Angie (00:00)
Welcome back to Tails of Truth, where we tell the truth about veterinary medicine. I'm Dr. Angie, and this is my co-host and veterinary nurse, Extraordinaire Jojo. And today we're joined by Alex Pearson, the CEO and owner of Pet Domain, formerly ThorneVet And we're gonna get down and dirty about the supplement industry and

Alex Pearson PetDomain (00:24)
Yeah.

Angie (00:25)
what Pet Domain is up to now.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (00:27)
Yes.

Angie (00:28)
Thanks for being here.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (00:29)
Yes.

JoJo (00:29)
Hi Alex, welcome.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (00:31)
Well, thank you so much. I'm super excited to be with both of you.

JoJo (00:33)
We're excited to have you here. Yeah.

Angie (00:34)
So

Alex Pearson PetDomain (00:35)
Yeah.

Angie (00:36)
this is like huge news and it's been on my for you page a lot how Thorne was bought by Procter and Gamble and so Thorne vet was different than Thorne and so I mean you can tell it best what happened.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (00:49)
I will.

In fact, this is the first podcast I've been on since it all went down. So honestly, it's so happy to be on with both of you guys, especially because I've worked with you both for quite some time. I'm Jojo and I were talking off camera earlier. It's been six, seven years. You guys were actually one of my first customers when I took Thorne Vetover.

JoJo (01:10)
I did not know that.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (01:12)
Yeah. Yeah.

And so I'll give you a quick little history. my father

became the general counsel of Thorne Research back in nineteen ninety-five. So we're talking 30 plus years ago. And moving from DC as an attorney into Sandpoint, Idaho, which is way up in the panhandle. so Thorne's been in my life, you know, especially the outside part of my life. You know, when you're 16 and your dad takes a job, you're like, yeah, whatever, you're moving me across the country. I want to kill you. You know, and,

JoJo (01:40)
Uh-huh.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (01:41)
you know, I get there my junior year in high school and

And fast forward to about 2013, I came on to work in the human line and was selling human supplements for a little while. And they they said, hey, you need to come over and work the animal health, the vet line. And Thorne Vet was created in 2002. In fact, there were a bunch of doctors that helped with the formulations that were right in your guys' neck of the woods in Colorado. And I went over to the vet line and absolutely loved it.

I loved it. I I'd never met a veterinarian that's been like, I just don't like dogs, you know, and I walked into

Angie (02:13)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (02:15)
plenty of Yeah Yeah, yeah. Seriously.

JoJo (02:15)
Internet will tell you differently. We hate them. Yeah.

Angie (02:18)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (02:21)
but you know, it's it when you walk into a doctor's office is, you know, human on human, you know as well as I do a lot of those people are in it for the money or the prestige or they go to school and trying to talk supplements with some of those doctors, they'll just walk you out of their,

Integrative

healing, holistic, whatever you want to call it. And when I started working with veterinarians it was a whole different story. Whether you believe in what we believe in integrative and holistic healing, which is wonderful, there's all kinds of other things in Western medicine that, you don't walk away from, but there's other things you can complement it with. And talking to vets for me was a blast because none of them would be like, well, we don't really like animals.

and we're just here for, you know, X. So little by little, I just absolutely fell in love with the line and I started growing it. And then in 2019, Thorne was gonna discontinue the line. And my father went to them and said, well, why don't you just give it to my son and I? Well not give it to us, but you know, we'll we'll Yeah. That would have been really cool.

JoJo (03:17)
Sure. That would have been a huge win.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (03:21)
But so in 2019 we we took over Thorne Vet and we were separate entity from Thorne.

We had a great relationship with them though. when we formulated products, when we went out and, had to for example, start a new product, we'd get the okay from the scientists at Thorne, the brains over there 'cause, we needed to keep that Thorne reputation in the name. it's got a great name and they didn't want us to go out there and just destroy it or, completely just, make products that weren't, effective and so on and so forth.

So for 2019 till 2023-ish, we were just rocking and rolling and loving life. And then little by little we started hearing rumblings of what happened this past week. August 3rd, they announced this sale to Procter and Gamble for $3.8 billion, which is just an insane number to even say or

JoJo (04:08)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (04:08)
even contemplate what that means. But

Before that happened, we kind of saw the writing on the wall and being independent and family run. And the interesting thing for us too is we love Thorne and everything that I learned from Thorne, that's why it's such an amazing company. If the testing, they were so ahead of the game, right? Like, the original owner of Thorne called it that to be a thorn in the side of the supplement industry at the time because they were using magnesium stearate and all these other things. It just didn't

work well with supplements. And so we love everything that we learn from them, but we also saw that they were getting big enough that the relationships, the people I knew, everybody that I had worked with over the years, from customer service down to the people that were, landscaping to I mean, I knew everybody since I was a kid. And we didn't like what we were seeing and we didn't necessarily think that

They liked us being out there as well, if that makes sense. Do you know what I mean? And especially with new ownership. And so when we saw that, we were like, it's time for us to kind of get out there, strike our own path. we didn't want to be a part of a $3.8 billion purchase. We didn't want to be a part of Procter and Gamble, and with everybody like you two and the veterinarians that have been buying and purchasing ThorneVet for 20 years.

