Lesson #3: It's All Fun & Games Until... It's Not

The Powers That Be... Making Things Diffcult

Don’t you love beginnings?

Everything is fresh and new! We’re filled with excitement and optimism! We’re invincible and full of energy! We’re overflowing with infinite enthusiasm! We believe everything will turn out perfectly and according to plan!

And that enthusiasm is a good thing, too, because inevitably we run smack into an obstacle or twelve that make us want to pack it all in and give up. Or at a minimum, they make us question ourselves into a state of analysis paralysis, convinced, “It’s too hard” and “I’m not good enough.”

Yes. There are challenges with literally everything. But if all of us had given up at the first sign of resistance or even failure, though, none of us would have learned to walk or talk.

Everything seems simple until we start to dig into it seriously and with intention. Then we realize there’s more to success than we thought.

There’s more to practically everything in life than we think.

Photo by 2Photo Pots on Unsplash

So something as simple as making your own dog treats and selling them out of your house ends up being way more involved than you think.

First, there’s the ingredients. One of the reasons to make your own dog treats is because you want to give your dog the best and cleanest ingredients you can.

And if you don’t have the time, or the motivation, to do it, you want to make sure that whoever IS making them, is using the best ingredients and making them safely.

And, of course, in order to ensure that, there are regulations and laws that need to be followed.

Right, so, the organization that determines the standards for ingredients in pet and animal feed in the U.S. (which includes dog treats) is the Association of American Feed Control Officials, known as AAFCO.

And as official as they sound, they have no regulatory authority. They’re a non-profit made up of local, state, and federal feed control folks who, among other things, develop definitions for the ingredients used in pet food and animal feed.

They also work with the Food and Drug Administration in the U.S. and advise state and local regulators.

If it sounds like a lot, it is.

Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash

In my state, the Department of Agriculture has adopted AAFCO standards and enforces the laws and regulations for pet food. There are some dog treats you can make and sell out of your house and some you can’t. Some have to be made in a commercial kitchen.

All of them require what’s called a “scheduled process", which is a detailed recipe and procedure for the product. Each kind of treat offered also has to be registered with the state and that registration renewed annually.

That means if I make treats and label them for small dogs, and then use the identical recipe and label them for large dogs, that’s two different products to register, naturally requiring two registration fees.

The good news is the people who work at my state’s Department of Agriculture are super helpful. That’s not sarcasm. They responded to all my emails and answered all my questions and, based on what I’ve read and heard from others, that’s not unusual. Most people want to help.

So is it a lot? Hell, yeah.

Of course, anything you decide to do will require you to overcome obstacles. You will get discouraged and you will want to quit. You will question whether or not you can do it. You will question whether or not it’s worth it.

I believe in letting go of things that don’t work. I don’t believe in letting go of things out of fear. I believe in sticking with something if it makes you happy, and even if it doesn’t look the way you thought it would.

Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash