By the time I arrived, the healing had already started. Before I even touched him.

I want to say something about Rowan County Animal Control before I go any further: I don't blame them for anything. They are understaffed. They don't have a veterinarian physically on site. They photograph animals and send the images to a consulting service — a vet who responds from photos alone, without ever laying hands on the dog. They were working with what they had. And they were fighting for him — that post makes that clear. They called me. They held him past the deadline. They found a way to get him out of the county when no one else came forward. I am grateful for every single person at that shelter who refused to give up on him before I got there.

He didn't know where he was going. But he trusted me anyway.

He was tiny. Matted. Covered in weeks of filth. And before I could even catch my breath — he started kissing me.

I had nothing with me. No food, no bowl, no leash. I had given it all away nine months earlier and never replaced any of it. I hadn't planned for this. But I knew one thing the moment I saw him: he needed to be clean before anything else.

We went straight home. I gave him three baths that first night. And this is where the formulator in me collided with the reality in front of me — because he wasn't just dirty. He had an active infection in a very sensitive area. Tissue that was exposed and couldn't retract because of the buildup trapping it. I was applying a water-based lubricant almost every hour through the night to keep that exposed tissue from drying out while I worked to get him clean. He was patient through all of it. Cooperative. Trusting in a way that broke my heart given what he had already been through.

But I was caught in a real dilemma. I formulate skincare — for humans. A dog's skin barrier and pH are genuinely different from ours, and I knew that the wrong product, even a clean one, could disrupt his healing or make things worse for already compromised tissue. I didn't know what was truly safe for him. I just did the best I could through the night, checked on him constantly, and by the next morning he was already healing on his own. The tissue was retracting. The swelling was resolving. By the time my vet saw him first thing the next morning — clean, recovering — she was genuinely upset that surgery had ever been recommended. She hadn't seen what I saw the night before. She saw a puppy who just needed someone to show up and do the work.

All he needed was to be clean. And someone willing to try.

Once he was as clean as I could get him, we went to the pet store for food. On the way home, he was head-first into the bag before we made it out of the parking lot.

That same trip, I picked up a few things so he'd have what he needed when we got home. Food. A leash. A collar. And a toy. I didn't think much about it. I just grabbed a lamb.

Shane became Scrappy the day I brought him home — a Jack Russell Pit Bull mix with more life and personality than he has any right to have, given where he started.

In the weeks that followed, Scrappy continued to shed what looked like black dandruff — dried debris still working its way out. I needed to find a proper shampoo for him, something formulated specifically for dogs. And because I'm a formulator, I went to the pet store and did what I always do: I read the label.

The first bottle I picked up — a medicated shampoo — listed one ingredient: "surfactant." That was it. I checked bottle after bottle. Some said even less.

Here is what most pet product companies are counting on you not to know:

Under current U.S. law, pet grooming products are not required to disclose their ingredients. The FDA's full ingredient disclosure requirements apply to human cosmetics only. A manufacturer can legally write "surfactant blend," "cleansing agents," or nothing at all — and be in complete legal compliance.

No governing agency sets ingredient disclosure standards for pet grooming products. No one is testing these formulations. No one is requiring a label.

That "surfactant" could be a harsh compound linked to eye damage in young animals, or a byproduct-contaminated cleansing agent on California's Prop 65 carcinogen list. It could be a proprietary blend the manufacturer is never required to name.

Your dog can't read the label. They can't advocate for themselves. And right now, the law isn't doing it for them either.

I didn't buy any of those products. I went home and made his shampoo myself — the way I should have been able to do from the start if I had simply known what was in the ones on the shelf. And then I went looking for the regulations I had assumed existed.

They didn't. And that's when the Shepherd line became more than an idea.

We named this line Shepherd for a reason. A shepherd doesn't leave the flock to navigate the field alone. They go first. They check the path. They make sure what's there is safe. That's what we're called to be — for the ones who cannot go first for themselves.

Every Shepherd product is built against one question: would this be safe if your dog licked it off? Because dogs groom themselves. Whatever goes on them goes into them. Every formula carries a commitment no law requires us to make — full ingredient transparency, every product, every time. Not because we have to. Because they deserve it.

I noticed something recently that I hadn't registered until weeks after all of this had unfolded. After the sleepless nights, after the shampoo search, after I discovered there were no regulations and started building this line — I looked down at the toy Scrappy had been carrying around since the day I brought him home.

It was a lamb.

I had bought it the same day I got him, on that first trip to the pet store — before any of this existed, before I had any thought of a product line, before I had ever stood reading an empty label. I just grabbed it so he'd have something to play with. I didn't think twice.

But the Shepherd line was already being written. The verse was already chosen — speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves. The name had already found me. And his first toy, chosen without any of that in mind, was a lamb.

In Luke 15, Jesus leaves the ninety-nine to go after the one that is lost. Not because the one is worth more. But because every single one matters. I drove an hour and a half — past the deadline, past the county line, past every reasonable reason not to go — for the one dog no one else called about. And he had been holding a lamb the whole time.

That's not a coincidence. That's a story that was written long before I understood it.

You shouldn't have to guess what you're putting on your dog. Your dog can't scroll past this. But you can. And you just didn't.

“A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal…”
— Proverbs 12:10