You

can say one thing is they're loyal. And so when we started talking to all our veterinarians, almost all of them were like, Hey, formula, if it doesn't change, if your testing protocols don't change, if it's still you guys, we're all good to go. And we had no idea that Thorne was going to announce the day that we announced. And it just happened to be that

on August third we announced our rebrand and half hour later they announced the sale of

JoJo (05:46)
I thought that was so strategic.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (05:48)
No, it wasn't I wish I was that smart. I had

Angie (05:50)
Wow.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (05:51)
like you could have knocked me over with a feather when it happened. And it made telling our story that much easier. And again, our relationship with Thorne is fine, and yeah, it is what it is, but we need to get it away from that and really strike our own path. And that's what we've done. And we're really excited to do it, but you can imagine it's quite scary walking away from a name that's, twenty plus years old from

something that I've built with my father and all the other employees that we have. But we're gonna take everything that we learned and everything that we hold dear and keep moving forward. And then some and continue to do everything that I did learn from Thorne. But yeah, it was a pretty wild experience it was a wild time for us. landing on the name pet domain and trying to figure out branding and all these things that people have come to love with Thorne.

We've tried to communicate as best we can to all our customers. I was on the phone with, I mean, I I called you Jojo, and I was on the phone like I was six years ago calling all my old accounts. It was it was good times. But yeah, that's how it ended up. there's a lot more I could say as you guys could imagine that went into all these decision makings. it wasn't something that happened overnight.

The way it happened, I don't think could have happened any better for us. and my dad who just retired from Thorne two years ago, about the time all this started happening, he is now fully retired and handing the reins over to me and we brought my actually younger brother on about six months ago to run operations and we're gonna hit the ground running and but yeah, it was a pretty wild time as you guys can imagine.

Angie (07:20)
Yeah. And it's truly a family Yeah, that's exactly what I was gonna say. That's

JoJo (07:21)
Yeah. So you can legitimately say family owned. Is that what you were gonna just say, Angie? It's like it's totally family owned. Yeah.

Angie (07:28)
yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (07:28)
a hundred percent. My wife was actually

director of customer service, but I had to fire her. No, I'm just kidding. She

she yeah. But yeah,

JoJo (07:33)
That's not good for marriage.

Angie (07:33)
Ha ha ha.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (07:37)
she was with us as customer service. She's not anymore, she's doing some other things, but literally it's just it's a family run business. there's not lots of us over here. we are not a three point eight billion dollar company by any means. we're still able to call all our people and, talk to everybody and

But yeah, we're legitimately family owned. And we have been since 2019, but again, we were Thorne and we were really excited to always continue that. If you would have told me in 2020, 2021 that, in four years you're not gonna be ThorneVet I would have said, You're crazy. You know, it was my

Angie (08:09)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (08:09)
baby. It's I've been with them for so long. And again, I've saw since I was seventeen years old when they were just a little company in, northern Idaho. And now they're a three point eight.

billion dollar behemoth that

Angie (08:21)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (08:22)
you know and everything that comes along with that. there's not a lot of good that comes along with and there is some good, but I personally think, when you're dealing with that kind of size of a company, a lot goes out the window, personal touch, customer

Angie (08:36)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (08:37)
service,

They start cutting corners. When you're answering the shareholders, the game changes. it's a little different. So we are really excited to just be on our own and strike our own path forward.

Angie (08:47)
yeah. So speaking of that, so all

the animals that have been using Thorne vet get to transition seamlessly and they get to use pet domain, which is a family owned business. So we get to keep all that integrity. And so for us using Thorne supplements, we don't know. We don't know what happens when these big conglomerates buy these brands, whether it's food or a supplement.

Being in the industry for so long, do you have tips or any ideas of like what happens next to those companies? How long does it take for their quality to degrade? Like what happens?

Alex Pearson PetDomain (09:25)
You know, that's a really good question. I've I've thought about that quite quite a bit, as you can imagine, over these last few months, especially the last year. What I've seen happen is the thing that set Thorne vet apart and the thing that sets Pet Domain apart is you don't cut corners. One of the hardest things to do as a sales guy when I was with Thorne is when they have a product and they go,

It didn't pass testing. And when I say it didn't pass testing, it wasn't because of efficacy. It wasn't because it was, rancid or anything like that. But it wasn't up to the standards that we set for ourselves. Does that make sense? Or in other words, the the hard thing about supplements in general, it's not governed by the FDA, right? Like it's the Wild West in a sense. I mean,

You can buy some berberine from one place and you can buy berberine from another. You could slap it on a label, but it's like anything. You

know, it yeah, it's like if

JoJo (10:21)
Yeah, it's self governing. Right?

Alex Pearson PetDomain (10:23)
you go to if you go to the supermarket and buy real salt, right? Or different different kinds of salt. It's crazy as that sounds. There's different kinds, and some is better for you than others. And you look at the supplement industry, and if you're not careful, you can buy stuff that's

Even though it's on the label, it's just not the best of the best. You know, one thing one thing, you can maybe edit this out if you want to, Jojo, but one thing that I heard, one thing that I yeah, one thing that I heard, I was no

JoJo (10:49)
Which makes me now want to keep it. Go for it. Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (10:53)
no joke. I was talking to a guy one day, and I don't remember when this was, he was a porta potty guy, and he cleaned porta potties and he You know what we find at the bottom of them? Supplement capsules that just go right through people and they don't get digested.

