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Hello, my friend, welcome to a brand new episode of the story of my pet.
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I'm your host, julie Marty Pearson, and I am very much looking forward to sharing this episode with you.
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I love talking about pets, obviously, but one of the things that I really enjoy doing on this podcast is talking about our pets, past and present, and really focusing on the grief and loss that we all as for moms and dads go through when we have lost a pet or we have an elderly pet or a sick pet, that we're dealing with some what we call anticipatory grief, where we're anticipating the fact that we're going to have to make some difficult decisions or possibly lose our pet in the near future.
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And because there's been so many conversations around grief and loss when it comes to our treasured pets, one company that I'm very excited to share with you is called DNA is Love.
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This company was founded on the idea that we need to remember our important pets and people while they are still with us, and what DNA is Love has created are different ways to memorialize our pets and human friends, that we can capture their DNA while they're still here, and that DNA can be encapsulated into beautiful pieces of jewelry and art and picture frames that we will cherish for many, many years to come.
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I currently have a pet that is in this stage of life Charlie, our cat is 16.
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And, having lost several pets before him, I know there are things that I want to do now, while I have him here, so that I have a piece of him with me, and one of the things I have done is to get a piece of jewelry from DNA is Love, and I will be sharing more here on the podcast about that process of me getting Charlie's DNA and sending it to the company and having them create this piece of jewelry.
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But my conversation with the founders of DNA is Love, stephanie and Dave, are really going to help you get a sense of why they decided to do this, how the process works and why it is such an important topic for us to talk about here on the podcast.
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So, without further details, enjoy this conversation with Stephanie and Dave from DNA is Love.
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Dave from DNA is Love.
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Welcome to a new episode of the Story of my Pet podcast.
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I am your host, julie Marty Pearson, as always, and I am happy to welcome two new friends.
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I like to say my guests become my friends through this podcast.
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I'm very excited to have both Dave and Stephanie here with me today.
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Hello, thank you both for being here.
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Thank you.
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Hi so we'll get into all the things.
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But to start off with give the listeners a little idea instead of me reading off a boring bio, stephanie and Dave, can you each just do a little intro about who you are, where you're coming from and why you love animals or how animals are a part of your life, whatever you feel you want to share?
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Oh.
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I love it.
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I'll start.
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Yes, I'm Stephanie Ford and I am Zooming in here from Portland Oregon.
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And yeah, how did we get started on this?
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A number of years ago, dave and I met and we started talking about ideas for a business.
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I was doing hospice and caregiving at the time, and when Dave was talking about ways to memorialize people and pets, I just thought.
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When Dave was talking about ways to memorialize people and pets, I just thought, oh, wow, this is exactly the direction I would love to go in after being in hospice care, realizing the importance of holding on to these memories and a part of someone you know, because we just never know.
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And so when the idea hit, I thought, oh, this is brilliant.
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And, knowing Dave's story and how long he's been doing this, I thought, oh, this is a really neat way, one of many, to remember the ones that we love.
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And so, yeah, that's kind of how this journey started.
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I have a cat named Yeti, who I've had for 13 years, and he is my life, truly.
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My kids are like he's the favorite child and I think maybe.
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But yeah, when we started this business, yeti got a lot of swabbing done, so we can talk this down for the felines, you know, in the DNA process.
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So that was a lot of fun.
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But yeah, I'm an absolute pet lover.
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Have had pets my whole life and just know how much of a part of our hearts they are.
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They're part of the family, they're everything.
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So yeah, that's a little background on me.
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Good, well, I'm Dave LaTorre, right, I am a scientist.
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I've been a scientist for a long time.
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That goes way back.
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I'm actually a DNA guy.
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I've studied biology, molecular biology.
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I have a PhD in the arts, in the field, and have kind of a long and winding career through many different kind of things, different kind of positions, different kind of applications of molecular testing.
