The Dog Treat Business I Wasn’t Meant to Start

What a moldy batch of dog treats revealed about ambition.

Me, in the early days of Combat Canines—still convinced this was the beginning of something big. Spoiler: it wasn’t. But the lessons? Those stuck.

It started, like many of my most questionable ideas, with a book.

I was halfway through Million Dollar Weekend—business guide that promises you can launch a six-figure venture in a matter of hours—when something sparked. I’m an Army veteran. I’m legally blind. I have a guide dog who turns heads on every sidewalk.

Why not start a dog treat business?

It felt obvious, and dare I say, inevitable. Within hours, I was in the kitchen, apron tied, mixing peanut butter and pumpkin purée, convinced I was one batch away from becoming the next pet-industry darling.

Never mind that I don’t enjoy baking. Or that homemade dog treats are famously perishable. Or that maneuvering around a hot oven with only 10% of my vision—and a 90-pound German Shepherd underfoot—was more treacherous than I cared to admit.

Spoiler: the business didn’t take off.

But something else did. Something I didn’t expect—and needed far more.

Combat Canines Takes Shape

The book’s premise was disarmingly simple: don’t overthink it. Just text a few friends, ask if they’d buy what you’re selling, and start. No business plan. No logo. No LLC. Just momentum—pure and fast.

And in that moment, it felt like permission. Like a green light for every half-formed idea I’d ever tucked away.

I figured—why not? I had a story people responded to. I was an Army veteran. Legally blind. Accompanied everywhere by a guide dog who was a companion, a guardian, a quiet symbol of resilience. In a market overflowing with pet products, this felt like something different. Something people could believe in.

Within days, I had a name: Combat Canines. It struck the right tone—brave, loyal, mission-driven. I imagined branding that honored service animals and the people who depended on them. Boxes stamped with paw prints and quotes about courage. A growing community of dog lovers eager to support something meaningful. Something veteran-owned. Something that looked and felt like a cause.

Friends were enthusiastic. Encouraging. Some even placed early orders. And on the surface, things were moving forward. But beneath all that external validation, a quieter truth was beginning to rise.

I wasn’t doing this because I loved dogs or felt called to entrepreneurship.
Not really.

I had entered a veteran business competition, and the $10,000 prize had taken root in my imagination. I told myself this was about purpose, about impact. But if I’m honest?

It wasn’t about purpose at all. It was about proof. About showing I could win. About showing I still had something to prove.

The Trouble With Homemade Dog Treats

There’s a reason most people don’t bake dog treats in their home kitchen at scale. It’s not because they lack creativity or entrepreneurial spirit. It’s because the reality—unlike the Pinterest version—is sticky, slow, and, if you’re not careful, slightly hazardous.

At first, I approached it like a novelty project, equal parts ambition and curiosity. I printed out recipes with promising names and unreasonably cheerful introductions. The ingredients were wholesome and simple—pumpkin, oats, peanut butter—and soon my kitchen smelled like a rustic health food store run by golden retrievers.

But novelty, like dough left too long on the counter, has a way of collapsing in on itself.

The truth is, I’m not a baker. I’ve never loved measuring or mixing or the fragile precision baking requires. And with only 10 percent of my vision intact, working in the kitchen was less a creative endeavor and more a full-body negotiation—with counters, with hot pans, with silicone molds that refused to hold their shape, and with a ninety-pound German Shepherd planted loyally but unhelpfully at my feet.

Then came the practical realities, and they arrived fast. The treats weren’t shelf-stable. They needed to be frozen or refrigerated, which made shipping not just expensive but borderline impossible. One batch molded before I even sealed the packaging. Another disintegrated during transit. I started researching white-label options—commercial kitchens that could manufacture the treats under the Combat Canines brand—but the margins were dismal, and the required minimums made my stomach turn.

Still, I pushed forward, eyes on the prize.

Literally. I had entered a veterans business pitch competition, and I’d built the entire timeline of the business around it. I imagined myself on stage, receiving the check, shaking hands, telling my story. That was the finish line I kept running toward.

I didn’t even place.

I sat in a folding chair at the gala, clapping a little too enthusiastically for the winners, smiling until my cheeks hurt. I had missed my 30th high school reunion to be there—deciding, at the time, that this was the more important commitment, the one that proved I was serious about building something that mattered.

