Bowwow Kaukau

27/04/2024

We will see you in two weeks, Kailua! Bring your pups to the Mama’s Day market!

25/04/2024

Aloha, BowWow Kaukau fam!

Can you believe we've been doing our thing for a whole year here on Oahu? We have a few customers who have been with us since the start, and they are reporting results including reduced allergy symptoms, pups eating all their food (when they were previously very finicky), dogs losing weight (when they were previously overweight), silky coats, and smaller, less stinky poops!

I am not a veterinarian, and we cannot guarantee any of these particular results, but we do know that fresh food is better for EVERY BODY than processed, commercial stuff. We can promise you that we're rounding up the best variety of ingredients we can find here on our beautiful island to feed your best friends.

A fiscal year is helpful in business analysis, and we're making a few thoughtful changes that we think will simplify things for us all. Where we previously had three tiers (homemade, organic, and local), with three different prices, we are now just offering one great product. Variety is built into our recipe as always, and we will continue to use local and organic ingredients in abundance. Combining the three tiers and adjusting our pricing allows us to work in SOME local meats while keeping our costs and your overall price reasonable. You can save money by ordering larger containers, and delivery is free for orders of at least 10 pounds.

Current pricing for our fresh, homemade dog food is:

Sample (0.5 lb): $6
Pint (1 lb): $11
Double (2 lb): $20

I will have a variety of inventory for you at these prices, and if you order a bunch, I will usually provide you with a few different blends in your order to keep it interesting, tasty, and nutritious for your furry friends.

If you need a consistently different thing than this variety, that will be considered a CUSTOM blend, you will get the whole batch (10 lbs), and it will cost more, starting at $12/lb.

For example, I regularly switch up the starches in the recipes between rice, barley, quinoa, potatoes, and sweet potatoes. Produce costs considerably more than grain, so if you ALWAYS want your recipes to be grain-free, that will be $12/lb, regardless of container size. I'm always available to consult with you on the details of this.

Thank you for helping us bring BowWow Kaukau to Oahu - we can't wait to see what happens next!

23/04/2024

BowWow Kaukau is coming to feed your dogs, Mililani! May the 4th be with us all!

16/04/2024

We’re getting so excited about Earth Day! It’s our first market, and we’d love to see you there!

13/04/2024

09/04/2024

🥹

More pubs should do this

Thomas Becket pub in Canterbury, UK: https://www.wpcanterbury.co.uk/canterbury-directory/thomas-becket-canterbury/

Sir Woofchesters: https://www.sirwoofchesters.com/

06/04/2024

Love these tips from Kauai Humane Society!

This Monday, April 8, much of the United States will be experiencing a total solar eclipse, and here in Hawai'i, 20% - 30% of the Sun's morning light will be blocked by the Moon.

Eclipses can interrupt an animal's natural rhythm, may cause them to behave differently, or to perceive danger! For example, some animals might see the temporary darkness and begin their nighttime routine, or "wake up" if they are nocturnal. Sometimes, wild animals will seek shelter, believing that the Eclipse is an oncoming storm.

If you are a pet owner, you may be wondering if you should take any precautions during an Eclipse. Here is our advice!

1. You don't want to encourage your pet to look at the sun or wear eclipse glasses for a cute photo - save that part for you and your human friends!

2. If your pet generally has anxiety around events like thunderstorms and fireworks, this may not be the day to leave them at home alone, or outside! Instead, let your pet know that you are nearby, check on them often, and keep them inside until the Eclipse has concluded.

3. Be safe, have fun, and keep your pets comforted while you experience this rare celestial event!

P.S. You can still adopt Ace and E.T. from KHS, just in time to comfort them on Monday! https://kauaihumane.org/adopting/dogs-available/

05/04/2024

We’ll see y’all April 21 in Kailua for the Aloha Home Market! So excited to meet new doggy friends and feed them the good stuff!!

30/03/2024

Come on down (up?) to Waimea Valley for the Earth Day Celebration! There will be live music and vendors including your very own BowWow Kaukau!!

Saturday, April 22, join us for a special Earth Day celebration. The day begins with volunteering, and concludes with festivities, vendors, and local hālau performance.

11/02/2024

Does your Valentine have four legs?