Angie (11:07)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (11:08)
You would not believe it. And I'm like, no way. Yeah, no yeah, because well, because they put for example,

JoJo (11:10)
Really? Why would we edit that out? That's so interesting.

Angie (11:14)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (11:16)
a lot of companies will put magnesium stearate to this day, which has absolutely nothing to do with anything in the human body. It's not good for you, but it's a filler. So instead of having to put a hundred percent of an ingredient in it or sixty percent, they can only put forty and then they put a little more stuff in there, and then you're not getting it. Yeah, and then yeah, exactly. Yeah, and then if it

JoJo (11:30)
is it like the corn of of the supplement industry?

Angie (11:35)
Supplement.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (11:36)
It's exactly that's a good that's a good one. I see what you're doing there. But you get it, it goes right through you, and then it's not doing what it's yeah, it's a hundred percent right. And you look,

JoJo (11:36)
Okay. And so many on so many levels the corn it comes out whole. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a filler. Yeah. Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (11:47)
for example, at our curcuvet product, it's been studied for twenty years and it crosses the blood brain barrier and it's thirty percent more absorbable than most any other product on the market. But to answer your question, and it's been long winded, if you don't do those in testing and you

Don't pass the blood brain barrier what are you getting? you're getting nothing. You're just taking a a supplement, it's going right down. And this goes right into animal health. You guys know as

Angie (12:13)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (12:13)
well as I do. Animal health is tied to almost directly to human health. it starts in the gut with food. I think and this is apart from Thorne is apart from any company, when you

Have a $3 billion acquisition, what's what's their plan? What's their end game? Yeah,

JoJo (12:29)
Cut cost.

Angie (12:30)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (12:31)
because you know, you could look at any company and say, hey, how do we do $2 less a bottle here, 50 cents a bottle here? And, when you're that big, that could be $30 million on the bottom line, even though

Angie (12:43)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (12:44)
you're giving your customers something that

Is now inferior to what they've been given for the last 20. So I think that kind of stuff is inevitable. I I don't even think it's a conscious decision on anyone's part. I don't think there's a Dr. Evil sitting at the top and going, How can we, give these people worse supplements? I just think it's

part of that machine. And it's

Angie (13:02)
Right. Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (13:04)
a machine that's been over these last decade, in my opinion, in the human history. I mean, I don't remember being

twenty and seeing billion dollar deals happen overnight and every day. It's like, it's

Angie (13:15)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (13:16)
it's starting to become and you guys had a podcast two or three podcasts ago where you talked about this. It's people getting, the Covetrus stuff. It's, these practices getting bought. I can't tell you how many people that I called and they were like, we've been purchased. I'm

JoJo (13:29)
Mm.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (13:30)
still here, but we're being run and then they absolutely hate it, six months in or

Angie (13:34)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (13:34)
a year in. So I think

it's the little things that just go away because I think that's inevitable. I just don't think companies that size care.

just don't think they do. I think you can run a three, four, five hundred million dollar company and still be in that sweet spot of doing your absolute best by the consumer. But once you get, to a publicly traded company and, a three point eight billion dollar deal, that gets quite difficult.

Again, that's why, we're excited

to not be a part of that. And like you said, stay family owned, stay independent, be able to be on podcasts like this.

I think that's what happens is it just inevitably crumbles, and whether

Angie (14:08)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (14:08)
it's overnight or it takes two years, but it's not fun to watch, that's for sure.

Angie (14:14)
Yeah.

JoJo (14:15)
And as a consumer or client, what I've been hearing is they see it as a sellout. So when clinics are selling to, the bigger corporations that are buying out clinics or, selling Thorne they see it as a sellout, like they're being betrayed in some way and that somehow the independents need to stand more firm. And it's just hard. It's not that simple. Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (14:35)
No, it's a hundred percent. And and not only

that, I couldn't tell you how many calls. Again, it made our jobs easier here explaining why we've done what we've done. we didn't want to step on Thorne's toes and be like, hey, we think a sale is coming and this is why we're doing what we're doing. But we got a lot of calls and emails and DMs and my marketing director sitting right here with me and of going, How dare you? You sell outs. How have you

Angie (14:57)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (14:59)
done what you've done? And you know, we're like,

JoJo (15:01)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (15:02)
It's not guess what? and everyone's like, Well

Angie (15:03)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (15:04)
good for you, and it's

JoJo (15:06)
Well, because it's hard to find integrity in anything anymore

Angie (15:09)
Yes.

JoJo (15:10)
and know what to trust. And so sell us on your integrity, Alex. Like what's an integrity move?

Alex Pearson PetDomain (15:14)
well I tell ya. Yeah,

i tell ya integrity's probably cost me money. And and

Angie (15:19)
Yes.

