How One Dog's Cancer Created a Pet Wellness Brand

to do natural, why not? Pharmaceuticals are backed by clinical research, regulation, and they target

“the problem quickly, but they also come with a lot of side effects, especially older dogs and dogs”

that are sensitive. Natural remedies work with the body's own healing process. Mary Beth Powers is a compassionate, innovative, and purpose-driven entrepreneur, and the founder of Tetties to Merrick Tamer, a natural pet wellness company inspired by her journey to save her beloved dog Tettie. My product helped save her dog. He had an aggressive sarcoma. He had two to four weeks live to keep him comfortable. I was devastated, and the product that I developed and kept him

on. Two weeks later, he was romping in the water. So I knew then that this product was helping him. Four months later, the tumor completely disappeared.

“All right, everybody, welcome back to another episode of Inside Success. This is the living”

your legacy podcast, and I'm your host, Jason Tyler, and I am joined today by Mary Beth Powers. Welcome to the podcast room. Now, you're just now on the other side of finishing your

episode. First of all, how are you feeling? More relaxed. We got to get the episode out first,

so we get the jitters off. How we can just have a conversation. Exactly. Tell me what can people expect to learn from you in your episode? In my episode, I talk about my journey, first and foremost, from a meeting planner to a pet wellness entrepreneur now, and that was quite transformative. That's a hell of a jump. Yeah, it was a jump, a big jump, and then how my product helped save our dog. He was given two to four weeks to live, and the product that I developed, and kept him on.

We had three more years with him three more years. Three more years. Wow, I actually just lost my family dog. This is must have been what three months ago. Her name was Jules. She was a little beagle corgi mix, and we had her for 16 years. Wow, that's a good run. She made it. She had a hell of a run, and she had cancer, so she had a tumor that we couldn't remove, and eventually it just

“became so painful for her that we decided it was best to... You have to know, you have to be your”

pet's best advocate. Hardest day of my entire life. I always say having pets are some of the

greatest years of your life, but it's also one of the worst days of your life when you have to let go. Yeah, I was the only one out of my family that was able to stay in the room with her, because my mom couldn't handle it, my sister couldn't handle it. It was just me, the doctor, and Jules, and I just remember holding her as they were giving her a shot, and just being like, no, I don't want it. Why are we doing it? It's the worst feeling in the world. I'm going to stop talking

before I end up like horrible thing. But you were able to get an extra three. I would have killed a man to get three more years. Yeah. A hard-working family man at that. Yeah. I love that dog with everything that I had, but talks me a little bit. When was the moment that you kind of realized that this was working? So we found a lump on his note, and we thought he had been stung by B. And after about a week's time, the lump cut bigger, we took him to the vet,

and they did some tests and they found that he had cancer cells, and our next step was go to a vet oncologist, and that took about two or three weeks to get an appointment, but in the end, from he stopped eating. So I had done some research to look for what can I do to enhance the flavor of the food, so my dog would eat, and possibly help with his symptoms of cancer.

So we finally got into the vet oncologist, and then 10 days later, we got the call that he had an

aggressive sarcoma. He had two to four weeks to live to keep him comfortable. I was devastated. I didn't want to do that. We were leaving for Maine the next day, and that was his favorite place in the world.

So we kept feeding him the turmeric, and I said he's not going to die this way.

“Took him off some sedation medicines, kept him on one of the pain killers, because I didn't know”

how much pain he was in. And eventually, in two days, he started walking around and I was like, okay, this is a good sign. Two weeks later, he was romping in the water. So I knew then that this product was helping him. And by that time, we hadn't taken him off the pink killer just yet, but within a week or two after that, when I went home to the vet and the vet said, sure, we can try taking him off, and you'll know if he's in pain. Four months later, the tumor completely

disappeared. Four months later. All right. What is the science behind this? Well, that you can't ask me, I'm not a scientist, but knowing the research that I did, we know turmeric is a natural anti-inflammatory, and cancer is made up of inflammation. We discovered ginger through dear friend of mine who had a varying cancer, we discovered that ginger actually slows the growth of certain cancer cells, specifically a variant. So I threw that in, and it also ginger is a very

powerful anti-oxidant, so it helps protect your cell's damage. We added omega-3, which is full of

omega-3 fatty acids, which helps with boost immunity, skin conditions, arthritis. We added cinnamon mainly for the flavor, but also a powerful anti-oxidant. We had two cancer-fighting mushrooms that also helped boost immunity and it's a great anti-oxidant, and then pepper, black pepper, which helps the body absorb the tumoric and also stay in your bloodstream longer. All of it works, all these ingredients, everything we're just a tandem. Yep. That's amazing. Yeah. Where were you three

