RawPetMedics Tuesday Live

Don't worry, we're coming back. We are. We're not gonna leave you. Yeah, here we are.

Trying to give her a scare, guys. This is— this is Raw Pet Medics, and we are Brendan Clarke and we are Dr. Conor Brady. And today we have a, a young, young lady by the name of Ellie Thompson who's coming to join us, and she runs pet dermadog, among other things. But just before we get into that, I'm just going to say thank you very much to all our Patreon people. You can find us on Patreon, on Raw Pet Medics— forward slash— no, patreon.com/rawpetmedics, which is dead easy, and all your favorite podcast medium. So, um, please, uh, come along to that if you'd like to support us on Patreon. We would be very grateful because it helps us keep the lights on. Which is amazing. Yeah.

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Oh, we're on YouTube. Oh yeah. Okay, cool. Very good. So Ellie Thompson, Ellie Hodges, I saw was on the email there. Ellie, do you want to tell us a little bit about the start of DermaDog? What, what was the start of this for you?

Okay, well, um, it's very random really. Um, you know, I— my background is in design. Um, I did a design degree at university. I went into advertising. Um, I was in advertising for quite a long time until, um, having children. And it was at the point of having children when I was forced to stop that. And we also moved somewhere rural. I think that that was a key thing as well. Life changed quite a lot. And I began freelancing design, so working from home, but also that gave me time to focus on some of the things that I enjoyed. And I've always been a maker, a creative person and a maker of things. And got into making kind of lotions and potions for myself using essential oils and it's something that interested me greatly and I just, I thought, well, this would be a really nice thing to do. I'd love to create a brand and to make these things for people. But then it was kind of Nick's influence really that kind of led me to making these things for dogs because there is a need out there. People want these things for their dogs. And I wouldn't say it's so much a niche anymore because there are lots of people doing it too. But that's how it began. That's how it began. And so that was— I don't even know how many years ago now. I want to say maybe 3 years ago, 3 years ago, something like that.

I remember being over in your house and I remember hearing at the start of this and the ideas were flooding out. And at the very start, and I already had supplements out for years, I remember at the very start, your ideas and and it looks so good. And I just thought, bloody hell. I mean, it's just so easy. It's so easy. I mean, it's not easy, of course it's not, but your designs and just the way the stuff looks is brilliant. But like, what about the products itself? Like, give us an example of, like, what, like, give me an example of what are your favorite, give me top 3 products from Dermalogica and what do they do?

Okay, so I would say, well, I don't really have a favorite. I would say my top 3, My top sellers undoubtedly have to be Insect Defense, which especially at this time of year—

let's have a look, let's have a look, really close, there you go, there you go, fine.

So this is a, this is a, this is a very popular thing, it sells like hotcakes at the moment.

And Ellie, where can people get the product? DermaDog.com?

Yeah, germadog.com, yes, that is the main place that you can buy it, but I do have some stockists all over the UK actually. You can have a look and see who those stockists are if you want to buy it locally. I've recently had an enquiry from a bookshop in Arran called the Wee Bookshop. I don't know if anybody out there knows it. He was very interested in stocking some Insect Defense. I think he's yet to do so, but that was my latest enquiry, which I loved that because I haven't yet been stopped in a bookshop. I know why. Yeah, in Arran, or in a bookshop actually. Yeah, because it's mid-season up there, I believe. It gets really midgey, doesn't it?

Insects are— I am not a fan of flying things, and I can tolerate them. I mean, everyone loves a bee, but you know, what's the point of a but they're just such— I don't know why, but, um, if people are supposed to like them, I don't. I just want to— I want them out. But of all of my most hated insects, little tiny flies. And we were over in France and, uh, just recently, and my God, the amount of flies! And I was getting a few bites, nothing too bad, but the kids were watching me kill them and, uh, they were saying, Daddy, you hate nature! And I thought, oh, that's not a good example. But it was just so many of them because this year living in a forest and it's just full all the flies. So that would have been— where do you put this spray? Do you put it on the dog, on the collar? Do you put it every walk out?

Well, people have different preferences. I recommend that you kind of, you spread on your hands, spread on your hands, and then you can rub into the coat. It depends on your dog as well. I'm going to be honest and say that Bluebell is not very keen on being sprayed by anything, so that's also why I put it on my hands. When I put it on Bluebell, but some dogs don't mind. It really is a personal thing, you know, just obviously say to avoid all those mucous membranes and around the eyes. But yeah, it's really, really very straightforward. It smells nice and you can use it pretty much as much as you need to use it. Lovely.

There's Kathy Slater's wondering, can you post these products outside of Britain? People are wondering.