JoJo (15:20)
huh.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (15:20)
there has been, before we started talking, we were we were talking about like testing and protocols and things like that. One of the things that we take exceptionally seriously before we ever to kind of give you a peek behind the curtain on how this all happens.

when you get a bottle of longevity or mushroom medley or immune support or probiotic. One thing before I start that though, Jojo was actually, she probably doesn't even remember this. She

JoJo (15:40)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (15:43)
was integral in us coming out with powders. And I'll tell you why, Jojo. When we separated in 2019 and became Thornvet on our own, one of the things that we needed to do was get away from the encapsulated products that Thornvet had, because

All our products were encapsulated like Thorne's And so I was like, Well, we'll just do chews. Jojo goes, Well, I don't want chews. She's like, what's in these chews? And we were so new that our inactive our

JoJo (16:10)
I'm sorry.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (16:11)
inactive ingredients were not good. And we didn't

JoJo (16:14)
Well, it was

more than that too. I think they were bone shaped and you wanted us to give to cats.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (16:18)
Yeah, yeah. So,

so see, now she's remembering. Now she's remembering. She's like, damn, I do her. But I I literally hung up the phone with her and I'm like, I gotta figure this out.

Angie (16:28)
Ha ha.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (16:29)
Because one, we certainly didn't want to alienate people like you guys, right? And you look at our chews compared to what they were just six years ago, and they're exceptionally better and way different. But in that moment, I realized I ooh, I've got to take a much closer look.

into what we are putting into all our stuff. I went to my partner and I was like, we gotta make powders and we gotta make them now. And with Jojo right here on my left that really sparked that idea in me because we needed them. We needed cleaner ingredients. And we have them in the chews as well. But powders especially right because there is no inactives. But to go back to what I was saying about

integrity and what you guys asked me. I wish people could see what goes into when you're holding a bottle of that stuff, there's probably fifty people that have been behind getting that one product out. I've been talking with Dr. Angie about maybe bringing some stuff out and and I tell you, it's not just a hey, let's do this. The first thing we do is source and where do you get your stuff from?

where is it harvested? Who's harvesting it? ashwagandha for example, is something that everybody knows about, but there's a lot of sources you can get it from and some that just isn't good. we use stuff called KSM, which is the most potent, best ashwagandha you could ever get. But it costs more, right?

And so what we do is is we have to go out and figure out all right, how do we buy this? Do we have it for other products? Can we use this? Or do we need to buy a bunch now and hold it for two years? And if we do that, where's the expiration? And so that comes in. And then what else are we putting in it? And then once we get it, it cuts in and it's tested at least twice as soon as it gets in for heavy metals and salmonella And then pet domain, what we do, and this is just

what we do I don't know how many companies actually do this, but we randomly take every single product once a year and test it for an active and see what it's doing and how it's doing a year, six months after it's been put on the shelves to a year and then eighteen months. We're always checking that stuff to see that if you buy our product a year after it's made, are you getting it the same as it was twelve months ago? and eventually it'll lose some efficacy, right?

But those kinds of steps, those kinds of things, the hardest part for a consumer, in my opinion, if you go to a veterinarian's office or you're at Pet Smart or whatever, the thing that annoys me the most is one proprietary blends. I'm like, man, I will tell you what I got on my

Angie (18:46)
Yes.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (18:47)
stuff. I will let you know what

JoJo (18:48)
Mm.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (18:48)
I have on my stuff. And the reason you're going to get my stuff and not somebody else's is because one, we're NASC certified. Two, it's the people behind the work. and the veterinarians that help us formulate it. But

How does a consumer know that? Right. And that's where we come in. That's where the veterinarians come in. And that's where podcasts like this come in. The one thing I have noticed about customers in general, especially people that come to see you, are typically pretty well informed. I can't tell you

JoJo (19:15)
Uh-huh.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (19:16)
how many 70-year-old women that I have had call me and our customer service.

just start breaking out ingredients they know more than I do sometimes. They're like, let

Angie (19:24)
Ha ha.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (19:24)
me tell you about theanine. And I'm like, yeah, tell me about it, you know? And then they just start rambling off all these different, things that they've read. And, it's rare that you get somebody talking supplements that isn't educated to a point where they can, have informed discussions like we're having right now, right? But even the layman, even somebody that's in it coming for the first time, I think it's on people like you, me.

And other veterinarians out there to help them understand. And, what can you look for? The NASC is a, National Animal Supplement Council. That's always my go to for people like, hey, if you don't want to buy something from us, buy something from them. But look for that NASC seal because if it's there, they've had to jump through a lot of hoops. A lot.

Angie (20:05)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (20:05)
The NASC is basically kind of like the FDA, but not. it's a governing

Angie (20:09)
Yes.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (20:09)
body that helps us. They visit your

facilities, they see where you're manufacturing, they have to do testing protocols, they have GMPs. They put you all through that. And that's a good place to start. So again, long-winded answer. I like being a guest on a podcast because I can talk a lot. But

Angie (20:26)
Ha ha

Alex Pearson PetDomain (20:26)
but you know, that's kind of, what I think about integrity and I also think it's, when you have podcasts like this, I think you can tell when people are genuine pretty dang quick.

I get to go back to the Procter and Gamble thing. if you have them on a podcast, I don't think they'd be the same kind of conversation. I also think that the circle that we run in, almost everybody I meet's just wonderful, especially in animal health. we all just want to help animals, man. One of my my president sales always laughs at me because I was like, we just want to help animals, man.

That's what I said. We were like, we should make that the tagline of pet domain. I just want to help animals, man. Because there's nothing better. There's there's we don't have

Angie (21:01)
Yeah.

JoJo (21:02)
What is your tagline? Do you have a tagline?

