Why I began Peerless Pups

I'd love to tell you a story of how I found a mystical plant in the depths of the Amazon rainforest that produced a seed that magically cleaned foxes' poo from the necks of dogs. Sadly, as fun as that sounds, it would be a lie.

The truth is, my wife is a dog trainer and regularly used one of our dogs to help in her training. That means D'Fer (the dog in question) often came home having rolled in something nasty when no one was looking.

Obviously, when this almost inevitable situation occurs, he gave the look that said:

"What? It wasn't my fault! I was just walking along, minding my own business, and I fell over. Complete accident, to be honest I was as shocked as you are, it's was terrible. I fell, neck first into poo, and in a field that big, what are the odds? Then, when I wiggled to get up, trying to save both myself and our beautiful home from a smell so bad we'd have to move out, it just made it worse, rubbing it in deeper and deeper! Let's both just be thankful that I survived". 

As we all know, sometimes they find a little bit of sheep's poo and you can live with it, other times it's the evil "present" a fox left behind and it means a trip to the bath. Now D'Fer was not one to appreciate the luxury of a relaxing trip to the tub, he was more of a "scramble around and do your best impression of Bambi on ice" kinda dog. Being a Staffy cross, he also happens to have very sensitive skin and thus, many of the doggie shampoos on the market that we tried on him over the years tended to do more harm than good. Sure, they would clean, but he'd spend the next few days scratching and that was no good for anyone.

Eventually, we settled on a baby shampoo, which worked on his skin and smelt nice, but didn't do a great job when dealing with anything super pungent. Somehow, it never really "got in there" if you know what I mean.

I also forgot to mention that my wife and I also have skin that can react like a baking soda volcano if washed in too harsh a chemical. So there was that as well.

One day, after watching a crazy American woman on YouTube, it occurred to me that I could just make something myself to do the job. Yes, I'm one of those people. Useful, but no fun at parties!

I started with our Super Sensitive Soap (coming soon). Adjusting the formula to help moisturise the skin but also playing with the creaminess and the amount of lather (bubbles) it produced so that it was just right.

Then I decided that the little fella could do with calming down when we bathed him, so I created the soothing Calm Soap (also coming soon). Adding fragrances that were designed to relax and calm while adding a blue dye. The choice of colour was down to the fact that dogs can see blue almost exactly the same as us, and it meant that it was easy to differentiate from the Sensitive Soap. It worked a treat from almost the first attempt (although in truth, that one came out more purple than blue).

Then came the day when one of the dogs (I forget which one now) rolled in something that ...well, it was an intriguing fragrance, to say the least. If I was forced to describe it, I'd go for raw sewage mixed with a hint of death. Honestly, this smell was so bad it could have been weaponised! Best will in the world, my soaps just didn't cut it. They could deal with the average dirt, sheep poo, the occasional dead fish and even have a good crack at foxes poo, but this...this was pure evil in the form of brown sludge.

So, I designed Stinky Pup Soap. It started out red to show it was to be used in an emergency. To the dogs, it probably looks brown, so it meant something to both of us! During the development stages, I added active charcoal, turning the soap black. I also created a slightly firmer soap so that it would need to be rubbed into the fur harder, thus agitating the dirt and producing a better lather. I increased the amount of essential oil to help attack the smell and used Cedarwood as the base rather than the more floral fragrance of the Calm Soap to really help beat the stink. It worked. I tweaked it over time, to make it smell a little less like a lumberjack's beard oil, adding Marjoram and Sweet Orange to the mix.

Then, others tried it. They loved it. They wanted more. They wanted to know where they could buy it. So, here we are. More soaps are in the pipeline but the world of Peerless Pups is beginning with Stinky Pup Soap, the best thing I have ever used for really obnoxious smells and dirt.