Yeah, so yes, yes. I do, I do, but I don't have a— it's difficult. So, you know, I've got people from Bulgaria, I've got people from the States, I've got people from Ireland, everyone kind of wanting it, and it's always a different postage price, and I haven't yet got that ability on the website to be able to select the right shipping. So what I say is, is if you're in another country outside of the UK, just to contact me, and then I can provide you with a direct payment link, and then I can give you— I can go and look for the best. I mean, it's just, it's gone nuts to post stuff to, um, to Ireland is pretty bad. You know, I had somebody in Dublin recently.

Yeah.

Um, it's so expensive. It's so expensive. Um, and, and to the States it's even worse. You know, anything that's over, over say 500 grams, um, it's really expensive.

So yeah, and it changes so quickly. So if you have the certain weights of your products, we, when we did initially, we had it, we were exploiting the shipping brackets that they had, and then things change and suddenly you're it's just like a weekly issue. So yeah, shipping is a hard thing to stay on top of. But you can see clearly, people are just saying here straight away that these are the sort of products people want. So like, you can see there's a hunger for it. So your plan is that when somebody orders in the US or Canada, you would say, you would ideally have a stockist in the US and say, go to that person.

Yeah, well, if there's anybody out there, and I've just seen Michelle, Michelle, she's saying, any chance these lovely products will be available in the US, maybe through Dr. Judy's website? So that's maybe something I've got to investigate.

I think it's a brilliant idea.

I think what you need, you need a little drugs mule. Okay, you go to the lecture around the world. Okay, you need to, just in case somebody on high is watching this, and just to stop him at the next security check, and then he just needs to pack his bags with loads of products, send him to a lecture.

One of the kids, nobody searches kids, I don't think. So that would be—

I've got two, so I could just, you know, we'll send one in one direction and one in the other. Run!

At the airport.

Yeah, and so do you know what bugs do we protect from with that spray? What are we thinking? Are we thinking like, is it flying things or is it crawling things or what do you think?

Well, exactly, thank you. It's mainly ticks and fleas because that's the main kind of, you know, I've got mosquitoes there but we don't really have mosquitoes in this country. However, we do take this away with us if we go anywhere, if we're off anywhere, hot. We take that with us. We took it to Sri Lanka recently.

Horseflies. Horseflies are devils, you know.

Oh, I hate it.

They don't, uh, they don't take off. Like, I was in a week— there's a Phoenix Park here, and you're looking after deer herd for years. And so you're standing there looking through a telescope, and they cover you, and they— like, you're like— and you won't leave your hands. Like, you have to flick them off. They are, they are aggressive, and they bite hard. Um, there's another flight someone's going to give out to me for hating, but I hate horses. So stubborn.

It's just they stick their mouth parts in, you can actually see them chomping on your arm and just—

they leave a hole, don't they, almost a big puncture wound in your skin.

Oh my God.

So what other products have you got there, Ellie? You've got a few just in front of you and a few behind you as well. I see.

I do. Well, those are, those are my pinch pots, but I'll get on to those in a moment. Um, just the— if we're sticking to the top 3, this is also a really really popular one. People love this. It's called— it's, um, it's DermaDog Calm Nourishing Balm. Um, it's, it's a multi-purpose balm that you can use pretty much anywhere on, on any part of the body. You can use it on your body, you can use it on your— you know, it's just, it's so good. It's like a, it's like a natural Vaseline. Oh yeah.

So what's it like, a sheer butter?

What's in it?

It's got, um, it's manuka, it's got mango butter, It has got shea butter, it's got almond oil as well, and it's got— well, you're gonna have to have a look at the thing.

Hey, we know how to take care of ourselves up in Yorkshire.

What's mango butter, like made from squished mangoes?

No, well, it's the oil that's extracted from the mango. Yeah, so lovely. And it's quite thick in its pure form, it's really quite thick and sticky, as is shea butter, really thick and sticky, but you can kind of when you blend it with the oil, you kind of heat it up to a nice temperature, blend it in, mix in your essential oils. I just left my thing falling out.

And do you do this? You said you were, you said you were blending them up and heating up. Where do you do— do you make these products yourself?

I do make them myself. It's partly in the kitchen, and I do have a workshop as well. However, I have, um, yeah, I kind of It's quite cold in the workshop actually, I'm going to say that now, and I've kind of migrated back into the kitchen a little bit.

I love that.

But you know, yeah, well, you know, it's great and I've got the dogs around me and while I'm doing other elements of work actually, which we'll get onto as well, but everything, it's quite chaotic at home at times, which is, it's both a wonderful thing and, well, it's just chaotic, let's just leave it there.

Yeah, it's hard working from home, I mean, I'm working from home and Elaine's working from home and we've two kids and then the summer hits. We've never had kids on summer holidays because they've been so young and it's just chaos. It's just absolutely chaos and I'm locked in a room here and they know when the door's closed they don't open it, but like most of the time the door's open and they're in and out and it's hard. Yeah, so you know, it's tricky.