Alex Pearson PetDomain (21:04)
one yet. In fact, if there's anybody

Angie (21:06)
Ow.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (21:06)
listening to this, help us out. We don't know. we're kind of throwing that back and forth. Yeah,

JoJo (21:09)
Lines are hard. Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (21:11)
but it's funny because I just love hearing stories that my dog has sun downers and they started taking canine cognitive and instead of just looking at the wall.

at nine o'clock at night he's he's sitting on the couch next to me. and if you can get another six months to a year out of your best friend, and I tell ya, I've had people leave me in my life, but my dog never has, and so I think when you meet like minded people like us that integrity follows.

Angie (21:35)
Yes, absolutely.

JoJo (21:36)
integrity. I love that word just in general. Maybe that needs to be in the tagline somewhere.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (21:39)
Yeah, it's it it

Yeah, it's hard to find. so unfortunately my dad always used to tell me the the answer to most of your questions is money, and I try not to do that. we do pride ourselves in, hey, if we don't find something that's gonna work, I mean I can't tell you how many times we've been back to the drawing board to be like, that's not gonna happen. And we can't price it.

a hundred bucks, you gotta make it so that people can buy it as well. but I think the team that we've put together and the people that we know we're we're always striving for that for sure. So yes long story short, the behind the scenes part from testing to sourcing to talking to different companies who provide things, like Indena who we've been working for 20 years. I mean, they're amazing. But if you're not careful with who you choose, you're just gonna put out crap. And if you put out crap,

I feel like with animals outside of humans, when I take supplements, I can't really tell a difference. It's I can tell a difference when I'm not on them, if that makes sense. Like if I'm

Angie (22:32)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (22:33)
on vacation for a week and I haven't popped my, turmeric or whatever, I might feel a little achy, the cool thing about animals typically, especially if they're hurting, they respond pretty dang quick. And you can tell if it's working, especially if it's joint related or,

Cognitive related. Peaceful pet might be a little more subjective, little nervous dogs running around, Fourth of July.

I really think that it's easier to see, well, maybe not with little kitties. See, that's why we're gonna get in Dr.

Angie (22:57)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (22:58)
Angie's brain to see what we can do there. But,

Angie (23:00)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (23:00)
I really do think, being in animal health is a blessing. I love it.

Angie (23:03)
Yes.

There's no placebo. That's the nice thing. Or what's helping. Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (23:12)
A

hundred percent.

Angie (23:14)
my gosh. These stories just make me love you guys more. The fact that the feedback we were getting from pet parents got back to JoJo and then got to you and you guys made a change like that.

That makes me just feel warm because I think so many pet parents feel helpless. There's this like their problems they have and they're looking to companies to solve them. And I think they feel like most companies don't care about them and it's all about the profit. And so yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (23:42)
A hundred percent. Absolutely.

JoJo (23:43)
Well, they were

not wrong, I don't think. And I just want to also name just the beauty in the accessibility that one of our customers can come with a question. I can reach out to Alex, who's the CEO and owner of a company, and I have a response within an hour usually. And I'm

Angie (23:59)
Yeah.

JoJo (23:59)
like, I love that small feel. What's that?

Alex Pearson PetDomain (24:00)
Jojo's special, Nino. I might take me a

little you're special though. You like I said, you guys are one of my I might take

JoJo (24:05)
I don't believe that at

all. I think you treat everybody this way, but I really do feel special. Yeah.

Angie (24:08)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (24:08)
Might take me six hours. You should. You really should.

I and I think you're 100% right about that too. I think it's very difficult for Pep. In fact, one of the things that I was kind of jotting notes down before he came on, and I I love the organic stuff, but I was like, one of the things that is that gap in knowledge. Like, what do I do? Like, you can even like again, human health, right? You've been there where like your knee or something's jacked up, and then you have one doctor say one thing and another say another, and then you walk in.

And

you go, wow, geez, are they just trying to get me to go do this because they're getting? Do I need an MRI? Do I need to be on these pills? Do I need, the knowledge and the gap between somebody walking in, especially if they've never taken supplements, can be quite large. And so what do we do? How can we help with that? Especially not just at pet domain, but veterinarians in general, right? Like how can we take some from point A to point B?

B to point C D and help them walk down that line of, integrated. But humans have been healing themselves for a thousand years, and dogs and cats are pretty smart. They've been around, you know? And I think as a as a pet parent, one of like you said, the hard thing is is all right, what's company? Because there's a lot of us. I mean, you go to

Angie (25:19)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (25:19)
you go on Amazon, it's wild, right? Like you're like, who the hell?

JoJo (25:22)
I

went on Chewy on one of our episodes and there were ninety-five plus pages of just like arthritis supplements for dogs. Ninety-five pages. Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (25:29)
Yeah, it's it's insane. It's insane.

Angie (25:29)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (25:33)
And out of those ninety-five, I'd say maybe twenty companies are good, you know, and

JoJo (25:38)
Yeah.

Angie (25:38)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (25:39)
and a lot of them fly by night, so to speak, like next year probably half of those will be gone and

and so how do you cut through that?

Angie (25:47)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (25:48)
How do you? What's your guys' thoughts? Because I've I I think about but I think

JoJo (25:51)
I just shut down. I open that up and I'm like, never mind. You don't need anything. That's what happens for

Angie (25:56)
Well

JoJo (25:56)
me. I just get paralyzed.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (25:58)
Yeah.

