lady maggie, as she is called, was diagnosed with heart arrhythmia and a joint disorder a few years ago. She had difficulty in getting up, going for walks or running, which led to her being overweight. not good at all. so AG’s had to stop being lazy & looking for the convenience of kibble and get serious about maggie’s health. she also had Neo to take care of, but we’ll come to him later.
as a working pet parent, who took the pet’s to work too, she needed a solution that was quick to make, easy to store and specific to maggie’s fussy taste. this is when she started to read up on pet nutrition and learned about the harmful effects of kibble. she started experimenting with tons of recipes, some of which Maggie liked and some she absolutely refused to touch, but AG managed to cook up a nice bunch, which she alternated every week. she saw a huge improvement in maggie’s health. Maggie got active, thinner and could now climb beds and go on 1km walks!
aka chipku (means sticky in hindi), since he can’t leave AG’s side even for a second (bathroom included). But her baby indie boy came with every skin problem a “firang” would have in our environment. at first, she thought it was mites (he is adopted and was on the street for a while), then she thought it was skin rashes and then it finally turned out that he had atopic dermatitis, which needs a lot of daily skincare and very specific dietary control.
so she had to now formulate another set of recipes for neo, who is fussier than maggie, and she went back back to experimenting with a few more recipes, specific to neo’s strict diet and came up with a few he loved. his dermatitis is now under control and he’s as happy and healthy as can be.
And that was that. both her babies were eating awesome food, loving mealtimes and getting healthier.
the covid-19 lockdown gave her enough time to think and realize how many other pet parents want something healthy, made with love, are convenient and economical for pet parents. she was cooking for this for maggie and neo anyway, so why not start and get more pet parents to have the convenience of fresh and healthy meals, so they don’t have to worry about their pet’s health and meal. she could even customize the meals to their pet’s specific daily intake and nutrition requirements!
then came the challenge of procuring human-grade meat, fresh produce, and grains, all at economical prices. with friends who have meat businesses and farms, and are pet lovers themselves, this was also easy to get into place.
so armed with that, with so much time on hand in the lockdown, she made google my best friend and intently poured over multiple recipes, did intensive pet nutrition research, spoke to vets and friends with pets, added a little common sense made the most of the lockdown, to then start what she loving calls - pawfectly made.