It's tricky. Did you say your kids are at school now? They're at school?

No, so they're finished school. We get an extra month of summer holidays than you, so we finish, we can finish like June, July, August, well, so yeah, it was anyway, it's proven quite tricky to manage it all. And this is our first year of it because this is Holly's first summer off and she's looking for things to do. She's in her camp for like 3 hours, 3 hours, you're half— anyway, guys, I'm talking about my own issues here.

That's part of the thing. And this is—

yeah, I was just going to say that the human and dog crossover, I give out Calmbalm a lot for sore paws and sore noses and for just, you know, bits, bits and pieces. And universally everybody says, oh yeah, it's okay for the dog, but it's great for my lips in winter. Yeah, literally people will use it, blokes and, and women as well. So I use it on lips, eyelids.

Yeah, I have dry patches. Yeah, eyelids, just get a dry eyelid. I get prone to a dry eyelid when I get—

you get a dry eyelid.

So following, following Rachel's, um, comment about, you know, does Nip test all these products? So what sort of stuff do you go through to sort of like work out how effective they are and where is the safe levels of what you're using? What's that safety margin for those people out there listening?

Okay, so for what, which product in particular, or are you talking about all of them?

Well, just, you know, so you're looking at developing a product Yeah, what do you do? You say, right, Nick gives you maybe a little bit of input from him as you bounce it off, and you've done loads of research about it, and then you're putting this product together. Okay. And yeah, we all worry a little bit about, well, how's it going to act on the animals, you know, what, what level of safety is there going to be? How do you go through that sort of testing phase?

Okay, on the children first of all, and if it's okay on them, try it on yourself. No, then we try it on me, and then we try it on the dogs, and if everybody's happy, that's the phase 1, phase 2, phase 3 trial testing. And if that's okay, then we, then we know we're, we're in a good place.

Okay, now put Nick to one side, Ellie. Give us a proper answer.

Okay, so, um, you know, I'll start by, uh, creating, uh, I mean, I haven't done this for a really long time, actually. I haven't I've had these range of products for quite a long time now and haven't come out with anything particularly new apart from the Finch Pots. And I'd start off with say maybe 10 different varieties and you can kind of increase things. You start with something very mild, very bland, knowing that, I guess, you go on the basis that these recipes are used on humans, you know, kind of like tried and tested. Using that as a basis and also taking into account things that are perhaps not safe for dogs without going into great detail on that. But then you kind of like mix these different varieties and you just have to— it's just a case of testing the consistency, you know, the smell, because obviously smell sometimes, you know, something that might smell great to you won't smell great to a dog. And yeah, it's just, it's kind of like going through and ticking ticking all the boxes on your checklist to see and to help you compare those different variations, and then going with the best one. And you know, it's always a trial at first to see how it's taken, to see how it's accepted by people, how it's liked, and just asking for lots and lots and lots of feedback.

Pam Thornton is saying, how long can they keep after opening?

The, uh, the—

okay, so shampoos. Yeah, show us a few shampoos maybe.

Okay, so shampoos, right? You've only got the small ones.

It's a salesman, isn't he?

It's just like, come on, show us your products.

Thank you. Here we go. This is actually a small bottle there.

That's it.

Glossy. Oh, um, I've got a— I've got a conditioner as well for those that like to do a bit of grooming. I know that everybody wants to wash their dogs in these.

So what's the difference between Glossy and Silky?

Yeah, I can tell you.

The Silky is the conditioner, the Silky is the conditioner, of which I only have one. And then the Glossy is a shampoo, is a shampoo. And that differs to the Itchy because the oils in the Itchy are, you know, they're selected for their properties of repelling insects.

What oils are in the itchy one? I'm interested.

So in the itchy, we've got lavender, eucalyptus, and peppermint. Peppermint being slightly analgesic, so if you've got slightly sore skin, that can help to soothe it.

Um, nice.

And yeah, yeah, and, uh, and, and there are others actually as well in there. Those are the ones that I put on the front, but on the back I do, I disclose all of my ingredients so you can see exactly what's in there. And the lavender is also to help to soothe the itchy skin as well.

And the gloss—

in the Glossy, we've got rosemary, lavender, and lemon. Rosemary, just great, great for the follicles, you know, to help kind of stimulate hair growth. And lemon and lavender also.

Don't look at me and Conor when you're saying things like that.

It's not fair. I remember hair.

Nick uses Glossy, look.

Yeah, if I was using more DermaDog, maybe things would be different, but This is what soap does, everybody. That's soap.

Yeah.

Oh, Karen's joining in now. Yeah, girls. All right, that's great.

Thanks very much. This is what that sort of soda soap that was really harsh and horrible.

Yeah.

Do you remember that orange soap that used to be in your grandma's kitchen? Do you remember?

