new beginnings indeed!!!

well, we have added a new member to our pack! his name is eddy and he comes to us from greyhound friends for life. he is still a pup and unlike champ, has never raced. he LOVES to play with his friends tini and kyo and wants to play with just about every furry friend he meets!


eddy & tini romping at the dog park in north lake tahoe during a road trip.
tini really helped eddy adjust to his new home life away from the kennel.





eddy & kyo having a play session at the ballfield near our place.
these boys like to play rough and are way TOO CUTE!!


around last thanksgiving (about a month after champ passed away), i started looking online for dogs on petfinder.com. we weren't feeling anywhere close to being ready for a new dog, but we knew that our family wasn't complete without one. when i would look at the GFFL website way back in november, eddy (formerly known as "purkey"), was available. after months of looking at various resources and discussing timing, logistics, and all that other stuff, purkey was still available! we decided to go meet then-purkey and 3 weeks later we brought eddy home! needless to say, we are quite smitten with him, oh and he loves JOY biscuits!

new beginnings with the same purpose

happy spring and new beginnings to you! i love this season and the new growth it brings. the air hung with sweet floral scents and longer days full of sunlight make me smile deep from within. yes, JOY biscuits is still creating happiness in a wholesome dog treat with organic and locally-sourced ingredients for your furry friends!

so how have we been since our last post?! well, baking JOY biscuits without champ patiently waiting to perform his QC duties has been a challenge and a learning experience. the first batch i baked without him hit harder than anticipated. after that batch, baking has been getting more enjoyable, especially in the company of furry friends (thank you kyo and stella!). grieving is not a linear process and riding that wave can be difficult. however, i know that with every end of something comes the opportunity for new beginnings!

riding the wave, i have had time to re-evaluate the purpose and intention behind JOY biscuits. providing an artisanal dog treat with flavors that are nutritionally beneficial continues to be one of our main purposes. additionally, our intention and mission still remain the same: to provide a sustainable dog treat that targets optimum dog health and to increase awareness of service and therapy dog programs.

what kind of new beginnings are you and your furry friend experiencing this spring? is your daily, weekly, monthly purpose and intention the same as it was before or is it different?

and now introducing...the JOY biscuits café line

ohhhh baby, yes those are large JOY biscuits! bigger isn't always better, but when you're on the run and your dog has been especially good, they deserve an extra special treat. let's face it, when you treat yourself to your favorite caffeinated drink, cupcake, or cocktail, you want to share the experience with your furry friends, right? thus the JOY biscuits café line was born! these JOY biscuits are made with the same wholesome ingredients that the original biscuits are made with and are packed in a compostable baggy.

the café line packages come in 1 large biscuit and 2 medium sized biscuits. you can find the JOY biscuits café line at that takes the cake, cheengoo, george, and jeffrey's. our plan is to have them available at your local dog-friendly coffee shop, bike shop, winery, restaurant, b&b, hotel, you name it! we're super excited to introduce this new line of larger JOY biscuits to you!

cleansing and fresh breath update!

well hello! long time no post, i know, i know. there has been so much going on: 1) developing a monthly biscuit cluBAnna (named after our furry friends in north carolina who love JOY biscuits, and whose parents pre-paid 3 flavors of treats to be mailed to them monthly for several months!), 2) a new JOY biscuit size and package to be launched soon, and 3) finding a local outfit to help us print JOY biscuits t-shirts! we also currently have a new spring seasonal flavor: banana, sunflower, & carob - so far it has been a hit! this biscuit is good for healthy skin and coat and may even become a regular flavor of the JOY biscuit line! but i digress, these updates are not the purpose of this post...

the purpose of this post is to share some information i've read recently in the summer issue of an awesome holistic publication: animal wellness magazine. it concerns this beautiful herb above: dill. in an article written by audi donamor, dill leaves and dill seeds are claimed to be a healing and nutritious herb. by simply adding chopped fresh dill to your dogs food and dill tea (made by steeping dill seeds) to their food and/or water, doggy breath can go from really bad to good! in addition to this, dill helps to reduce flatulence and contains heaps of vitamins and minerals such as calcium, iron, zinc, thiamine, and vitamin A. so, what does this mean? this means that the mint, parsley, & charcoal cleansing and fresh breath JOY biscuits will soon be made with dill tea (as opposed to just filtered water) to add the benefits of this wonderful herb! we're also in the process of developing another cleansing and fresh breath flavor: ginger, mint, and wheatgrass!

the best things come in small packages

yup, that's right! and even though our package is small, you still get 10-18 JOY biscuits per package (2.25 ounces minimum net weight). sizes of the biscuits do vary, as each one is individually hand-rolled. we believe that small dogs deserve big treats and even big dogs can enjoy a small treat from time to time. we would like to add that JOY biscuits fit in multiple sizes of kongs and other brain teaser/interactive toys too! pictured here are our mint, parsley, & charcoal JOY biscuits for cleansing and fresh breath. click here for more info on this popular flavor and HAPPY 2010!

JOY biscuits is now at cheengoo on union

we are pleased to announce that cheengoo is part of the JOY biscuits family!


the cheengoo pack is super friendly and has very cute boutique products, check them out at:
http://www.cheengoo.com/about.php



we wish you a very happy holiday and thank you for your support! more to come very soon...