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And then, yeah, stephanie mentioned, I've had this idea for a long, long time just how do you hold on to somebody close to you, whether it's a person or a pet?
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So we just, you know, hashed over some um business ideas and um, dna of love is what we came up with and found it so that we, we love the name.
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That's kind of what it is, um, and it's a way to kind of personalize and memorialize.
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It was somebody that's either living or a pet that's living or has passed away, just to have something special to hold on to.
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So we have a quite a process and we'll talk through you know how we do it and how it all works and things, but that's kind of how we got our start in this and just, you know, entrepreneur, we're kind of serial entrepreneurs at this point, honestly.
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So there we are.
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That's so funny because I you know, since being kind of more in the business world the last five years, I realized once you do it, once it's like it's just it's in your blood and you're always thinking of the next new thing or how can I do it differently.
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So I totally get what?
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you're saying Absolutely.
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But I think because of that in the business world it's almost like we have so many opportunities now.
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It allows us to try things you know we wouldn't have even thought of five years ago or 10 years ago.
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Even podcasting you couldn't have told me five years ago I would have two podcasts and be doing this, let alone about pets and all of that.
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So I totally get what you guys are saying in terms of sometimes we have these idea, but it has to be the right time for it to get created.
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So one thing I have definitely learned through podcasting and pet podcasting is we love our pets.
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Everyone loves to talk about our pets, but we all go through a lot when we lose them or preparing to lose them.
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And obviously behind me is a wall of photos for different reasons.
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But that's always been part of my life, even when I was a kid and had dogs.
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But as I've gotten older, I realized I don't want to think about it after they're gone, and so I think that's what I love about your company and how you talk about it, whether it's a person or a pet that we don't like to think about that, because we want to live in the now and be living, but we also want to have those moments and those cherished pieces of someone or something to hold on to after, and so it's kind of a process to think about it now, but I think about my cats from years and years ago that I wish I had been able to do something like this with, to have those pieces now.
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So let's talk about, let's start with, the science, and then we can talk about the actual products and how people can do them and all of that so from a science perspective you talked about how you had an idea and where.
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How did you decide DNA specifically and then go into the actual products you are able to use that with?
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Sure, well, I mean, dna is kind of the living part of all of us.
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It's the DNA is a macromolecule, deoxyribonucleic acid for those who need a little refresher from maybe high school or college to DNA and it's in every cell and every body and it's in all living things plants, people, pets, all of it, any kind of animal, all of them based on DNA.
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And it's the heritable thing, it's the, it's the genetic legacy that we have through each other and it's inherited down through the generations too.
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So you know if you have your family's dna.
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That's how it started.
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For me was actually family research.
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I was testing I was doing graduate research and testing different DNA markers for identification of people, and I also had to see how those DNA markers reacted in pets, you know, in different animals, to see how specific they were to human.
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Right.
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So I gathered up some samples from my family right, and it's very straightforward.
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We have a kind of a simple we've tried to make it definitely as simple as possible for people which we've done just through basically a simple cheek swabbing procedure.
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And then I have kind of an elegant process I work through in the lab.
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Elegant but simple, but very effective, very clean DNA.
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We break open the cells.
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Dna is in the cells, the cheek cells, we get that out.
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We break open the cells.
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Dna is in the cells, the cheek cells, we get that out.
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We break the cells apart.
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Then we put a treatment in there and with the magnetic beads we actually capture the DNA and hold it on to the side of the tube with magnets.
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When that step in the process is on, then we wash away all the other things the proteins, the lipids, the cell wall and stuff, a few washes and things, and then at the end we just let it go off the magnet.
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So we have a nice pure DNA sample.
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Another thing we do is we confirm the DNA work from every single sample that we have.
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We don't just trust the process.
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I actually literally go and check through PCR, polymerase, chain reaction.
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That sample worked.
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So we, you know, your cat's DNA actually is your DNA sample that's so great.
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I love that.
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My science mind is like oh my gosh, I love all the things, but I also get what you are.