Imperial Leather?

No, it was like, I think it was, oh, what was it called?

It was like an orange bar and it was always Pears.

Yeah, that is old school stuff.

Little magnet in, little magnet in there so you stick it on there.

Little magnet. Never saw the magnet. That's a good idea, actually. I'm back, I'm back to using soap. There's a, there's a lady making soaps down the road, and so, you know, getting those lovely— because they all— soaps just smell so good, you know, when someone's making them at home. So I'm back using a bit of soap. But there's just nowhere to leave soap. Like, if you're not ready for it, you have to have soap trays. I know I'm talking about my own issues again, but it means it sticks to the side of the hand basin all the time. So I just go through my soap like in a few days, so I need to kind of move on to different products anyway. Bloody hell. You mentioned coal tar soap. Is that what you were going to go ooh about, Ellie?

No, that's not what I was going to go, but everybody is saying coal tar soap there. Maybe it's the old stuff. Was it the pears?

Coal tar soap I remember as well.

Yeah, that's the stuff that I'm really coarse. Oh, don't go.

Oh yeah, that sounds— it sounds acidic. What's that? What are the things on the shelf there behind you, Ellie? What are those?

No, they're not. These are— these are pinch pots. All right, pinch pots.

These are—

these are the latest thing, and they're just— they, they are herbal blends, uh, for different things. There are 3 different types. There's a— there's a— this one is the, um, the calming blend. And then we've got a Defense Blend here, which does what?

Lovely.

So sorry, so the Defense Blend is, uh, it's your repellent, so you want to use that in the summer months. Um, best to start using it in the spring. You feed it? Sorry, yes, yes, you do feed it. And I'm just going to maybe open up one of these so you can see.

The labels are lovely, Ellie.

Thank you.

I'm jealous.

Information here, basically she's got these enormous great plastic buckets and so she'll bring a dozen—

that's nice—

sacks of herb into the kitchen and we'll measure out from each sack into this enormous bucket and then we'll mix it by hand and then we'll hand fill every single thingy up to the appropriate weight volume, and that's how it's done. Literally handcrafted. It's really— and the kitchen smells amazing.

I wear gloves.

Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, Nick doesn't. Straight out of his ass, straight out of expressing some anal glands. Give me the bloody—

I want to know, are you paying your kids more than the minimum wage to to fill those pinch points.

So where did all this come from, Eddie? You kind of dropped in at the very start that you have businesses, Business Eye. So you have other things on the hop as well as this?

Well, no, actually, the other thing, it's not my own business. And, you know, some of your viewers will probably know because they are, they're NICS Some of them are Nick's clients, and I, for the last year, have been helping Nick with Holistic Vet. He moved his practice just over a year ago, and I hopped on as his practice manager. So I have been, I've been doing that for the last year alongside Dermadog, which, you know, you can imagine at the very beginning what my reaction to that would have been. I wasn't sure who was going to murder who first, but actually, here you go, here is the Here is the evidence: we are both still alive, and actually it's going really well. And it's a really, it's a really nice overlap of the two businesses. Um, I get to know his love, and I'm just gonna say hello to his clients out there, whoever's watching. I know that some of you are there. Um, it's nice to— well, I can't see you, but you can see me. So, um, it's really, you know, really nice. I talk to some nice people every day, um, and it helps me learn more about this particular industry. I mean, it's such a multifaceted industry, you know, you can kind of— the perspective that I've come in from, as I said, you know, I've come from a design background. I haven't come in as a dog nutritionist or a dog behaviourist. I haven't come in from that angle, clearly, but I've learned so much along the way in terms of looking after our dogs. Obviously, I've got massive help on hand, but It's been a really great thing for me. And so, um, what was that? I can't remember the question you asked.

What was your— I've got a very pertinent question there after you— what, after what you said. So what is, um, what's the best thing about running your own business? Um, uh, what's the, what's the worst thing? What do you not like? Give some advice for people that are starting off. People always ask for— when you're in the thick of it, what was like— give me some tips of things you wish you did and things you're happy you're doing, or whatever. You know, put your favourites in.

Okay, well, I think it's very much a personal thing as to what the good things would be. And for me, I think it's just, it's the freedom to be able to do things in the way that you want to do them. You know, when I was stuck in that advertising job, sitting at my desk day in, day out, really, I look back now and I know that I hated it. At the time, I was trying to convince myself that it was just the greatest thing. And it's like, oh, you know, this is my career and it's going to be great. But actually, in comparison, since having children, which changes everything, you know, I'm able to just weave, weave everything around and make it all work together in terms of Nick as well, because he's now from home working from home. And so the good things are, is it's the freedom and flexibility, it's being able to learn things as you go, yeah, you know, learn things that you'd never learn, I suppose, before. Before if you didn't have that opportunity. And what else was I gonna say? That was just on the tip of my tongue. Well, I'm just going to say that on the flip side of that, it's just that everything can be quite chaotic, you know.

