My name is Ken Tudor, DVM, founder of family-owned business Hearthstone Homemade for Dogs. During my 30 years of practice, I have spent a great deal of time researching and implementing homemade canine diets for both medical conditions as well as improved overall health. Hearthstone Homemade is the culmination of all those years of research. I was introduced early in my veterinary training to the
potential for homemade diets over commercial diets for digestive problems by my gastroenterology instructor, Dr. Donald Strombeck, the pioneer in homemade diets. In the early 1980’s that meant a 50:50 mixture of cottage cheese and white rice. Later it became chicken or turkey and rice. Although effective such diets are not nutritionally complete and can only be used for a limited time. The longer I practiced the more I realized that many of my patients needed longer term nutritional solutions. My own grand dog, Socrates, was the poster child for this group. Suffering from chronic episodes of uncontrollable vomiting and diarrhea from puppyhood, Soc could find no relief even from the most expensive and exotic commercial diets. Through diagnostic work-ups of his condition, including exploratory surgery, and dietary trials it became evident that a homemade diet with limited ingredients was his only salvation. The problem was that recipe books and internet sources for homemade diets turned out to be poorly formulated and inadequately supplemented. The meat, carbohydrate and oil quantities were all over the map without any accuracy of necessary nutrient levels. Not only do human supplements contain dangerous excesses or deficiencies of some nutrients, they are not standardized and varied depending on the manufacturer. This was compounded by the complexity of preparation. Recipes not only required calcium and phosphorus sources but separate vitamin and mineral supplements and both sodium and potassium salts. The result was complicated recipes that could not be guaranteed to provide adequate nutrition. I had no choice but to increase my research efforts and develop my own recipe and nutrient system. It has taken years of development and testing to create a program for Socrates. In 2012 we decided to share our program with other dog owners and Hearthstone Homemade for Dogs was born. Quality ingredients are the cornerstone of our nutritional program; every component that we select is of the highest quality and is chosen to serve a specific purpose. Our proprietary nutrient formulas are prepared at a human FDA-inspected laboratory in the US. As a GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) facility of human pharmaceutical and nutrient products, the purity and accuracy of our formulas are superior to sources that are less stringent in their regulatory oversight. We are located in the quiet college town of Claremont at the far eastern edge of Los Angeles County in Southern California. This location has been the ideal place for us to both raise our family and start our business due to the close proximity of many resources necessary to make Hearthstone Homemade a realty. In addition to our company, I continue to practice general small animal medicine at an animal hospital nearby. Through our website blog and this page we hope to provide nutritional information that helps you better understand the complexity of providing a balanced homemade diet. We continually review articles from over 20 scientific journals in order to provide the most up-to-date information and research. In addition, we are dedicated to providing superior customer service and constantly seek to improve our service and offerings and we hope your experience will confirm that commitment. If you feel there is any way that we can improve please contact us and share your ideas -- we love feedback. If you want your dog to live a longer and healthier life, we hope you seriously consider trying Hearthstone Homemade for Dogs. Don't just take our word for it -- see for yourself why our customers are raving about the positive changes they've seen in their furry friends since they made the switch. If you're not sure where to begin or you have questions, let us know so that we can help you out.