months ago? I know. I wish I would've done it. I have a lot of people say that to me. And it goes to your credit. It's one of those things that you mentioned, you're not a scientist, right? Yeah, but you, in your own way, through experimentation and through using these products, you've come to the conclusion that, hey, I can't tell you the science behind why this works, but it worked for me, and you have the ultimate use case, which is getting three more years out of

your dog that had two to four. Absolutely. We weren't offered anything. We were just told to keep them comfortable. I wasn't going to not fight for my dog, so I figured why not. We'll try the natural route, but we've heard lots of stories about Timmerick being used in medicinal purpose

“all around the world for many elements, so that's how we started. And of course, we had to fill”

it in with, you can't just give pure turmeric. A lot of people don't realize you can give Timmerick to dogs, and it is made all, it's all natural and gradients. Human grade, my husband and I take it. I have plenty of humans taken. I actually have one customer that splits it with his dog. What are some of the benefits for human consumption? Same thing. Join issues, anti-inflammatory. I take it. I didn't realize I had an issue with my knees, and as an event planner, I went away

for four days, and I was walking the concrete of a convention center. I didn't take it with me, because at that time, I was using it in a smoothie, and I didn't want to bring it all together and find a blender. So I didn't take it for four days, and when I got back, my knee was killing me, and then I started taking it at home, and within two days, my knee stopped hurting. Yeah, I need to get some hold on. All right, so we have some, we have some products here.

That's right. For the camera, there's just hold this up here. I will be taking this home. I'm just gonna let everybody know. This will not leave the office. But, all right, let's walk it back a little bit. Okay. You went from your original career, coming into this business through this transformative

“experience, when was the moment of impetus where you decided I need to give this to the world?”

COVID. When COVID hit, the meeting industry halted. I didn't plan for two years, but prior to that, Teddy had already developed the cancer. So I was doing this on the side, just keeping him alive.

That was my whole goal was just to keep him alive. I never intended this to be a business,

but then when COVID hit, and I wasn't working, and unfortunately, both my parents passed away. I was their caregivers to go in. Thank you. After that time, and they were my mentors. They were entrepreneurs, and they're the ones who instilled that entrepreneurship spirit with me. But once they passed, I had time. I needed to pursue it. I also had some friends and neighbors

it's working in many different ways. It's not only for the cancer, I had one neighbor who swore that it helped her dogs and continents. Whenever she would, whenever the product was gone, the dog would have the issues. When she started my product, he was fine. So I realized this product is good. It's natural. Why not? Why need to get it out there? And so this is one thing that I just noticed among business owners. For a business to thrive,

“you have to be super-solution-oriented. And so you've found this solution to your own problem. Why not”

help solve a problem for someone else? Absolutely. That's the ultimate I think end goal for most entrepreneurs in business owners. How can I create a solution that is not only a solution to a problem that I have, but it can help solve a problem for somebody else. What are some major issues that you see within the industry that you would like to solve for? Is that lack of information? There is a lack of information. You know, I feel that pharmaceuticals, they are needed. There's no doubt about it.

However, if you have a choice to do natural, why not? Pharmaceuticals are backed by clinical research, regulation, and they target the problem quickly, but they also come with a lot of side effects, especially older dogs and dogs that are sensitive. Natural remedies work with the

body's own healing process. So through herbs and spices and antioxidants, why not try that option first?

There's very little side effects. I agree with you on that, because I feel like it should really be like a hierarchy of contingents. It's like, all right, we're going to start with the natural solution first. If it's so severe that that does not work, then I can go to the next step, which is Pharmaceuticals, right? And that's true. I mean, to me, that's just like a logical conclusion that you would come up with. But a lot of people are like, oh, no, the natural stuff, that's all,

woo, woo, woo. No, the natural stuff is backed by evidence, the same way the science is backed by evidence, right? What would you say to somebody out there that is seeing this grass for its business, right? This literally just came from a solution for your dog? I need to help my dog. What would you say to somebody out there that has a solution to a problem, but does not know how to build a business

“around it? That's a really good question. Well, get out there first of all. That's how I started.”