Yeah.

As Conor, maybe you were kind of touching on that, you know, having your kids at home, and one thing kind of weaves into another, weaves into another, weaves into to each other. And so it's, it's kind of difficult to take a break from that sometimes. So you have to be quite rigid, and, and in your mind, you have to have the things that you enjoy, and you separate from everything. You just have to compartmentalize, I suppose. Um, and it's— you never really escape. You never really, you know, you don't just pack up from work and then go home and then think about something else. It's just, it's constantly there. Constantly there.

Constantly. Yeah, yeah. I wonder, is it the same for vets? Is it like, um, because you guys both run businesses, so like, is it the same? Like, me and are in, you know, essentially manufacturing and trying to do everything. You're trying to wear 20 hats. And when you guys go in to run your own business, are you running your own business, or are you focusing on being a vet and then bringing in a practice manager? Or do you feel you're a jack of all trades at the start as well?

That's an interesting thing.

Oh, do you want me to go next? I think from a point of view of me for conventional, definitely you become a jack of all trades. I mean, it winds people up when you're or having to think marketing, you know, finance, where, how all the HR stuff that has to come in. You've got to do all the DIY. You've got to know all the computer systems, how they work. You've got to know what's going on with the internet speeds and everything else. But if you're doing remote stuff, there's just so much behind the scenes, but you want to be the best that you possibly can and care at the other end. And then, yeah, a number of times I've been asked to leave work at work. Yeah, I'll be answering people's messages or, of course, you know, going back in to check on patients like I'm going to be doing after this, um, you know, just to ensure that that care is there. And those— so it does become one of those things that actually, if you're in the veterinary industry and it's not vocation, it will drive you nuts. Oh yeah, if you see veterinary as a job, then you will be able to tell that vet, you know, you— that, that vet will be just, you know, almost switching off, um, in the second half of the day. And you get to see that there are some great vets out there that you can tell it's a vocation because they will talk about your pet to you day in, day out. Doesn't matter whether you see them at a country fair or, you know, in the practice, they will be more than happy to talk about what happens in veterinary. And that's how I tell the difference between those vets that see it as a vocation and those vets that see it as just a job. Yeah, I mean, Nick's talking about stuff, you know, in his off time, online, all the time, you know. It's one of those things, it becomes a vocation.

Young vets couldn't see that coming though. You go into college and I just want to, you know, be with animals and work with animals. And then the bit you don't see is, well, you've got to manage staff now and premises and books and bills and all the stuff that comes with that. That is a full-time job alone. I mean, you have to be your own practice manager before you get a practice manager. And you've got to do all of— like with your job with veterinary, you have to put in a lot of man hours to the one thing you're doing. But when you're running a business, you just have to— you can flip from things to things and you don't have to be. It doesn't just— no one thing demands my time all the time, you know. So that's pretty hardcore. It must add to the bit of stress that is being a vet. I mean, that's a lot to be doing.

Don't get me wrong, look, there's delegation, you know, absolutely. You know, we're now at a staff of 30. We were a staff of, you know, 15 when I joined Tower Wood. It is just, you know, it's one of those things of having the foresight of where you can manage and run the place, and you need to be able to delegate other tasks and be able to manage the reports that come back in. But you do, in order to be able to manage those people and delegate, you need to understand their job roles. And that's the thing, you can't just sort of like go, I haven't got a clue, do it, because you need to double-check it's fitting with the, the way forward. So that's from a veterinary point of view. Nick, are you sort of like Is this— you've just delegated everything to Ellie and Ellie's managing you?

Yeah, I mean, she's been quite modest here. She is basically the practice manager. She makes— I do the clinical stuff up front and she does all the rest. She does the insurance and the books and the posting out and, you know, feeding the dogs and running the house and doing the digital stuff and doing the DermaDog.

And what are you doing?

5 in all.

Yeah, I take the dog out for a walk in the morning.

Yeah, it's—

yeah, that's it. It's a very important job. Oh, have you not?

Blows the tent up, that's what he does.

Yeah, yeah, you know, we're all in small business and it's hard running a small business. It is hard. It's just hard doing everything at the same time and trying to do it well. So it must be great because like if Nick is in small business and then a designer comes along, I mean, that's going to be so good for business because a lot of people have great, you know, products and great businesses, but it doesn't look great. And you've got one second to make an impression on people. And so it's— nobody really thinks about the design and even how things look. So even just even trying to be a designer, everyone tries to design their own labels at the start. It's always a disaster. And I spent years thinking I'll just design— I went to Dragons' Den with my own labels, and I look back at them and they are so rotten, they're so naff. I got kilometers of this stuff printed, plastic packets.