11/02/2024

What would YOU rather eat?

11/02/2024

Hellooo Instagram! We’re finally insta-official and can’t wait to meet you busy Oahu dog owners looking for a more wholesome and sustainable way to feed your pups! BowWow Kaukau is homemade, fresh, local dog food made with local and organic ingredients.

09/02/2024

The ingredient of the day is organic ground turkey! Turkey isn’t just a great source of protein, it’s also got lots of selenium, which may help prevent several kinds of cancer. This excellent benefit of selenium is only present when it’s consumed in foods like turkey- it doesn’t work as a supplement. Turkey also provides plenty of iron, magnesium, and choline, and is part of the MIND diet, developed by doctors to slow the effects of dementia.

Each of this week’s BowWow Kaukau batches are made with three full pounds of organic ground turkey for your pups!

30/01/2024

We’re back!

I’m still using a cane, so deliveries might be slightly more work for you than they have been historically. I can’t carry a big box/cooler yet, but you can come get your order out of my car. Here’s the view from the freezercam today, and one very happy potlicker!

17/01/2024

Thanks to everyone for bearing with us while we undergo some necessary construction (namely, hip repair to our sole proprietor)!

We are making steady progress towards getting up and running again post-surgery. If all goes well, I should be down to one crutch/ a cane sometime next week, and two weeks after that, I'll be walking. The goal is to be walking by my appointment on Feb. 9!

Since making dog food involves standing and moving around 10+ pound pots with both hands, I need to wait until my docs approve that level of mobility. But rest assured that as soon as it's allowed, your pups will have their kaukaus once again!

Existing customers, please reach out if you need a recipe to tide you over until February!

Pictured: Chief Dog Officer Sunny Banjo moonlighting as a nanny dog while I’m laid up.

11/01/2024

Aloha, BowWow Kaukau fam! We’re still here, still healing up from surgery. I should find out more at my appointment on Friday, but I’m hoping to be walking/standing enough to make dog food soon.

In the meantime, I want to share this new development with you! Bowwow Kaukau has been accepted into Waimea Valley’s business incubator program, Kūkulu I Ka Waiwai! This incredible program is free for us, and will help us to use pono practices in line with traditional Hawaiian values to spread the BowWow Kaukau love to the whole island. We’re honored to be a part of this worthwhile project!

The Business Incubator is a free 9-month learning program for locals, Native Hawaiians, and Veterans, who are aspiring entrepreneurs and want to build a meaningful, successful business rooted in self-sufficiency and Hawaiian cultural values.

21/12/2023

Merry Christmas from BowWow Kaukau! We hope you and your pups have the best holiday season ever. (And we are loving the PhotoRoom app, if you can’t tell 😂)

We will see you all in 2024!

17/12/2023

Good morning, BowWow Kaukau fam!

I’m writing you from bed, where I spend most of my time now that my hip repair surgery is complete. I’m not able to make dog food for several more weeks, but I just got these in the mail and I’m excited to show you something new!

I bought these doggie treat molds in hopes of the first batch of treats being my Christmas presents to all of you loyal customers (and dogstomers). I had visions of red and green BowWow Kaukau bones, colored with beets and spirulina and full of vitamins for your pups!

Sadly, they arrived post-surgery so I’m in no shape to use them just yet. But know this: dog treats are coming!!

15/12/2023

I’m shocked that I didn’t know this, and I’m so mad that they don’t require a warning label.

A friend shared this. I did not know this about snow globes. Please be careful if you have them in your house.

29/11/2023

Maddie is stocking up for the holidays, and you should too, before we are out of commission for 4 weeks starting December 12!

24/11/2023

Happy thanksgiving, everyone! Sent a batch of yummy organic beef & potato blend home with these two today!

21/11/2023

The ingredient of the day is rainbow Swiss chard, one of the most nutrient-dense foods on earth. These beautiful colors indicate all sorts of phytonutrients - polyphenols, carotenoids, and betalains. Rainbow Swiss chard also packs nearly 500% of the recommended daily value for vitamin K!

This week’s batches each contain two heaping cups of this Christmas-colored superfood - get some for your pup before it’s gone!