Angie (25:58)
I,

as a veterinarian, I spend a lot of my time, especially when people come to me, or when Jojo and I used to sit in people's living rooms making house calls, people would bring out the basket of supplements. And they they bought it online or they bought it Instagram. There's a lot of really great marketing for some supplements that aren't going to deliver what they promise. And we have and I have spent a lot of time saying you don't need that. Those two are the same.

That's not therapeutic enough. And what's been great about Thornvet Now Pet Domain is that I can always count on that you guys have therapeutic doses. What's in there is what's in there. You know, I I know that's gonna be true. And so I think a lot of people need to do less supplements. Just

Alex Pearson PetDomain (26:49)
a hundred percent.

Angie (26:50)
less. Let's and cause one thing that's really great about Thornvet Now Pet Domain is that.

You guys are thinking about what does the research say? What is functional? And you're putting it in in therapeutic doses. And so that if you have chosen a supplement, that's probably going to be efficacious if that's what your pet needs. But I see so many supplements on the market where I'm like, that was a good thought. I like that ingredient. Who knows where it was sourced from?

Alex Pearson PetDomain (27:18)
Sure.

Angie (27:18)
But that's not even approaching a therapeutic level of what

Or like your cat would need ten capsules of that and who's giving their cat a capsule? You know, and so I think

Alex Pearson PetDomain (27:29)
Yeah.

And so what you just said is something that yeah, you're a hundred percent right. And and that could take six months to figure out. Really? You know what I mean? And

Angie (27:38)
Yes.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (27:39)
so if you don't put that thought into it, you're not getting therapeutic doses. And what's even more crazy about all that too is is if you don't know, like you said, if there's not if there is a gap. And see, that's where working together and figuring all this out. I and I was listening to your podcast before th we got on. how you were like, Did I just overdose a dog?

JoJo (27:58)
Yeah.

Angie (27:59)
Yeah, yes.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (27:59)
We had we had a dog call we had a customer call in who's Rottweiler ate an entire jar of Curcuvet Like an entire jar. Yeah. Yeah,

JoJo (28:08)
That's a great sale for palatability.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (28:11)
and the dog didn't even yeah, it got a little diarrhea as you could imagine, but talk about dosing and all that stuff. It's so important. You know,

Angie (28:19)
Yes.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (28:19)
like I can't tell you how many

times we sit and and say, well, look at this scoop, but it's so much powder. Like, do you know what I mean? Like you can't just

Angie (28:28)
Yeah.

JoJo (28:28)
Yes.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (28:29)
give a little chihuahua or, a little, schnauzer or whatever, a scoop that's a half a cup. I mean, I'm blowing it

Angie (28:36)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (28:37)
out of proportion, but you're a hundred percent right about all that. And another thing that we've always told people too is I'm with you. We tell people, hey, go three, four weeks with the supplement and then

cut a week without it, because that is better for you than taking all kinds of supplements every day, all day. You know, you gotta give your body a little bit of a break, even with supplements, right? that's something that my salespeople don't like me saying. Because if they're if now a bottle of now a bottle of joint support

Angie (29:02)
Right, 'cause it doesn't sell more.

JoJo (29:03)
No, no. Yeah, exactly. I was gonna say that that that's where you know that the integrity line is in play. When you're not like buy more, buy less.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (29:11)
Yeah, now a bottle of joint support instead of lasting a month is lasting you know a month and a half.

But

you always got

Angie (29:16)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (29:17)
to do what's best for, the animals in your care. And that's another thing that I absolutely love about, both of you and and the people that we meet along the way, because truly most veterinarians are in it for that. And that reason is to help those animals, And if you don't mind me asking, Dr. Angie, when did you know you wanted to be a vet?

Angie (29:38)
When I was three. Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (29:39)
See, I swear to you, almost every

vet, Jojo, I don't know, that I've talked to, they're like, I knew since I was six. I'm like, gosh,

JoJo (29:46)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (29:46)
damn it, that'd be so cool. Like, yeah,

Angie (29:48)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (29:48)
I wanted to be like a fireman, but it's because I was six and saw a truck and thought it was neat. But I swear

most veterinarians I speak to knew it from a young age that they were going to be a vet or work with animals. maybe not a veterinarian.

But be in the animal health industry. And I'm like, man, there is nothing better than a salesman or running a company of working with people that not just aren't passionate, but have been passionate since they're little. I could just see little Dr. Angie running around with pigtails when she's three, probably just holding a cat by its head and just

Angie (30:23)
Totally.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (30:25)
going, I love this thing. Just like critting

JoJo (30:26)
Hopefully. Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (30:28)
her teeth and be like, this is what I want to do, you know? And

Angie (30:30)
That cat was in a stroller, okay?

Alex Pearson PetDomain (30:33)
With a little bonnet on. You know, but I mean, how how cool could that be? You know, that that

Angie (30:35)
Yes. Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (30:38)
you're from that age, you know what you want to do. And when you're working side by side with those people, you know that you're both coming from a point of love. And that's a really nice starting point. Do you know what I mean? And and

Angie (30:49)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (30:50)
and again, we're all sitting here, we're all in business, right? We all want to make money. We don't want to shy away from that or lie about it. I find that to be disingenuous as well. You know, like businesses are made for one purpose and that's to

To to make money and, support your family. But you can do it with what we're talking about, integrity and rules and drawing lines and saying, I'm not gonna compromise on this. It's not gonna happen. and it's much easier when you're working with people that have known what they've wanted to do since they're little. I mean, you know, it probably wasn't until 2019 that I really I was like, hey, this is what I wanna do. And I was already in my forty.

JoJo (31:26)
that doesn't matter. Once the

light bulb goes off and you know, you know, it's like exciting.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (31:29)
Yeah. I mean, talk about talk

Angie (31:30)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (31:31)
about it's exciting, but I could also imagine a little bit intimidating too, Dr. Angie, just knowing that you want to do that, but being scared, all right, how do I get there? like how do I become the best veterinarian I can be? You know, and

Angie (31:43)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (31:43)
and how can I be the most effective veterinarian?

JoJo (31:46)
Well,

and

how do you be a veterinarian and a business leader? Okay, we'll do that another one. We won't go down that one because I actually

Alex Pearson PetDomain (31:48)
That's a whole other podcast. You know, yeah. And and

Angie (31:50)
Yeah.

JoJo (31:53)
have a supplement question, Alex, that we've asked that we don't know the answer to. How do these 95 pages of Chewy supplements get all of the star reviews they get? Like, how do they have thousands of reviews?

Angie (32:05)
Yes, yes.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (32:06)
So

well you can pay for them. Yeah, yeah,

JoJo (32:10)
I wondered that you can

Angie (32:11)
Okay.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (32:12)
yeah, absolutely. It's like Amazon. I love Chewy. they are, you

JoJo (32:16)
yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (32:17)
know, Amazon is a whole other behemoth that is kind of a necessary evil in a sense because you know Yeah. Yeah, while we don't

JoJo (32:22)
Are you on Amazon? Do you have an Amazon shop? Okay.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (32:25)
right now, we're in the middle of probably making one, but the w they have what they call different programs where you can spend X.

Have you ever seen these people that like not Yelp, but where they get sent stuff for free and then they have to review it? Have you ever seen

Angie (32:39)
Yeah, yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (32:40)
this? So it's similar to that where they'll go, Hey, we're gonna send you X. And here's the thing, if you're getting paid and sent free stuff, you're most likely not gonna review it badly. do you know what I'm saying? So

JoJo (32:51)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Angie (32:51)
Yes.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (32:52)
you can take those reviews with a grain of salt, so to speak.

JoJo (32:55)
Okay.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (32:56)
but that's how they get

Angie (32:59)
Okay.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (32:59)
You know, there's

all kinds of I'm not saying all of

JoJo (33:00)
I'm so glad I asked that question

'cause it makes me feel better 'cause I've just felt like

Alex Pearson PetDomain (33:05)
Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say all of them are like that. Do

Angie (33:05)
Right.

JoJo (33:07)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (33:07)
you know what I mean? But they certainly

Angie (33:08)
Yeah, sure.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (33:09)
ones that you see, I mean, it's like anything in this world. Typically, like if you got Google reviews and things like that, it's kind of a pay to play thing. They throw you up at the top of the list faster. You know, those ninety-five products you saw, those ones that show up at the top are typically the ones that are, hey, it's like like I said, the answer to your question usually is money. Those top ones are typically like if you were to

Get on Chewy and try to find Thorne Vet. We were always on the fourth, fifth, or sixth page, even though we were probably outselling some of them. So that's kind

Angie (33:40)
Mm, mm.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (33:41)
of how that works. But again, education, right? Educating the people you speak with and podcasts like this where people can try to see through that and really get down. I I would personally say, like you said, JoJo, if you really want to learn about a company and call them, email them. And if you don't hear back from anybody.

Yeah, maybe you shouldn't be taking their stuff. You know?

Angie (34:01)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (34:02)
I mean, like I said, I had a great time this past week calling a lot of my old accounts. I've always kept you but these last three years since I've, started taking over and running the company more than just sales. a lot of my accounts I passed on to my president of sales and except for about twenty and you guys were in one of those twenty. But when we did the rebrand.

I got my old list out and started calling people and I had a great time. Great time talking to all these people because it's this is what it's about. You know, it's it's about these kinds of conversations and getting it out there. And if we get one person, heck yeah, that's a win. And eventually I think, people will find you. one of my favorite quotes is luck is the residue of design. I think that if you work hard enough.

And

you put yourself out there. some people are like, you're so lucky that that sale was announced that same day. Yeah, it was, but it was also a lot of hard work that went into the part that we got to the point where we could announce it. and

Angie (35:01)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (35:01)
then boom, it happens, call it what you will. If we weren't ready, that opportunity wouldn't have been there. So, I think you could probably say that about anything in life,

Angie (35:10)
Absolutely. Well where can people find Pet Domain? Where where'd you get it?

Alex Pearson PetDomain (35:13)
Yeah, go to you

go to pet domain dot com, pet domain official on all the socials and all the other stuff. and then, if they were to go to thorn vet dot com, they'd just get routed to the new, pet domain website. and then I think I'm gonna be on a few more podcasts in this next month. I don't know exactly when or who, but you guys need to be especially fans of Jojo and Angie, be listening and

I hope to have some really cool announcements coming up here in the near future with you guys that we've been talking a little bit off camera. But all in all I would think, just find stuff that works, and find people that you trust. And, I think if you do that, you can kind of weave through the clouded, web of deceit that a lot of these companies kind of weave,

And

try to get you to buy.