I know, that's the thing, isn't it? You've got thousands of the things. I had a typo on my first set of labels and I was kicking myself. So awful. You can't— there's no way you can use it. So I've still got those somewhere thinking I'm probably going to use them for something, but of course I never will.

You're not, you're definitely not.

Yeah, guys, I've just thought of the fifth Fifth thing which Ellie is engaged in is absolutely driving it, and it's a really good example of her design, and that is we— well, she is pioneering the Holistic Vet Shop, which is coming out at Edition Dog Live at the end of August. And from then on, it's going to be a whole portal of natural holistic products which have been tried and tested by, by us on our dogs, by my clients, what have you. So it's just going to be, it's going to be like Marks Spencer's except really good for you.

Yeah. And really, you know, it was kind of this thought of doing this shop came about because, um, currently, you know, lots of, all, lots of your, your clients will email in with what they want, and that's a real faff for them to have to kind of write in with that detail every time, and then they get an invoice, and then, you know, it's just so much nicer for them to be browse and see what's available, see how much it is. You know, they might be having a sleepless night and thinking, oh, I need to go and buy some eco ears or some, I don't know, deer velvet or something. And so it'll be a really good thing. And because it ties in with the DermaDog shop as well, so we're gonna do that, we're gonna do that. And it's just, it's just a little bit of work, you know. Again, so that's, that's another tricky thing, it's like finding time to fit that in. So we're gonna Working on it.

Brent, have you got any of those images that I sent, uh, just to show? Just because Ellie is actually really good with this design stuff. If you have a look at dermadog.com, it's brilliantly laid out. It's just super simple but really punchy, impactful. And she's kind of done the same, similar but slightly more clinical, with the holistic vet shop. I just—

yeah, I'll just upload it in a moment.

But yeah, Rach has just asked the question. Sorry, she was just asking a question. Will this shop have a pop-up shop at the live live? Well, yeah, the idea is that we're going to bring some of those veterinary products along at the DermaDog stand. I mean, Nick's doing— what are you doing at DermaDog?

I'm doing two talks and then—

what are you doing, Nick?

What are you doing? I'm going to be there, pick up some loose ends somewhere.

Will you?

I'll be, I'll be sweeping the floor probably. But no, seriously, I'm going to be, I'm going to be doing two talks and I'm going to be around to chat to people all day long about raw food and health and holism and, you know, all that amazing stuff. I really, really recommend to go to Edition Dog Live because it's like Crufts except everybody there is on the same page. Everybody has got the holistic natural thing, you know, drugs have their place, yeah, yeah, yeah, but everybody's wanting to minimize drugs, maximize health, and that's the people who go to Edition Dog Live. You can't go wrong, it's very, very good.

And there's a big variety of stuff on offer, you know, there's not— it's not just, it's not just natural treats, and you know, which is great, you know, because people love to get that stuff, um, at these types of shows, but you know that There are the collars and the coats and the accessories and the different raw food companies. I think Paleo is going to be there this year, which is really wonderful. Like Paleo, I think it's going to be even better this year. It's only one day, which I think is probably a good thing. I think people will come all on the same day. I reckon, you know, RPM should be having a stand somewhere. You should be.

Yeah, maybe we should.

I'm with the RFVS at Dog Edition Live, so you'll find me manning a stand there as well alongside Nick. I think Nick, it's— we're going to be doing—

yeah, I'll be, I'll be there, mate. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I think Maya may be even coming across, but we'll have a look. I think so. We're just certainly, um, you know, RFVS is there, so it's just going to be difficult to have an RPM stand. Conor can just come and sit in the corner and yeah, yeah.

2 for a fiver. Or PMT.

Brent, can you, can you blow up that shot?

Yeah, I will.

It's beautifully done.

I'll tell you what, I'm going to just do this. Oh, what have you seen? An error? Before I blow it up?

No, no, no, no, no, I have it. Sorry, it's really lovely seeing everybody's comments. I didn't realize that I was going to be able to see everybody's comments. It's so nice. Emma Rutherford. Hi, Emma. Um, she's just said, will I see you at Brighton? Barkery early in September. Yes, you will. That's going to be really exciting, very excited about that. Um, sorry, I've interrupted.

Let's see if I can get this moved. There we go, there we go.

I'm just going to blow it up just so that people can see your artwork.

I'm going to hide you for a moment, Ellie, just one sec. Yeah, we can still hear you.

Philip and Mercy, um, She says, can you take your dog to Edition Live? I believe you can, I believe you can.

I think there were dogs.

Oh yes, look, there's the shop, there's the shop. Um, this is, this is a sneak peek, it's not finished actually, and, um, I'm sorry that, that, that those things aren't all in the right order, but that's essentially what it's going to look like.

They're not alphabetical, is that like—

yeah, size order?

