Max

When Gary's dog Max was about ten years old, he developed a crippling case of arthritis. Gary tried everything that traditional Western medicine had to offer — anti-inflammatories, steroids, constant vet visits — but nothing helped. He was frustrated, and he began to feel pretty desperate. To Gary, Max wasn't just a dog. He was his best friend. He and his brother Casey were Old English Sheepdogs, and they were the loves of Gary's life.

Gary was willing to try anything for Max. He found a local holistic vet, and the first thing the vet asked was, "What are you feeding him?" Gary didn't understand what that had to do with arthritis, but he told him the brand of kibble Max and Casey had been fed for years. They had a meaningful conversation about how food matters just as much for our pets as it does for us. The vet opened Gary's eyes to the possibility of feeding his dogs raw, real diets. With a few articles and recipes in hand, Gary left the office and started preparing his dogs' meals that same day.

— Max & Casey, c. late 1980s

The recovery

Within weeks, Max was improving. By the end of the month, the change was dramatic. Not only was he able to walk again, he was acting like his younger self. Gary remembers being taken aback by how fast it happened. It was as if Max were coming back to life — and after a long period of frustration, it gave Gary the hope he had been desperately searching for.

The longer Max stayed on the diet, the better he got. So Gary decided to start his other dog, Casey, on the same plan. Casey had been struggling with chronic skin issues since puppyhood — constantly itchy, irritated by touch. Once Gary switched him to the same food as Max, those problems disappeared too.

That's when Gary realized that the expression "you are what you eat" applies to our pets, as well as ourselves. He began telling any dog owner who would listen. Most of them understood the logic of a raw diet right away. But almost every conversation ended the same way:

"I don't have time to cook for myself, let alone my dog."

The eight years after Max.

Max lived another five years on his new diet — making it to fifteen years old. Gary absolutely believes that changing Max's food gave him those extra years. But in 1995, Max passed.

Gary was heartbroken. He kept telling people about raw feeding for years afterward, kept seeing the same recognition cross their faces, kept hearing the same response: I don't have the time. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing — a way to give people what he'd given Max, without asking them to grind meat in their kitchens.

It took eight years for that idea to become a company.

Gary Tashjian — founder of Darwin's Natural Pet Products.

In 2003, Gary founded Darwin's. He worked with a veterinarian to update his original recipe so it followed full standards for balanced pet nutrition, and called it Natural Selections — a raw diet inspired by nature and informed by science. He named the company after Charles Darwin. He'd been thinking about Max the whole time.

Out of the back of a car.

Gary prepared the meals himself. Packaged them himself. Froze them himself. Then he loaded them into his personal vehicle and drove them to customers' homes across the Seattle area. He took the calls, tracked the orders, ran the marketing booth at regional dog shows on weekends — every role, all of it.

That same year, he left his position as a marketing executive to commit to Darwin's full-time. And he made a strategic decision that nobody else in pet food was making in 2004: focus on home delivery, not retail. Twenty years later, almost everyone serious about fresh pet food does it this way. In 2004, it was just Gary in a car.

The letters

Since starting over twenty years ago, one of the most powerful things to come out of this venture has been the stories people send us. Gary remembers one of the very first letters. A customer said they were going to have to put their dog down, and someone told them about our food. They tried it, and within weeks, their dog bounced back, gaining more energy and more years. The food saved their best friend's life.

That's what keeps us going — making a real difference in the lives of pets and the people who love them.

We hear stories like that all the time now. People who've tried everything else. People who feel hopeless until they see real improvement from switching their pet's diet. Over the years, we've grown from a personal mission into a thriving community. We've expanded our offerings, deepened our understanding of pet nutrition, and reached pet parents in every corner of the country.

There's nothing more meaningful than knowing what we're doing helps pets thrive longer, and helps the people who love them feel less alone in the process.