17/11/2023

Attention, BowWow Kaukau family! I will be undergoing hip surgery on December 12, and will be staying off my feet (and using crutches) for a month afterwards. This means I will not be cooking or delivering dog food between December 12 and January 12. I’m sorry for any lapses in your dog food supply this may cause! I am cooking and delivering up until that date, and I will fill up the BowWow Kaukau freezer as well. I encourage you to stock up as much as you have storage capacity for over the next three weeks, and then I will have a very limited supply (since I’ll also be storing a month’s worth of Sunny’s food) that folks can come pick up from me once you run out.

16/11/2023

Sunny is loving this porky purple batch! Hit us up for all your gourmet dog food needs 🥰

14/11/2023

We’re cooking up about 10 pounds of this Thanksgiving turkey dinner for doggos! Who needs some?

11/11/2023

Gravy Biscuits and Kai are sharing this ono batch!

Edit: Local BEETS, not beers 😂. Thanks, autocorrect

08/11/2023

Y’all, I was just feeling like maybe decorating early for Xmas, when I realized I already made red and green dog food 🤶🎄

07/11/2023

The ingredient of the day is BEETS!

Beets are so pretty that I simply could not resist photographing each one as I cut into it last night. They are also packed with good stuff like folate, manganese, and copper. They contain pigments called betalains, which have been shown to reduce inflammation associated with high blood pressure, osteoarthritis, and kidney disease. Beet juice has been used to improve cognition and even stave off cancer. According to Tom Robbins, wacky novelist, beets are part of the formula for immortality (see below.) All of this week’s batches of dog food contain organic beets from Ma’o Farms!

“The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are l***y enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.

“Slavic people get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets.

“The beet is the melancholy vegetable, the one most willing to suffer. You can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip…

“The beet is the murderer return to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the Autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon boats, stitched with the veins of primordial plasma; the kite string that once connected the moon to the Earth, now muddy, whiskered, drilling desperately for rubies.

“The beet was Rasputin’s favorite vegetable. You could see it in his eyes.

“In Europe, there is grown widely a large beet they call the mangel-wurzel. Perhaps it is a mangel-wurzel that we see in Rasputin. Certainly there is mangel-wurzel in the music of Wagner, although it is another composer, whose name begins B-e-e-t—-.

“Of course there are white beets, beets that ooze sugar water instead of blood, but it is the red beet with which we are concerned; the variety that blushes and swells, like a hemorrhoid, a hemorrhoid for which there is no cure. (Actually, there is one remedy: commission a potter to make you a ceramic as***le, and when you aren’t sitting on it, you can use it as a bowl for borscht.)

“An old Ukrainian proverb warns, ‘A tale that begins with a beet will end with the Devil.’

“That is a risk we have to take.”

-Tom Robbins, opening lines of Jitterbug Perfume

23/06/2019

Wanted: Life partner like this.

15/09/2018

Hello, BowWow Kaukau family! Michele here, with some exciting news.

We've moved to Wisconsin and are looking to grow and change a bit. We loved making and delivering homemade dog food all over Kauai, and later teaching workshops in South Carolina to help people make their own. We've been sleeping as a company for a couple of years, just doing occasional pet sitting. Now we're looking to make some big changes. You'll notice that our name is about to change to The Whole Diogi. If you know me personally, you knew my sweet boy Diogi too. He passed away in November 2017 at the age of almost-fourteen, and I want to honor him by using his name for this next exciting endeavor.

The Whole Diogi will continue to advocate for better dog nutrition, striving to get the "good stuff" into as many dog bellies as possible. We will still offer lots of services - pet sitting, pet adventures, dog nutrition consultations, and dog behavior consultations.

Realizing that we are living a life of vagabondage with no settling down in sight, we are switching gears to offer instructional videos to help dogs EVERYWHERE! We'll be providing tips for owners at home and raising awareness about important aspects of dog care and rescue.

Our ultimate goal is to start (and fund) a dog rescue that is focused on behavior and nutrition. We may go through several incarnations between now and then. We ask that you stick with us, continue to follow, like, and share. There will come a time when we will need a LOT of help to save a LOT of dogs, but right now we're just looking to make more friends.

Thank you for all the love you've shown us as BowWow Kaukau!