I think it's just put them in As in the order that they've been added to the system, um, I think that's what it's done and it needs some sorting out, that does.

But don't worry, Ellie, it looks great to us.

Oh, that's cool. Nice. I like it.

That's cool.

Where did, uh, where did the business side of things come from? So everyone, every small business person comes from a small business person. Um, do you have small business people in your family?

No, I don't. No, no, no, I don't. And actually, I didn't really have any kind of business training, which actually I, I, I regret. Well, I don't regret— everybody comes from a different perspective, right? I, I, um, I actually hate all of the admin side of things. Um, it is the most boring thing. It's such a creative thing that I do, it's, it's the opposite. Um, and I just feel my way forwards with that. Um, I know that I should be doing more on social media. I should be doing, you know, there's so many things I should be doing more of It's really hard to just keep up with it all.

Yeah. Yeah, I think creative people do. I think creative people struggle with the living inside the box of admin, and we aren't— I don't think I'm creative or not. Maybe I am. I'm somewhere in the middle. But I mean, bloody hell, I can't keep books. I can't sit down and do admin. If a form came in that I had to sign, I wouldn't sign it. It's like some sort of disease. And Elena would say, all you have to do is sign the bloody thing. I did everything else. I was like, I will, I'll do it. I just have to do something else. I'm just allergic to paperwork. And it's a problem if you're getting into business because you need to have that stuff drum tight. And it ran me aground on my first venture when I was making raw dog food, because that is a business you need to be absolutely tight in. And you're dealing with vets in Ireland, you're dealing with them every 3 weeks, 4 weeks, complete racket. 2 middle-aged vets coming in every 4 weeks going through your paperwork. And it's hard work because my paperwork is in a shoebox, you know, under the desk. And they come in, you're trying to iron it out and make it look fancy with a nice paperclip. And like, he's like, they did not like dealing with me. I sympathize with that.

Is that because you kept putting the bone paperclips on it? Is that what the— you remember that?

What's that?

Have you not seen the paperclips shaped like a bone and what they end up looking like when you put them on the paperwork?

Ah, interesting.

That's probably why they didn't like you. You'll have to look at that meme.

They didn't like me for a lot of reasons and it went beyond paperwork. But it made running a business very stressful. That's why it's great when you get somebody like Karen, or you get a right-hand man in the business that kind of helps you out, because it takes the weight off. Initially, you have to do it yourself. You have to know, like Bren was saying, you have to know all the roles and you have to learn them. That's why I started a little shop here with Holly. She's only 5 now, but I remember my dad, my dad had a little tiny shop. Talking about my own shit again, guys, sorry. But my dad had a little hardware shop down the road, and I was starting that young, and and Dad, like, I need to make money. And Dad's like, pick those plums at the end of the garden and sell them outside the shop. I'm like, what? I just give me money. We didn't have any money in the '80s. So picked all the plums and sold them, and the bug hit. I just love, uh, I love face-to-face selling. And so anyway, uh, fast forward to Holly wants money for boot skates. I'm thinking, I'm gonna make you work for these. And so we set up— what shop will we set up? So I talked to her to set up a dog shop. All the kids are selling lemonade and the same things over and over, you know, junk. And so we said we'll do dog treats and we got little packaging and I taught her, got her a little till and started teaching her about money and she owes me money for setting it up. And then we bought in labels and all this sort of stuff and we sold the money and nearly got the money for the boot skates. I think that's it. You've got to get involved.

Brilliant. That's really good.

You've got to get stuck in and do it yourself initially to learn the pitfalls. Like very few people are zero to hero.

It's a bit steep charging of the management fees though.

Had to be done. You've got to pay the man. You've got to pay the man. She had no money to invest. It's great. I get necessary as well. It's great.

Okay, so, so Ellie, just in the last 5 minutes, if you were setting up your business from scratch again, are there any things that you would do or not do? If just with what you've learned, you've been in business what, 6, 7 years now?

Hmm, well, no, not, not that long with ThermaDog. Um, before then I was freelancing. Freelancing, um, working as a self-employed person, that teaches you a little bit about business, you know. I kind of got into having relationships with your clients and how to talk to them, how not to talk to them. Um, so I learned a lot of stuff there. I don't know. Um, I guess, um, being perhaps having a bit more, uh, formal training in terms of setting it all up. Somebody to say you need to do it like this, this, and this. I don't know, I don't— maybe it wouldn't have turned into something had it been like that. Maybe that would have been too rigid for me. I'm not sure. I think, I think you just, you have to trust your heart a little bit and take a bit of a risk. Um, I think you have to do that always in order to try, to try something new, to find yourself in a new place.

I think choosing something that you really love, choosing something that you really enjoy, as opposed to choosing the most lucrative thing that you can possibly think of.

Oh yeah, yeah.