I started, well, besides starting with my dog, I started with family and neighbors, and then eventually started doing farmer's markets and community events, and then I took the terrifying event of going into a store, tried to sell to them, which I did, and gave me the confidence to sell another store. Not big box stores, but local patees. So it's hard to have to go through a couple before you got the

first one. So, well, if it are not, the first one, except to me, because it was a holistic natural

store for dogs and pets. I see me for humans and pets, and he loves all natural options. So that was that was great. That really boosted my confidence. You found that found a great fit on the first drive. But I, I was put down a couple other times, and yeah, it was pretty hard. Everybody, I think, and this goes back to the previous question of what steps can people take to

“build out a business. The first step that you should take, I think, is getting comfortable with the”

idea of no. Right. Like, not everything is going to be a yes, but the things that are for you were a yes before you ask. That's very true. I think that that's like something super important for any business owner out there to know is that if it's meant for you, it was a yes way before you walked in the door. Well, you know, and I will disagree with you there, but I also, there's other challenges. Like for me, my life is saying, it took five years to get my license. They kept to

name me to name me. I hired a lawyer. They denied it. They denied us. Eventually, we got the license. And it was for minor issues. Had it been more of a guideline or health, if they were helpful, we would have had our license earlier. So for the viewers, what were some of those stop gaps that kept them from giving you your license? Because I think that's super important to them to know.

Like, oh, all right, maybe I can get ahead of this. So the, well, the first thing was that I had one

ingredient, it's called Red Reishi mushroom, that has been proven to help with mass cell timbers, which are very common in dogs. The licensing aid and seed didn't believe there was enough data for dogs. Although I provided them with data, it wasn't enough. So I had to reformulate my product. Got it. So that was one issue. You know, and then to stay compliant year after year, because things are constantly changing. We have to change our labels. We have to change our marketing,

So that can be challenging. And I will tell you, it was a very, very frustrating experience.

“I almost gave up. I almost gave up. I can imagine, I would be five years, almost gave up.”

I would have been pissed off every day. But I was. But I knew I was still helping dogs, friends, and families, and neighbors, and doing these community, well, I didn't do the community events, so I was licensed. But I would knew that my product was worth, worth trying to save, and get out there. And now here we are. Yes. So talking to me a little bit about what we have here. We have a couple of different products. I see there's a spray down there. So this is the tumor

act that we use for Teddy. And this is the one that has the anti-inflammatory. All the ingredients work synergistically with your body. And I explained them just a couple of minutes ago. And all natural, and again, human grade, I have lots of humans using it. So this is our first product.

We expanded into a fully and tick repellent without pesticides. It's essential oils only,

no chemicals, no pesticides, because most of the flea and tick treatments are made with neurotoxic pesticides. And why would you want to put that on? I don't like that. Right. He rose around in my bed. I don't like that. Exactly. But I will tell you,

“with the natural flea and tick repellents, you have to be vigilant as a pet owner because they don't”

kill the insect. They only repell them. So I found a tick or two on my dog before, especially when we're

main. So I have to check them every time we go out. But I'd rather use this than a pesticide.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that tastes perfect. Lastly, we, this was discovered last year. We've had a terrible winter this year in Virginia. But last year, my dog, he doesn't like his paws. The dog that I have now, he doesn't like his paws such he was severely abused. I made this paw protector to put on his paw so that when he goes out in the salt and sand, that it sort of repels it and also

“it moisturizes his paw. So we do this as all natural and beeswax, shade butter. All of our”

stuff is natural. No chemicals, no preservatives. Mm-hmm. I'm going to, so I personally need your website. Okay. But for the people out there, where can they find you? Where can they find you on social media? Your website? What's your online address? Okay. It is a mouthful, but it's Tetties, Tumeric, Tamer, Tetties, with an S, TumericTamer.com. We're on Instagram, it's Tetties, TumericTamer, I want Facebook as to, excuse me, it's Tetties, TumericTamer. Currently, we are in the process of

getting on Amazon, but right now with our website and my stores, I'm pretty busy. Trust me, good things take time. And I have a couple of friends that are in the process of getting their products on Amazon as well, and I know that it is a, it's a very hard to improve the process. It's a mission. Yeah. It's a bit of a mission, but you guys, if you're still watching at this point, I want you guys to make sure that you go and check out Mary Beth's episode. It should be up

shortly following this podcast. So make sure you guys check that out for the full breakdown of her story. Again, you know, you saved your dog. Yes. What more do I need to tell you? If you're a dog owner out there, definitely make sure that you check out her episode. But again, I'm your host Jason Tyler. That's another episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast, and we will catch you guys in the next one.