8-year-old makes treats for pups

Third grader, Landon Hampton, of LJ’s Delightful Doggy Treats has begun to make homemade doggie delicacies for the public. Hampton said the inspiration for the treats came from plans for his family to invite a four-legged friend into their ranks.

“We are going to get our own dog, and we don’t want to buy store food. It’s between a German Shepherd and a Rottweiler,” Hampton shared.

Hampton’s mother, Tiffany Davis, expanded that the family likes to eat healthily and wanted the future canine companion to be able to have the same luxury. This thought, Davis noted, sparked her to embark on finding different recipes for homemade dog foods. She shared the idea with Hampton’s father to allow their son to make his own dog treats.

“[Hampton] loves to help out; he’s such a helper, a huge helper, and I was like, ‘I think he would like to do that.’ So we talked to him about it, he came up with the name and I just tried to find some kid friendly recipes,” Davis said, adding that the recipes have around three to four ingredients, that Hampton can mix himself. She noted that they found ideas online and tweaked them to create their own recipes.

Davis said that the recipes are very natural, with ingredients that include oatmeal, natural peanut butter (without xylitol) and applesauce, as well as others. Davis said that Hampton even knows how to grind his own oats. The treats are human friendly too, so if ingested by a person, they will not become ill.

Davis informed that the journey for LJ’s Delightful Doggy Treats started around a month ago.

“I wasn’t really expecting anything from it. Again, it was just to give him something to do. He’s super busy, he always wants to help do everything,” Davis expressed, and continued that the process started out with doing samples and allowing some dogs that they knew to do tastes tests to gain a feel for which recipes that they enjoyed. They started off with one flavor that seemed to be well received, Davis explained, and began to sell the treats for $10 per order. Then Davis started offering deliveries, and they have shipped some orders as well. Davis said after a local news agency shared Hampton’s story, business increased. She added that Hampton is “super excited.”

The dog food line has been named “Troublemakers.” Hampton has explained that he enjoyed making them because they are healthy for dogs. This aspect was important to him because he didn’t want to feed them anything “bad.”

According to Davis and Hampton, the eight-year-old’s business offers the flavors of Oatmeal Apple Cinnamon Troublemakers and Peanut Butter Troublemakers for $10 per order of 20 treats, as well as “Troublemaker” bandanas, which can also be personalized with a pet’s name. Davis later shared that as of now, orders are taken through the company’s Facebook page, and there is helpful information on the ordering process, payments, as well as a full pricelist, on a pinned post on the Facebook page as well. Davis said that she hopes the business’ website will be operational next week.

“We try to keep the treats around the same price so that he can understand and just know that this is how much things cost. It really helps him with math too because he gets to put the treats in the bag, so he knows that everything is $10, and there are 20 treats per bag,” Davis mentioned, and later explained that the orders can be picked up or shipped.

Davis expressed she hopes that Hampton will learn skills such as finance and customer service from his venture. Davis also said that Hampton has expressed the desire to open his own dog bakery, where treats would be made fresh daily, further noting, “He’s pretty adamant about it.

“He’s very driven as well; he wants to help do it all. I had to start yesterday without him, and he was really upset; he really wanted to help out. He’s super dedicated,” Davis professed.

Hampton explained that on this journey, he has learned to not be afraid of the stove, because he was at first. He’s also learned patience, and to take his time “so that I can do it right.”

HHJ News