I think that makes a big difference, isn't it? Because that's what gets you through the difficult times a whole lot more than loads of money can get you through, you know, difficult times.

Yeah.

You know, just the love of it and the love of talking to people and getting some great feedback, you know, Ellie's getting great feedback from people just on a daily basis with all her products, and that really gives you a buzz, I think.

Yeah, it does give me a buzz.

And look at all your stockists. I'm on your page here on DermaDog, and like, look at all your stockists. Look how well you've done. If you were to rewind 2 years ago when you started off, or 3 years ago, and said, would you be happy with 50 stockists or 60 stockists and turning over whatever this is and having 20 different products, you'd be like, hell hell yeah, am I gonna be done? But it's— you just shift the goalposts so much, it just never gets done. And suddenly this isn't good enough. And you were too quick to shift the goalposts on ourselves and not sit back and go, look what I've done. So many people talk about doing it and so few people actually do it. So it's, it's, it's cool what you've done, but it's— we rarely sit back and pat ourselves on the back. We just go, no, I need to do more. Look at all the stuff I'm not doing, you know. So it's like a never-ending race, you know. But it's, it's you got to sit back and smell the roses sometimes. I think it looks great. Look at all your stockers. If people want to stock this product, um, Ellie, where do they get in touch? Go to DermaDog, email you there?

Yes, they can do that. They can email me directly at woof@dermadog.com. Nice and easy to remember, um, if you're interested in doing that thing. Um, uh, likewise, if you, if, if you've got an inquiry about, um, whether I could send it to you if you're living abroad, and I can get back to you and let you know about that.

Where do you supply apart from the UK, Ellie?

Well, Bulgaria. I did have a stockist in Italy, although she hasn't ordered for a while yet, but Bulgaria, so in Sofia, and also— oh gosh, Dubai. Yes, Dubai. Who's stocking you in Dubai? Fertile Pets. Nice, nice.

Look at this shop.

I'm also stocked by, um, Paleo Ridge. They stock my wash bars. Um, and also, uh, Pro Dog Raw. They stock, they stock my shampoos and my sprays. Um, I mean, there's just, there's just talking, talking of small businesses, you know, that there are a plethora of small businesses out there that I do business with. And, you know, it's the groomers, and there are, um, uh, kind of like pet boutiques all over the place. And if you are one of them watching and you'd like to stock my products, then just give me a shout. I would, I would be really happy to talk to you.

So that's cool.

I just have to say one thing, just, uh, Emma Rutherford has just reminded me, and I've never heard anybody else say this, but she, Emma, uses the, uh, the insect defense spray. Oh no, it's the— is it the itchy spray? So she uses the insect defense spray for her menopausal hot flushes and swears by it. No way!

Who thought?

Emma, you're hilarious and amazing at the same time, so that's brilliant. Okay guys, it's, it's 1945, and so Can we just jump on for another 10 minutes with some questions, some quickfire questions?

Could I, could I, could I dare that we, in Patreon for our supporters, maybe we will do some sort of a question where we ask them to answer a question in Patreon and you might, we might send them out a little prize. Will we do that so they can experience something? How about doing that? We'll pick a product we like and we send it out to somebody I would answer a question in Patreon. I don't know what that is, but just for the Patreon supporters, will we do that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We just need to do one other little thing, and that is just to say, uh, thank you to everybody who have booked their tickets. Um, you know, you want to go online, it's going great. Um, there is a link, uh, thank you to Karen for putting the link up, um, uh, for Eventbrite. And, you know, if you want to book your tickets, they're going hot. So we just need to make sure you've got a place on the 2nd of December in Manchester. Come join us for the Real Live Live. Some great sessions booked through, a little bit of entertainment booked for the end to enjoy ourselves together. So we'd love to see you there. If you want to get online, just look at us for the Eventbrite link. Thank you, Karen, again. And it would be great to see you there. And all of those people in the States—

how many have we sent? How many have we sold? And how many in total? I think it's 220 in total.

We— yeah, 220. So I mean, in the first 24 hours, I was amazed. We sold 20% of them flat out. So I've just, you know, so yeah, it's worth just getting the place placemarker down and having a look, see what's going on. I haven't looked since— I'm sorry, not looking at that every day. That's okay. But that's— I said I'd take a look after a week, but I know they're going hot. Yeah, Christina says, have you got a larger venue? And I went, no.

Yeah, next year, 2nd to December, guys, come along. It'll be Christmas partying and a fun—

be there or be square. It's going to be awesome. Can't wait.

All right, brilliant. So if you guys want to, um, switch over in about an hour, you'll see some more stuff live with Ellie. Um, and, uh, um, yeah, we'll ask some more questions behind the scenes.

Cool. Nice.

Take care.

See you all soon, guys. Thank you very much indeed.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me. It's an honor. It's an honor to be here.