Our Passion
Meet Keeva
Meet my gal Keeva! She is a Kerry Blue Terrier. At Keeva's Krunchies, our passion is to provide high-quality dog treats to improve the lives of our special pets and their owners! We believe that pets are part of the family and deserve the best care possible.
About Keeva's Krunchies
Our Products
Our products represent our desire to provide Keeva with flavorful, nutritious treats without unwanted additives and preservatives.
Raw food diets have been noted to to have many benefits for dogs including healthy skin and coats, healthy teeth and increased energy levels. Because a raw food diet is designed to mimic what a dog would eat in the wild, you could also expect to see a healthier weight, better digestion, better toileting habits, immune support and brain health.
If you're taking the time to provide your dog nutritious meals, why would you want to give them junk food for their treats?
How Keeva's Krunchies came about
Keeva's Krunchies was born of an idea to share what was a problem for me with others who I expected may have the same problem!
Keeva has always been a very picky eater and that was a source of great frustration for me. I've been feeding her a high quality kibble and, early on, a "high quality" wet food as a topper. You know...the stuff that cost $3.50-$4.00 a can and that was a couple years ago!
She would eat it for a day or two and then refuse it. Sometimes she'd go 24 hours or more without eating and I was dumping out the food she'd refuse with each meal cycle. I'd try a different brand, a different flavor, different amounts added to the kibble...whatever I could think of but she'd have none of it.
When Keeva was refusing to eat, it became clear to me that it was a very expensive path to be on, I was not only throwing out the meat topper but the kibble that was wasted along with it! A 30 lb bag runs about $80 (I feed "Instinct Raw Boost") so every meal that went down the garbage disposal was a great frustration for me.
Additionally, she got very good at begging off my husband and that didn't help either!
So, I started looking into raw feeding and was able to come up with a recipe using lean ground beef, eggs, veggies and a little oatmeal. I would grind up the veggies and oatmeal and then mix it into the ground meat and eggs, kind of like making a giant meatloaf! I'd then patty the raw meat mixture into meal size portions and freeze. I could take a couple days worth of patties out and was amazed at how well that worked for Keeva! She was once again happy to eat and very seldom refuses her food. On the rare occasion she does, it's usually only for an hour or two and she'll clean it up when she's ready.
After looking further into the pet food industry and what they allow in wet dog foods, I'm glad she didn't want to eat it...it was shocking to know what's allowed into even the premium brands! I was also pleasantly surprised, after figuring up the cost of home preparing Keeva's wet food, that I was saving about $200 over what I was spending to buy canned foods for a 90 day supply!
(March 4, 2024 Update: I will be switching to Bixbi Liberty Kibble due to quality concerns about pet chows that appear to be linked to illness and death in dogs and cats. Unfortunately, Instinct was on a list of kibble to be concerned about. This is a personal choice and NOT a recommendation on what you should do. These are choices to make based on your own experience with your dog. However, if I'm making her wet food topper but ignoring quality issues that may be present with the kibble I'm feeding, what's the point?)
So what about treats?
Just like the issues with dog foods, many standard pet treats contain ingredients and additives that pet owners just don't want to give their dogs. Commercially produced raw treats also tend to be very expensive. There are also concerns for dog owners that have pets with special dietary needs.
One day, while thinking about getting a job (not a pleasant thought for a person who's been home for a long time) it occurred to me that I could build a home business making wholesome single ingredient dog treats. I ran the idea past several people and it was well received...and Keeva's Krunchies was born!
My daughter, who has a Yorkie, was very enthusiastic as she has to be very discerning about what her dog eats. As a pup, he had a severe bout with pancreatitis that was eventually linked with high fat content in his processed kibble. He was in real trouble with bloody vomiting and diarrhea and we thought she was going to lose him. Luckily, some very skilled emergency vets were able to pull him through but ever since his diet has been a very controlled one, leaving little room for the extras most people don't think about when treating their pets. She was very happy to see what I was up to because it fit perfectly with Little Dude's diet restrictions.
Of course, Keeva is very interested in these new treats and has realized that when a new batch comes out of the freeze dryer she's going to be the first to get a sample!