Why I Started Love Ani

I love dogs. Especially Beagles. My first Beagle came to me in 2006. She was 10 weeks old when we intervened to adopt her as she was being dropped at a shelter. I instantly became a dog mom for the first time, and I loved it. I truly don’t know what I would have done without her. She got me through some of the toughest times in my life and helped me move on to my new journey before she left us for doggy heaven.

Six weeks later I picked up Penny, my current Beagle. I was in a fog of grief and sadness not sure how to live without my dog child. Luckily, Penny took to me quickly. I’m convinced dogs know what we’re going through and how to help us more than we give them credit for. I know both of mine have.

Marty was an easy child. Penny, not so much. She’d had a rough past. At just one, she was at a county shelter on a euthanasia list. The organization I got her from focused on getting dogs off those lists, out of shelters and into foster homes to be adopted. She went to foster, was adopted then turned in a year later because she was eating their food. She was back in foster for three weeks before I walked into her life, and we became a family. She was very quiet and timid at first. I suspected the past family had done their best to train the beagle out of her and to “act like a dog”. But three weeks with me and that all went away. What emerged was an adorable, precocious, stubborn, loveable beagle who adored her mom. My broken heart began to heal.

What also emerged was a dog who had massive anxiety. When I walked out the door with Marty, she would look at me as if to say “cool, I’m gonna take a nap”. When I walked out the door with Penny her look was “if you leave, I’m going to die” and it was paired with barking, panting and pacing. I knew Penny was going to require more of me than I’d given a dog before and I was honored to be the person to help her through this world. Seeing how her tough path had negatively affected her made me want to do more for animals who find themselves in bad situations as we know so many do. 

I’m not sure exactly how I got connected to the Beagle Freedom Project, an organization who gets dogs out of animal testing and re-homes them. They also fight for new legislation to end animal testing because there is a lot of data confirming it’s not as successful as we are led to believe. But I do know that the internet was made for dog content, so I stumbled across them and anyone who is fighting for Beagles gets a place in my heart. I started donating and buying cruelty free products immediately. I was frustrated that I couldn’t determine which brands were cruelty free and which weren't. This was in 2017. Target or Walmart was impossible. Sephora was even a challenge. I’d ask the store clerks; they’d have to check the computer and would then point me in the direction of a few select brands.

In 2017 the tide was turning through. Consumer sentiment had long been about buying clean sustainable brands. Fortune 500 companies were paying attention and making strides to stop animal testing while acquiring small startups that were walking the walk.

The good news is that a lot more brands are cruelty free now. In most stores you can more easily find “Clean Beauty” which generally means cruelty free. These brands are usually organic with natural ingredients and focused on how to make great products that are good for the planet. Bravo, I love that. The bad news is that a lot of other brands most of us purchase, in beauty and beyond, are still testing on animals in some fashion. Not good. 

A lot of these companies are shifting to cruelty free policies. They just aren’t 100% there so there is still a need to ensure consumers are informed and can make their purchasing decisions as a result.

So I saw an opportunity to start a brand that truly owns cruelty free as their purpose to help end animal testing and donates profits to help those animals who find themselves in bad situations.

And, starting a brand all about animals with a slight focus on dogs seems like a really f’ing cool thing to do.

So world, I introduce to you Love Ani, because we love animals. I hope you’ll join me on this journey to support a brand that wants to use its profits for the good of animals all over the world.

Love Ani