Introduce yourself.

Natural Vet Company is making high strength, veterinary herbalist formulated pet remedies to support our pet’s best health. After working as a companion animal over the past 11 years, I found a lack of effective, high-quality plant medicine for pets and wanted to make this integrative care accessible for pet owners. As the founder of the Natural Vet Company, it is my goal to create high dose, sustainably made and naturally effective pet supports for our cats and dogs. The ingredients I use are carefully considered and my formulations are based on my years of clinical practice as well as progressive clinical research within the field of veterinary herbalism.

What inspired you to join the natural health Sector?

Growing up in west Clare, my father a fisherman and my mother always nurturing a love for nature, as well as using the local ingredients around us to best support our health and so natural plant medicine was instilled in me from a young age. After travelling as a vet around the world, I observed and learned many integrative practices and always felt they worked best when trying to treat an illness. It was always natural medicine that interested me most.

Where did you get the idea for your brand?

After years of watching the side effects that some conventional medicines can have on our pets as well as a lack of any alternative effective treatment approach, I wanted the Natural Vet Company to represent a dedicated, researched and science-backed natural option for pet owners seeking natural support for their pet.

What makes your brand unique?

The Natural Vet company is an Irish owned, family business that began with my 3 month old daughter, Willow in a sling, making calendula ointments and green tea tinctures whilst completing my further studies in veterinary herbalism. When I returned to work, I began to offer herbal consults in the clinic I was working in and soon, all my days and consults were making up tinctures for individual dogs. My first herbal case was a dog who came in to be euthanized, a very desperate owner, who had tried all of the conventionally available medications for itchy skin but they had all stopped working, and he thought there was no other option for his 10 year old westie who was suffering from the worst case of immune mediated skin disease that I had encountered. The case was a pure success and Milly is still enjoying a good quality of life today. That was the beginning of the Natural Vet Company and soon after, I left clinical practice and dedicated the next 2 years developing the most effective range of herbal and marine based pet supports.

What are your company’s core values?

The Natural Vet Company prioritises your pets' health in all my remedies, emphasizing effectiveness and holistic pet health. My remedies are formed from 100% natural ingredients, formed with veterinary expertise which give me a deep understanding of your pets health. Our ethos is to ‘allow nature heal nature’.

How do you support your community?

We are a local, family owned and female founded business. I source the ingredients I use in Ireland wherever possible. The seaweed we use is organic and comes from a similar small family owned Irish business. Much of the packaging we use is also from Irish owned businesses. We always put a lot of time and dedication into researching where the ingredients and packaging we are using is coming from, this is very important to us.

What has been the most rewarding part of your brands journey?

The most rewarding part of my journey has been , and will always be, seeing the feedback and positive reviews from customers and their pets. Recently a client emailed me to say that her 11 year old dog who had recovered from a recent major surgery and the complication of sepsis during her recovery had started taking my supports and is ‘like a pup again, so much energy, her appetite is back, she runs everywhere now instead of walking, she plays again, she is like a puppy’. It is when you hear feedback like this that you know that you have created potent and worthy remedies that are working and making a big difference to the daily life of that dog or cat. I find that so rewarding.

I also find it rewarding to show my two daughters how plant medicine can be made. They are 3 and 5 now and are very curious girls, they often help me to make different remedies from our garden! Smelling Lemonbalm before we harvest it for ointments and making RoseHip syrup. I love showing them how you can grow a plant in the ground and from the roots, leaves and flowers, we can harvest our own seasonal supports. It makes me so happy to pass these lessons onto them from a young age.

What in your opinion makes Irish brands unique?

Ireland is a very cultural place and we are lucky to have this in our heritage. It is something we need to always acknowledge and care for. I think a lot of Irish brands reflect this strength of culture when it comes to ingredients we use, methodology in how we create things and all the way down along the line to the imagery we use to create our brands. This is something which can’t be replicated in other parts of the world and I have travelled enough to appreciate that. It’s what makes the local brands shine.

What is your favourite product from your brand?

I genuinely don’t have a favourite. It really depends on what that animal requires, what their breed and size may predispose them to in terms of health issues when they get that bit older. My favourite common aspect which runs through all of the Natural Vet Co. range of pet supports is that they embody preventative medicine. Preventative medicine means stepping in before a problem arises and if we can do this for our pets through adding natural ingredients into their diet then why not?

Tell us about something that has shaped your brand?

The very last clinical practice I worked in as a vet, was a very busy small animal clinic. It was there that I started to implement and offer holistic, herbal consultations to pet owners. After about 2 months of this offering and seeing the huge impact plant medicine can have when integrated into veterinary care, all of my working days were taken up with making up tinctures for animals and giving herbal consultations. Word spread amongst pet owners that this service was now available, and working.

Soon after it became very busy within the clinic, I was taken aside and told that I couldn’t take any animals off their long term meds anymore, and also I couldn’t change their diet from dried foods or recommend fresh foods. I was told that what I was doing ‘didn’t suit the revenue’ of the clinic. I handed in my notice that same day and that lesson shaped a lot of the drive behind what we do. It has become my mission to make these effective remedies accessible to all pets and to not allow any larger corporations to stop me.

What do you hope to accomplish in the future?

To help as many animals as I can with natural medicine.