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Have created a process that you remove the things that could decay it or affect you know holding on to it, but you're also checking along those paths to make sure the DNA itself is still there and intact, so you actually have it left over at the end.
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I guess that's maybe a simpler explanation.
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Yeah, you summed it up great, and you know that's because every person's sample is important to them.
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No, we don't Again.
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I just I mean, the process works 99.9 percent of the time, but I want to make sure, we want to make sure every person gets their DNA.
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We actually tell you how much is in there.
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We provide a certificate that comes with the product and it tells you you know DNA was found and it's at this amount.
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And boom, there you go.
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I love it because you know DNA was found and it's at this amount.
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And boom, there you go.
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I love it because, you know, dna is what makes us unique.
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It is what makes us connected to our families and our ancestors, but it also we're our own unique blend of all of those things, and so I love the idea of thinking about the in terms of our pets.
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Yes, there's millions of cats out there, but my Charlie is his own unique blend of all the things, right, and so I love, in a way, you're capturing.
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But as you were talking about the science, I was also thinking, yeah, that's what I did when I did Ancestry.
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I swabbed my cheek and I sent it in and then, you know, my mom did it and my sister did it and I can go in there and look at what part I get from her and what I get from my dad, probably.
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So it made me think about how much we have moved forward in that in the last 10 to 20 years, that we have so much more access to be able to use our DNA and store it in different ways.
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So I'm sure that is what made the timing of this business for you guys also made sense, because it has become more accessible.
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Yeah, it has, and so I love that you did that, you know, because it is really cool to see how we are connected.
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And I think you know, I think the statistics are, we are 99.9% the same, you know, and it's 0.1% variation, you know, and it's right zero one percent variation.
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You know, that makes us unique and different, and to me that's beautiful, because that's what makes the world go round.
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And you're right.
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I look at my cat, yeti, and I think you are one of a kind and sometimes we get mad about right now what a kindness they do.
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I know what a kindness they do, so I would love to thank you so much, dave, for explaining the science.
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You fulfilled a part of me.
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I'm a science girl.
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I love that part, but I also have the psychology part of me.
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So then that comes to Stephanie.
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As someone who worked in hospice, who worked in a field that you are dealing with grief and loss and death every day, a field that you are dealing with grief and loss and death every day, you know I can see the bridge between both of what you guys did in your past and how that came together for that company.
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But from your perspective and having worked in that area, what made you want to start a company in this kind of arena?
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Oh wow.
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I have always had the dream, you know, to somehow build a community or a place where we could honor the people who have passed, and I think I've had so many dear friends who I've had to say goodbye to for now and I just think, oh, the world needs to know who you are, and these are just good, everyday people who have done incredible things, and I was so fortunate to be with them.
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You know, just bring to life the people that we love and the pets that we love, and I've been fortunate to meet some incredible pets over the years, you know, because that's part of the job, it's just you go in and help people with this stage of life, and so this has always been a dream of mine, and to share the stories of those people in pets, because they make such a difference and so.
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So that's kind of where it started for me and I I love to read obituaries just because I think, oh, I find people fascinating and I and so.
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So, when Dave came up with this idea long ago and kind of mentioned, oh, I've had this thought of putting DNA into jewelry or somehow preserving DNA for people, and I thought, oh, this is really incredible because there really are so many ways.
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We've got creamer scratches, we've got so many different options and I think they're all beautiful I really do and I just thought, oh, this is one more unique way to hold on someone you love.
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And so I was able to get my dad's sample.
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He ended up in ICU with 5% chance to live, and so I was able to race over to the hospital and get a swab from him and then preserve his DNA, which I carry here.
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And that was super meaningful because I just thought, oh, wow, how grateful I am and he survived and he's doing great, thank goodness.
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But how grateful I am just anytime I go for a walk, anytime I go birdwatching, anytime I get outside, I just think, oh, you're here, you know, and people kind of touch it and say, oh, you're here and so that's the beautiful thing.
