This Newf Reviews: WagginTails.com

Man it's the dog days of summer - and not in a good way! It's so hot that both Pooka and I have been doing our bearskin rug impressions on the air conditioning vents all day long. With potty breaks of course.

What this means for my mama is that come 7 or 8 o'clock at night, despite her best efforts, we are legally insane. Our breeder calls these moments myggestik - which means mosquito bite in Norwegian. We're very impressed by this as it is a very good description of our behavior. We call them puppy crazies or zoomies. Either way you want to slice it, our evenings are full of trouble, and our days are full of laziness. None of which has anything to do with the purpose of this post, but I wanted to explain the look of complete exhaustion on my face in this picture.

Moving right along....THIS NEWF REVIEWS: WAGGINTAILS.COM

Company Standards: I know I usually review either treats or toys, but this time I'm reviewing a service. During the past five months, with all of the recalls and the insecurities about what foods were still safe to feed and eat, this website emerged in front of the pack - leading the way with their proactive decisions. Instead of wringing their hands and waiting to hear of recalls before pulling products, they leapt into action. Once the ingredients responsible were tentatively listed by the FDA Waggintails.com immediately pulled ALL products containing those ingredients, regardless of whether or not the brand or label had been listed as testing positive for melamine. Because this was the case they stopped selling affected foods long before most other companies offering the same services - we all remember how the recalls came in piecemeal fashion - first this brand then that brand - waggintails had already removed them. They stated that as soon as the companies could reassure them with quality control statements and testing that their products remained safe, they would put them back up on the site. Until then they refused to sell them. In addition, they also pulled all products listing China as the country of origin for ingredients. They sent out emails to all of their clients alerting them to their actions and saying;

"Mostly, we want you to know that we are talking directly with each manufacturer asking the hard questions and demanding answers. Our goal is to have a place where you can shop and know that not only are the products on our site the best quality available, but that they are totally safe to feed your pets."

What does this say about them as a company? They put the safety and satisfaction of their customers ahead of their relationship with vendors. And they don't just SAY that that's the case, they ACT on it, decisively. I can't think of many companies that can say the same. What it meant for us was that any time our mama was worried about whether or not what she was feeding us, or the treats she was giving us, were safe - the first place she checked was Waggintails.com. If they were still selling them, then she felt good giving them to us.

This email, received immediately after the Natural Balance recalls, very much impressed us:

What is safe to feed?
After reviewing all information around both the Menu Foods recall, as well as this weeks Natural Balance recall, we are left to try and answer the question of “What IS safe to feed our pets?” This is not an easy thing to answer with complete certainty. Our opinion of this situation is that the pet food industry has been without scrutiny far too long. As these events continue to unfold, we do believe that the manufacturers with a total commitment to quality and safety will come out on top. Those whose commitment is less than that, will not. We go back to what we said in our first email, which is that this is a result of economy minded manufacturers sourcing economy ingredients. We have been forced to make a lot of decisions around what products we feel comfortable carrying and which we do not. Again, not easy, but based on information to date, we feel confident in our next steps. At this point, here is our position on what we refuse to sell.

1. We will not sell foods using any ingredients from outside the US, with the exception of meat from New Zealand. Nothing in any of the recalls has been related to meat source, so we feel confident in this part of our decision.
2. We will not sell foods made outside the US
3. We will not sell foods made by a company that will not disclose this information.
4. We will not sell foods with any ingredients known to be suspect.
5. Here are our Quality Standards:
6. We will not sell any food, treat or consumable made with ingredients from China.
7. We will not sell any food, treat or consumable products made in China
8. The Products we sell are all made from Human Grade Ingredients
9. The Products we sell contain no chemicals or additives
10. We do not sell any foods that contain suspect ingredients such as wheat gluten, rice protein concentrate or any other grain fractions or filler type ingredients.
11. We have suspended sales of all foods, recalled or not that are made at Menu Foods.
12. We are in direct communication with every manufacturer whose food is on our website and have thoroughly reviewed their quality assurance, sourcing of ingredients and production. If a product is on our site, it has been reviewed and approved by us. If anything were to change that would place that product line below our standards, that product would be immediately removed from our site.
13. We are in the process of reviewing each product that we have suspended sales of. We are hopeful that many of them will be back on our site in the near future and can assure you that if they are, they will have been thoroughly screened for safety.

We feel that this is the appropriate next step to take with all our pet’s health and safety in mind. It will most likely not be the last step we take. Based on this decision, we have provided a list of foods that we are currently carrying below. We do invite any specific questions and ask for your patience in response. The level of communication is at a volume that is far beyond our current capabilities. We will continue to update you with any new information about the recall or regarding decisions we make about the products we carry.
Sincerely, John Gigliotti
President and Founder Waggintails.com

Talk about a company going above and beyond the call! You can read many of the emails they sent to their clients by date on their homepage.

But enough about their business practices. What ARE they?

Waggintails.com is a website that sells natural and organic pet products. They sell lots of different items, from food to grooming products to toys to kitty litter. Pooka's favorite corduroy elephant stuffy came from waggintails.com. We buy our merrick treats from them by the case. Their shipments have always been timely, their customer service is a pleasure to work with, and we can't say enough about the way they behaved during the recalls.

Before you all ask, no there's no kickback here - we just want to recognize and thank them for being so responsible during the pet food nightmare. They made hard decisions easy for us and they took a lot of stress off of our parents' shoulders. So if you're ever looking online for a place to buy some new treats, or for a company that sells a high-end pet food you can't find locally, please check them out. They definitely deserve the right to earn your business!