Pocono mom’s fresh idea: Cookie mix for Rex
Pocono mom, dog lover launches cookie-mix business for man’s best friend
A Monroe County entrepreneur has developed a powdered mix to make healthy dog cookies and will sell it online.
Here’s a recipe for a treat for Duke or Lady:
Start with a mix of brown rice, chickpea flower and carob chips.
Add a few ingredients, including butter, shortening and eggs.
Combine, pour and bake, then serve with love, including that from Whitney Vanicky.
A passion for cookies and doggies oozes from the Pocono Mountains wife, mother of three children and owner of a cocker spaniel named Sophia. This week, Vanicky is launching what she calls two gourmet-cookiemix businesses, including Dogg (y) Mix LLC, that’s geared for four-legged snack lovers.
“I grew up around dogs,” Vanicky said. “To most people, they are part of the family. Just as much as you want to put the best in your body, you want your pet to have the best treat.”
She also grew up around cookies — not store-bought varieties but sweets made from scratch by her mother, Sandy Dodds.
The Monroe County resident in 2013 began a cookie-baking business, running C&A’s Cookie Jar from her home kitchen. But a household injury about two years later left her with a severely damaged right wrist that forced her to quit baking.
It didn’t stop Vanicky’s business ingenuity. The Chestnuthill Township woman said she began experimenting with a powdered-cookie mix, which led her to creating one flavor for her dog; she calls it Doggy Chip.
Vanicky said she went through “a lot of experimenting, a lot of redos, a lot of throwouts.” Her dog, as well as Dodd’s two cocker spaniels, Boo Bear and Samson, enjoy the results.
“These dogs go crazy for them,” she said.
Vanicky’s business is exclusively online, and her website will be up and running Wednesday, which is her birthday: mydoggymix.com. Looking ahead, she hopes to extend the canine menu with more flavors, and perhaps hold a grand opening of sorts, with a taste-testing with more furry friends.
She is also selling powder mixes for human cookies under a separate business, Cook(y) Mix LLC. Flavors include S’more Please, hot chocolate, chocolate chip, Crumb Cookie (think coffee crumb cake) and Kicking Dirt (a takeoff on dirt cake). Cook(y) Mix’s website is cookymix.com.
Each 12-ounce bag sells for $9.99, excluding shipping and handling, Vanicky said. The S’more Please cookie costs $11.99.