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So, whether living or past is, what I love about this product is you can do it both ways.
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And I love that too, because I think so many of us are at an age where our parents are getting older or things are changing in life.
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I had actually moved this interview because I had four different friends lose a parent within two weeks and it was a lot.
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And I realized I couldn't come up and talk about this right now because all of that experience is triggering my loss of my dad seven years ago and even though I could have done it, I just I knew I wouldn't be clear headed and people don't get until they go through that, what that feeling is like when you lose someone and you're processing and all of that.
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And we go through that with our pets.
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You know, I always say we spend more time with our pets than we spend with most people, let alone most of our families, and they're there in the hardest times, in the easiest times.
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You know they celebrate the good stuff and the bad with us, so having a piece of them with us is really important to so many of us.
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I always tell the story of the tennis ball for my childhood dog, champ, but I think back to God, I wish I had better quality pictures of him.
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I wish I had a piece of him in other ways.
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I've seen people use cat whiskers and jewelry.
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I've seen people, when they brush their dogs, hold on to the fur and they create stuffed animals with them.
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There's so many things now that can be done, but people don't even realize it.
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So when you reached out to me with this company, I was like, yes, I want to share, I want parents to realize there are many options that you can do now or later to memorialize your pets.
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So how has starting this company in the world of pets and loss and all of that been for both of you, I'm sure?
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it's been a journey.
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It has been a journey and we've met really incredible people.
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That's the beauty of this job is just the people and the pets.
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So, learning the stories.
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I think what I love about DNA is Love is it's both the heart and the science, and I think we really strive to build that because these are really important samples to us, these are really important stories to us and we hold them really close to our heart.
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And so, yeah, I think we've had a lot of fun.
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We have done some horse dna, which was a really neat project for a wonderful, wonderful woman, and oh, I love that.
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That was to just think, oh my gosh, we are doing this and.
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And so, yeah, we've done plenty of cats, plenty of dogs.
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Uh, we're hoping to get some more unique animals.
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Yeah, dave, can we?
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get those.
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Definitely.
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Yeah, anything that's, you know, mammal, we can check with the PCR primers that we currently do, but we can expand that out if we get, you know, unique requests and stuff.
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You know something I want to add too, and just how all this stuff kind of comes full circle, Julie is you know another aspect that we're I said we're serial entrepreneurs, right Like Stephanie's actually just launching a site called Stories with Steph and it is literally where she's putting together video tributes of people with their pets.
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It could be pet based, it could be family based and things.
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So it's those important things, it's the stories that connect us all together and that connection and then also having something physically to hold on to.
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You know our jewelry.
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We have picture frames where you could put photos of your loved ones and then a dna goes in a bar that attaches into the frame and we can actually mix samples together.
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If you had more than one pet or, you know, dog or cat, we could totally do that.
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So there's a lot of room to grow and expand, but we're kind of full circle.
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But it is the stories that connect us and the physical, the tangible, you know.
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I think those things together make a very powerful option for people that want to remember.
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You know, it is about the remembrance and the caring right, and you know that's something I've learned so much through just my podcasting in the last five years that a lot of why we like podcasts or books or audiobooks or those we all like it is because it is about the story.
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It's not just about, like me, teaching or talking about myself or whatever.
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It's about sharing stories, and that's why people respond to interview based TV shows and podcasts.
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It's all about the us sharing our experiences and that's what connects all of us humans.
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But I've also found that telling stories about our pets is also a way to share our experience but then connect with other people that have that same bond and also to use the experiences to get more people to take care of animals and all of this.
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You know it's such a big thing, but ultimately it's about legacy, and so I, you know, have realized that's why a lot of us podcast is it's about legacy.
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I have a friend who had a great podcast and she passed away and we're paying what her friend is paying and we're all contributing to keep the podcast alive so that her legacy, her story and her impact continues.