But as I sat in that auditorium, watching the stage I would not step onto, I felt the quiet ache of a different kind of loss. Later, I’d regret missing that reunion more than I ever expected. Because somewhere between the stale air and polite applause, I began to realize:

I wasn’t building a business. I was performing one. And I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep up the act.

The Moment I Knew It Was Time to Quit

The hardest part wasn’t the moldy treats, or the competition loss, or even the slow, creeping dread that settled in each time I looked at another batch of dough waiting to be shaped. It wasn’t the logistics, the cost, or the hours spent running the numbers on how much capital I would need in order to buy in bulk and how much of my life would be spent packaging and shipping product.

The hardest part was facing the quiet truth I didn’t want to admit out loud: I didn’t want to keep going. And that truth felt like a betrayal.

I had gone all in. I’d written a full business plan. Scheduled meetings with a counselor from the Small Business Development Center who encouraged me every step of the way. I’d built a Facebook page, started a newsletter, and talked about Combat Canines like it was already real—like it was already part of my future. I had threaded it into conversations with friends, with fellow veterans, with anyone who would listen. I had staked something on it, not just time or money, but credibility.

So walking away felt like failure—not because it truly was, but because I had already made it mean something. I had turned quitting into a symbol of inadequacy, of broken promises, of giving up too soon. I told myself that to stop now would mean I lacked discipline, that I couldn’t follow through, that I wasn’t cut out for this. And worse—that other people might think that too.

But when I finally got quiet—when I let the noise of other people’s expectations die down, and listened to the smaller, wiser voice inside—I realized what I had been avoiding all along: I didn’t start this business out of love. I didn’t start it out of service. I didn’t start it because I felt some deeper calling.

I started because I thought it might impress people. Because I thought it could win.

And in the end, quitting became an act of self-honesty—maybe the most radical one I’d made in a long time.

The Real Lesson Had Nothing to Do With Dog Treats

Looking back now, I can see it clearly: Combat Canines wasn’t a waste of time. No. It was really more like a mirror.

It reflected back all the ways I confuse movement with meaning. The way I equate momentum with purpose. The way I throw myself into things simply because I can—because I know how to launch, how to organize, how to make something look compelling from the outside—even when, deep down, I don’t want to live inside the thing I’ve built.

And still, I learned. A lot.

I learned how hard product-based businesses really are. How shelf stability can make or break your margins. How shipping costs can bleed you dry. I learned how to pitch an idea that wasn’t quite right. How to pretend enthusiasm for something I didn’t love. I even learned how to say “sweet potato chews” with conviction.

But the most important lesson had nothing to do with dog treats, or logistics, or packaging, or pitch decks.

It had to do with me.

Even now, it feels slightly transgressive to admit this, but my problem has never been a fear of starting. I’m actually great at starting. My problem is knowing what’s worth continuing—what deserves my attention, my energy, my name—my commitment. My problem is distraction dressed up as opportunity, shiny and promising and just different enough to feel like momentum.

Every week, heck, every day, I have to remind myself that I don’t need to start something new to prove I’m capable. I don’t need to chase the next thing just because it’s there. What I need is alignment. What I need is depth. What I need is enough self-awareness to recognize when I’m building something out of validation instead of vision.

What I Took With Me

I didn’t leave Combat Canines with a thriving business, or a giant pitch competition check, or even a neatly packaged success story. What I carried forward was quieter, less visible—harder to brag about at networking events, but infinitely more valuable.

I walked away with clarity. With humility. With a sharper filter for what gets to take up space in my life.

I walked away with a deepened respect for anyone trying to build something real in a world that rewards spectacle. Especially those doing it with added challenges—juggling disability, caregiving, chronic uncertainty. People who still show up, still try, still bake the damn treats.

But maybe the biggest takeaway was this:

Quitting can be its own kind of progress.

There is courage in persistence, yes. But there is also courage in discernment. In knowing when to put something down—not because it was too hard, but because it wasn’t yours to carry.

I still love starting things. I probably always will. There’s something in me that thrills at the new—at possibility. But I’ve learned to ask different questions now.

Not Can I do this?
But Should I?
Not Will this impress people?
But Will this sustain me?

So I’ll ask you what I’ve been asking myself:
What’s something you’ve outgrown—but haven’t let go of yet?
And what might open up if you finally did?