Sharon Tuggle
Founder, Owner, Dog Chef
For decades, people have been asking my grandmother how it is that she ages so well, and her advice has always been the same: “Eat good food.” Now a lively 108 years old, she is still espousing the importance of a wholesome diet. I realize now that it is from her that I first learned the impact that food has on our lives.
But it wasn’t until I was an adult and lost my best friend, a beloved Boxer-Rottweiler mix named Hoochie, to pancreatic cancer that I truly understood how powerful food can be. Along with her cancer diagnosis, I was told she had only two months to live. I consulted Dr. Anne Reed, a certified holistic veterinarian, who recommended incorporating fresh food and healing herbs into Hoochie’s daily kibble diet. I followed her advice explicitly. It didn’t cure Hoochie’s cancer, but it did extend our time together by 9 glorious, active, and joy-filled months. Although I wasn’t able to keep her forever, by supplementing Hoochie’s diet with fresh and therapeutic ingredients, I was able to love her longer.
It was all worth it! But I won’t lie - it was a lot of work! I was now more passionate than ever about the healing properties of good food, but it occurred to me that not everyone is in a place where they can make homemade fresh food meals from scratch for their companion animals. I wanted to make pet nutrition more accessible to pet parents who don’t have the time to make fresh food on their own, to those who don’t have access to a good holistic vet to help them determine the best nutrition for their pet’s specific health needs. I wanted to make it accessible so that others could love their pets longer too. So I partnered with Dr. Anne Reed to make it happen, and 5 Element Food Therapy (5EFT) was born.
Every day I have the opportunity to meet my customers and their humans, and to see the difference that real and healthy food has made in their lives. It is one of my favorite things about what I do. And when I hear their stories, it is often my grandmother’s voice that rings encouragingly in my ears, “Eat good food.”
- Dog Chef Sharon