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So that's what I love about the world now is we have so many options, but then it's kind of hard to choose.
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What do I want to do?
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So many options, but then it's kind of hard to choose.
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What do I want to do?
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Yes, how do I want to memorialize by pet or person or whatever it may be.
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And so talk a little bit about how you guys decided for what products you do offer at this point.
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Yeah, I think what we really wanted to create were meaningful pieces that represent love and connection, and you know.
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So we have a number.
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I'm wearing the Living Heart pendant right now.
00:22:11.009 --> 00:22:19.355
We have an infinity necklace, and all of these can be engraved, all of them can be customized and you know they're fillable.
00:22:19.355 --> 00:22:29.231
So what Dave does is he does the whole process and it's really neat to watch and you know I didn't know a lot about DNA when we got this.
00:22:29.311 --> 00:22:47.842
I was like read from biology and so I think my cat was one of the first samples we ran and I was there for the whole process and watching how Dave is meticulously, does his craft, his art.
00:22:47.842 --> 00:22:50.270
It's amazing and beautiful to watch.
00:22:50.270 --> 00:23:06.022
And so he'll take it through the whole process and then run it through the PCR machine and when you see the curves I'm learning kind of go up, I think, and he said we got, got it, and there was something in that moment like wow, that's amazing.
00:23:06.022 --> 00:23:16.365
And and then to see the clean, purified dna of my cat right will last for hundreds of years if needed.
00:23:16.525 --> 00:23:26.382
you know that's a really cool thing, and so seeing the process and then having this tangible reminder- of.
00:23:26.702 --> 00:23:28.526
Yeti means everything.
00:23:28.526 --> 00:23:36.846
It means everything, and so I'm grateful I was able to see that in action and just to have a part of him with me forever.
00:23:36.846 --> 00:23:46.241
He's 13, you know, and I just think, okay, 13 is the new 30, you know, which is bad years, but I think he's good.
00:23:46.241 --> 00:23:49.628
He's good but truly it's in my mind.
00:23:49.628 --> 00:23:52.544
You know I don't want to live in the thought of, oh, what happens?
00:23:52.544 --> 00:24:12.784
But you're absolutely right, I think he has been with me through the toughest times, you know, and my kids have grown and they've left the house and this cat is just every night right here on my shoulder and I just think I love him more than life itself, truly, and so I am grateful for the years I have.
00:24:12.784 --> 00:24:19.970
I am grateful for the memories, because I know people lose pets all along the way way too soon, and it's devastating.
00:24:19.970 --> 00:24:21.532
It's really really hard.
00:24:21.532 --> 00:24:26.064
So I am grateful that I do have a piece of him with me always.
00:24:26.887 --> 00:24:34.269
Yeah, and I think it's hard because a lot of us don't want to think about the death when we're living, right, whether it's our pets or our family or ourselves.
00:24:34.269 --> 00:24:43.942
But we also have to realize, like you said and I think maybe the pandemic and COVID made us all think about it a lot more you never know what could happen.
00:24:43.942 --> 00:24:47.892
And it's funny, with all the loss that's been happening around me.
00:24:47.892 --> 00:24:58.731
I'll say to my husband he's like they're all older, like you know, it's OK and it's like no, but it's different and it doesn't matter if someone passes away at 95 or 35.
00:24:58.731 --> 00:25:06.404
Like it's all loss, it's all sad and we never know what our life plan is.
00:25:06.404 --> 00:25:07.549
And we also don't know for our pets, like you said.
00:25:07.569 --> 00:25:12.970
You know I have a cat who's almost 16, but I also have a two-year-old that she could get sick, something could happen.
00:25:12.970 --> 00:25:33.412
So it's this idea of giving people a chance to think about it and how best they want to memorialize someone while they have options of whether that swabbing DNA versus having just the ashes left over from a pet and that's something I thought about when I met you guys, thinking, oh yeah, I have ashes from two pets, but then I also have three living cats.