JOY biscuits fall seasonal

ok folks here it is, the JOY biscuit for the fall: pumpkin and cranberry! these ones are tasty too! we basically used a very similar recipe to the sweet potato & chamomile and substituted the sweet potato for pumpkin. add some dried cranberries and voila! however, i couldn't find dried cranberries without sugar and oils so we dried our own! this is a very arduous process, say 7+ hours...BUT it's worth it, and i think your 4-legged friend will agree. get some while they last!

the perfect eco-friendly package

ok, this is definitely post worthy...since the beginning i had this vision of what JOY biscuits packaging would be like and in august it came true! i wanted a container that was craft brown and earth-friendly with a see through lid. the picture was very vivid in my mind, but finding the container was a challenge. finally after crossing paths with a friend of a friend, i discovered a local company that distributes bagasse containers!
bagasse is a sugarcane fiber that is biodegradable and compostable. these containers will break down in 1-3 months in a large scale compost program, and 2-4 months in a home compost bin depending on the temperature. the lids are made out of corn starch and other earth-friendly starches, and are also compostable! we feel these containers depict exactly what JOY biscuits is all about. we are sooo excited to start offering JOY biscuits in this packaging and think that you will like them too!

JOY biscuits helps fund raise for GSGA!

i have some VERY exciting news! JOY biscuits will be at the annual golden state greyhound adoption (GSGA) picnic in early october. we will be selling our tasty treats to help fund raise for this wonderful organization. if you would like to meet a greyhound and learn more about this amazing breed, go to a meet and greet! meet and greets occur all over the bay area and provide the opportunity to ask questions and meet a greyhound (we went to a few before adopting champ!). visit: http://www.goldengreyhounds.com/events/index.htm for more details.

the evolution of JOY biscuits recipes

people frequently ask me where i get my recipes from.
the answer is, i create them!

after months of researching recipes online and baking...and making modifications from batch to batch...the outcome of JOY biscuits recipes have been positively met with enthusiasm and happy dogs! when i initially started baking dog biscuits (before the creation of JOY biscuits) i used wheat flour. then after reading about how wheat is ubiquitous in dog food recipes and that many dogs develop allergies to wheat, i discontinued including wheat flour in my recipes. i found that using alternative flours (like brown rice flour, and rye and barley flours) were more easy on the digestive system and just as nutrient-rich, if not more, as wheat. i should also mention that greyhounds who are newly retired from the track have notably sensitive stomachs and i wanted to create a treat that even the "fresh off the track greyhounds" could enjoy without any GI distress.

if your furry friend was part of the JOY biscuits R&D pack in the early stages, you know that the first round of healthy skin and coat biscuits (peanut butter & flax round A, batches 1-3 and round B, batch 1) did not have sunflower seed meal. after stumbling upon some interesting articles and talking with my vet friend, i learned that omega-6 fatty acids, more specifically linoleic acid (LA) is the fatty acid that aids in a healthy skin and coat. LA optimizes water permeability in the skin, thus being a great treatment for dry, dull, and brittle skin and coats. in fact, there are no scientific studies showing that dogs actually transform omega-3s into linoleic acid (like humans do) to benefit from the anti-inflammatory benefits. therefore JOY biscuits added sunflower seed meal to the healthy skin and coat biscuit line.

sunflower seeds are high in omega-6 acids (more so than flax seed), and are an excellent source of fiber, vitamins, and minerals which are cancer-fighting and promote heart health.

i hope this sheds some light on the evolution of JOY biscuits recipes and thanks for reading!

JOY biscuits at 14,505 feet!

i get a kick out of this - i give the dog's pack leader biscuits and they end up eating them...on top of mt whitney! HA!

ok, so remember how i said my friends really like the sunflower, PB, & flax biscuits? well our friends dave and daniella hiked up mt whitney a few weeks ago and dave suprised daniella with some biscuits i gave him (for willow, daniella's boxer). daniella wrote in her email, "Dave surprised me with these at the summit. AMAZING. I am serious - I want to start buying these for myself (sorry, Willow!)...how?"

the answer to how to buy is either through me, or through that takes the cake on union street in SF, or at the holistic hound in berkeley. more details to follow! btw, that packaging differs from our store packaging. like i said, more details to follow!

elan, how do YOU like dem biscuits?!?

yes, that's right. JOY biscuits are taste tested by dogs and humans! in fact, my dear friend's nephew loved them (the sunflower, PB, & flax ones), and he's a very picky eater! he already had one in his mouth and reached for another one right out of the bag before swallowing! the sunflower, PB, & flax flavor seems to be a favorite of many of my human friends. they taste kinda like trail mix and have a nice crunchy light texture. the JOY biscuits also made it on the cheese plate!

here's a good photo to put the size of the biscuits in perspective. we are however making a larger size biscuit available as of this month. these are a few of my close friends from undergrad also enjoying the JOY biscuit tasting. people keep telling me i should market to humans in addition to doggies. although JOY biscuits are made with fresh human grade ingredients, marketing to humans wasn't the initial idea. there are way more regulations to create and distribute a human food product, and well...let's just say that that may be a part of the future plan of JOY biscuits!

how do you like dem biscuits!?

get ready for the world's first authentic artisanal dog biscuit! JOY biscuits are always fresh, always handmade, and always natural. yes, they are the dog treat you and your dog have been waiting for (see why below) and yes, that is champ in the background, being very good and practicing his modeling skills...


after months of research, taste tests, and baking we are proud to announce that we are ready for business! pictured are 4 of our 5 current flavors (from left to right): sunflower, PB, & flax/healthy skin and coat; sweet potato & chamomile/calming; mint, parsley, & charcoal/cleansing & fresh breath; and roasted lamb & rosemary/flea control; (not pictured are our roasted chicken and thyme biscuits, good for flea control).

our unique design is also known as a Koru, which comes from New Zealand's Native population, the Maori. the Koru represents a fern bud as it opens, bringing new life and beginnings to the world. we believe this symbol epitomizes what JOY biscuits brings to the lives of our furry friends: the beauty of simplicity that brings a feeling of great happiness and rejuvenation.

we are SUPER excited to begin providing our tasty, meaningful, and healthy treats to dogs all over! thanks and good night...