Stella and Buddy were the inspirations for The Good Dog Dish, a locally made whole, fresh, human-grade dog food company.
It’s no surprise that Stella and Buddy fall in the four-legged category.
“We make people food for dogs,” says founder/owner Michael Parsons. “It’s real food: chicken, ground turkey, fresh veggies, sweet potatoes, carrots, green beans, rice,” he says. “Then we have a supplement blend we add that provides the micronutrients.”
That’s to make their dog food complete and balanced.
It comes frozen. “So our customers thaw it in the refrigerator overnight. It has the consistency of a chicken salad.”
People are surprised to discover it’s “edible for people,” Parsons says. Some of their friends recently tried it during an outing at a lake. One of them said it tasted like chicken salad without the mayonnaise and grapes.
Their dog food-making saga began with Buddy, a dog owned by Parsons, the band director at Briarcrest Christian School, and his wife, Liz, who is the choir director at the school and a retired longtime pianist in the Memphis Symphony Chorus. “Buddy developed kidney disease and he passed away during the height of Covid in 2021,” he says. “It was so devastating. It was like losing a child.”
They realized Buddy’s diet was to blame. “We had no idea what we were feeding him [or] what was the healthier option.”
Stella Parsons (Photo: Michael Donahue)
Enter Stella, a rescue dog. “We were super lonely,” Parsons says. “We decided to adopt her and feed her the best quality food possible.”
“If all you did was eat processed food all the time, you wouldn’t be very healthy,” he adds. “The more you can eat real, nutritious food, the healthier you tend to be. The same thing with dogs.”
Parsons remembers a slogan about canines: “They’re not just dogs. They’re not just pets. They’re family.”
“They have unconditional love,” he says. “Whether you’re in a good mood or a bad mood, they’re going to love you the same.”
Parsons began making dog food at home in their kitchen and freezing it. He would roast a whole chicken and break it down. He doesn’t season anything because so many things are toxic to dogs. He made the food “100 percent natural as possible.”
“That was my routine for a few years,” he says. “Every Monday night, make a large batch for the week for Stella. I was doing this for about four or five years.
“I’ve always loved cooking, and I love experimenting in the kitchen,” Parsons continues. “It was a fun thing for me to do: Create recipes for our dog. For a little while, I didn’t tell a lot of people about it. It seemed a little strange. Making homemade dog food.”
Then someone asked Parsons to make some of his healthy dog food for their dog. That led to the idea two years ago of putting the dog food on the market. But it was a matter of finding the time to do it. So, when summer break came last year, the Parsons family “hit the ground running.”
“We hired a board-certified canine nutritionist to develop our recipes,” Parsons says. “We got it about 90 percent of the way, but the vet nutritionist added some of the supplements we were lacking. She made it complete and balanced.
“Part of the reason I wanted to lock arms with some industry professionals is there are foods that aren’t healthy for dogs. Onions are a no-go. Obviously, chocolate. What I think our product does is take the guesswork out for the customers, so they aren’t having to do their own research and take the risk of adding something bad.”
Like nutmeg. He heard of someone who was feeding their pet homemade dog biscuits made with nutmeg, “which is poisonous to dogs,” he says. “Everything in our product is safe and nutritious.”
They currently have four recipes in The Good Dog Dish line. They offer chicken, turkey, beef, and, “We just rolled out our wild salmon recipe,” Parsons says.
Stella is their logo.
Everything is now made at Memphis Kitchen Co-Op. “We have a team of seven chefs that go in about once every two weeks and they produce 500 pounds of fresh, human-grade dog food,” he says.
All the ingredients come from Sysco and Restaurant Depot.
They’ve also provided dog food recipes “for certain customers who have dogs with physical ailments.”
Dr. Susan Lauton, a vet nutritionist at University of Tennessee at Knoxville, was able to design recipes especially for a dog with cancer and another with kidney disease. “They’ve been on this food for nine, almost 10 months, and they’re doing great,” Parsons says.
As for the price: “You can get my dog food for as cheap as $5 a pound,” he says. “For a small dog, that goes a very long way.”
Parsons’ goal is to offer his dog food for “at least 20 percent, if not 40 percent less than the national brands. I wanted customers all over the city of Memphis to be able to afford this food.”
They’re also charitable. “We try to donate 10 percent of our proceeds to the local animal shelters,” Parsons says. “We support Tails of Hope, Memphis Humane Society, and we’ve also supported the Memphis Animal Shelter. I see it almost as our tithe back to the community.”
The Good Dog Dish is currently in three retail spaces: Memphis Kitchen Co-Op, High Point Grocery, and Collierville’s Oh, Grate!, where “it has been selling out like crazy.”
They also provide a subscription service for customers “who prefer having the dog food delivered straight to their door.”
Parsons is working on a line of whole-food ingredient dog treats. And he’s been asked to come up with a healthy cat food. “Memphis is a big cat town,” Parsons says.
“Right now we’re locked in to what we do best.”