Angie (35:55)
Absolutely.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (35:56)
So

Angie (35:57)
Well before we wrap up, tell us what product of pet domain, previously Thornvet, do you think has helped the most animals?

Alex Pearson PetDomain (36:07)
Whoof.

Angie (36:08)
What's the star? What should we know about?

Alex Pearson PetDomain (36:10)
Joints

joint support is our by far our biggest mover, but I'm not gonna I'm gonna say

Longevity complex

Angie (36:23)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (36:24)
and

I'd say longevity complex and mushroom medley are two of our newer longevity complex is so ahead of the curve. And for any of you listening, I it is this is why I talk about not being as smart as people like Dr. Angie and people that formulate. It is such an amaz our typical product information sheets are like two pages. Longevity is like seven. And it has so many things that are going on in it, like bio.

You know, I love keywords like bioavailability and all these other things. I mean, there are so many different things that longevity complex can do. And then mushroom medley is flying off the shelves for reasons you

JoJo (37:03)
Mm.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (37:03)
guys probably know, immune support. And it's got

Angie (37:05)
Yeah, yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (37:06)
five different kinds of mushrooms in it. It is just rocking and rolling right now. Our digestive enzymes is great too. You guys love our probiotic. That's what you guys typically buy from us.

JoJo (37:14)
Mm-hmm. I like your mushroom medley too.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (37:16)
Yeah, mushroom medley is awesome.

Angie (37:16)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (37:19)
but

Hopefully we're gonna have a kitty cat line here in the near future that we can start pushing a little bit. But I'd say longevity complex and mushroom medley have been are probably the last couple of years have just been phenomenal. that's

Angie (37:33)
Helping the most, yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (37:34)
the two that I would say off the top of my head. Our joint support's always been our joint support and gut health have been copied by a lot of companies. A lot. Yeah.

Angie (37:43)
what a compliment. Yeah.

JoJo (37:42)
Hm, that's a good sign.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (37:46)
Our gut health, I've I've seen multiple companies have been like, That looks just like ours. But again, we've had internal discussions about proprietary this and I've never been I'm like, No, I'm not doing that. I'm always weary of that. it doesn't tell me how much is in to to your point about dosing, like what am I giving my, my dog, so

Angie (38:02)
Absolutely.

JoJo (38:03)
Well,

and we recently had, I don't even remember who it was, but somebody changed the proprietary blend and they don't have to disclose what was changed.

Angie (38:09)
Yeah.

JoJo (38:11)
And we have some sensitive animals that it those little changes make a big impact. And when we are not informed that there's been a change, I think

Alex Pearson PetDomain (38:20)
Yeah.

JoJo (38:20)
that's hard.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (38:21)
Yeah. A

Angie (38:21)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (38:22)
hundred percent. You're using something for four years and then all of a sudden you're like, that's weird. They got the yeah, by the way, we changed.

JoJo (38:26)
Yeah,

Angie (38:27)
Yep. Right. Yeah.

JoJo (38:28)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (38:30)
Sorry.

JoJo (38:30)
Yeah.

Angie (38:30)
Excellent.

Okay. Well, thank you so much for hanging out. anything else before we sign off? Anything else?

Alex Pearson PetDomain (38:36)
I've had a blast.

I've had a blast. I want to do it again next week. You know, I I I nice. Yes. Sweet. What are you

JoJo (38:41)
gonna be in Norway next week. So no, no, yeah. Yeah.

Angie (38:44)
Ha ha.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (38:47)
doing? A little vacay with the whole family rolling up their solo. twins. That's awesome. How old are they?

JoJo (38:50)
Just my twin boys. My twin boys just Yeah. okay.

they are twenty. Mm-hmm.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (38:58)
nice. That's awesome.

Good times. It's beautiful up that way, I hear.

JoJo (39:03)
I hear that too. I'll let you know.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (39:05)
Maybe I'll text you and be like, why aren't you texting me back? Like, what's going on? Jojo usually gets back to me in an hour. What the hell?

JoJo (39:08)
Don't do that. That'll just keep you not getting a text back. Actually,

Angie (39:08)
Ha ha ha.

I know, I

know.

JoJo (39:15)
I'm

gonna put a lot of disclaimers up because Angie's on her own. So yeah. Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (39:20)
let's all blow her up. Everybody email Angie. Yeah. But yeah, I

I I have nothing else and I truly just appreciate both of you and having me on. Honestly, this is the first real podcast I've done since the change. we've been all hands on deck over here just trying to communicate it to everybody. So this has been a lot of fun. I was nervous just to talk about it 'cause I I've talked about it with you guys and a lot of people, but not on camera. So

I'm glad

Angie (39:47)
Yeah.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (39:47)
that I had this chance.

Angie (39:49)
Yeah. Well, thanks so much for hanging out

JoJo (39:50)
Thank you for doing it.

Angie (39:51)
and congratulations. We'll talk to you soon. Okay.

Alex Pearson PetDomain (39:51)
Yeah, you bet. Heck yeah. Tails of truth. You guys be well and everybody else be well out there. Bye bye.

JoJo (39:56)
You too, Alex. Bye bye.