00:25:33.412 --> 00:25:40.433
So that idea that there's options for us, no matter where you are in your grief process or your life.
00:25:41.440 --> 00:25:42.042
Absolutely.
00:25:42.083 --> 00:25:42.946
Yeah, definitely.
00:25:42.946 --> 00:25:50.311
You know, julia, as you mentioned, right, you just don't know, like you don't know what tomorrow will bring, right, could be an accident, it could be unexpected.
00:25:50.311 --> 00:25:51.963
I mean, we do.
00:25:51.963 --> 00:26:00.692
We can also fill our jewelry with cremation ashes and we do have that as an option on the website for people that only have that left.
00:26:00.692 --> 00:26:04.230
We could even possibly mix ashes together with DNA.
00:26:04.230 --> 00:26:09.189
You know, we're kind of specialized in DNA, but I call it the slurry myself.
00:26:09.189 --> 00:26:11.768
So it's an option, like if people would want that.
00:26:11.768 --> 00:26:14.690
So, again, we can customize and we can do some things for people.
00:26:14.690 --> 00:26:21.207
We can help people hang on to those loved ones and those memories, you know, in many different ways.
00:26:21.528 --> 00:26:22.250
And I think that's great.
00:26:22.250 --> 00:26:34.048
The science and the technology allows us options like you're talking about, but I've also realized that, with pets specifically, sometimes it just is something you don't realize you want.
00:26:34.048 --> 00:26:41.269
So, as I've done this podcast, I've met people who are artists and draw or paint photos of pets.
00:26:41.269 --> 00:26:43.792
Right, that's something that's become very popular.
00:26:43.792 --> 00:26:56.829
I mean, look at behind me, most of these are other people's art that I've put up or a photo, and so I think there's also a creativity in it that we get to pick something that's meaningful for us.
00:26:57.599 --> 00:27:05.172
So, like me, stephanie, the necklace you're wearing is what I looked at for doing with Charlie, because I love jewelry, I love hearts.
00:27:05.172 --> 00:27:08.144
That's something that means something to me.
00:27:08.144 --> 00:27:13.508
But a picture frame I love too, because obviously I like pictures and I have picture frames of all my old pets behind me.
00:27:13.508 --> 00:27:15.506
You know, I think a lot of that is.
00:27:15.506 --> 00:27:30.794
It gives you, as those who are creating the products and the company's, creativity and able to try new things, but it also allows for a vast number of options for us as buyers, to decide what is meaningful to us.
00:27:30.794 --> 00:27:35.232
So did you think about that and talk about that as you?
00:27:35.232 --> 00:27:42.772
Obviously, dave, you were doing the science, but thinking about science wise, what you could actually use to hold this piece of DNA.
00:27:44.840 --> 00:27:45.865
Yeah, we totally did.
00:27:45.865 --> 00:27:52.400
We sourced, you know, we looked far and wide to find what we were looking for and the key is kind of that it's fillable.
00:27:52.400 --> 00:27:57.545
So it actually these are jewelry pieces that we'll unscrew a little bit and they're hollowed out inside.
00:27:57.545 --> 00:28:15.613
So we'll put the DNA in and then seal it up and, as Stephanie mentioned, even if the liquid would disperse out from that over time and evaporate a little bit, the dna will adhere to the walls of the tube and that dna isn't there for as long as we're going to be around, and a lot longer, you know.
00:28:15.613 --> 00:28:27.509
So that's something, and maybe steph can talk about how she's the shopper, the producer, I would say, and I'm more the science end, but we really brought it together, I think.
00:28:28.339 --> 00:28:37.252
I could definitely see how you guys you need both of you Like you're the science, you're the process, and then you're the one that says, well, this is a good idea, will it fit, will this work.
00:28:37.252 --> 00:28:38.340
So I love that.
00:28:38.340 --> 00:28:45.952
You know you guys really needed each other for it but were able to kind of make it work because of both sides of what you do.
