THE BIRTH OF PAWS BAKERY
We are Karen and Terry, a husband and wife team and the proud owners of Paws Bakery, a small family-run business in Southwick, West Sussex.
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Our lives changed dramatically in 2016 when Karen was diagnosed with Polycystic Kidney Disease. As Karen's condition deteriorated, she became too unwell to work and was forced to give up her job. After a battery of tests to assess her suitability, she was placed on the donor transplant list, but we knew that we were facing a long wait and a very uncertain future. There is a shortage of donors in the UK, and with the average time a patient spends on the waiting list ranging from 2 and a half to 3 years, hundreds of people die each year whilst waiting for a transplant.
With Karen's quality of life slowly declining and no guarantee of a donor kidney being found for her, Terry made the difficult decision in 2017 to give up his job and apply to be a living donor. To ensure that Terry as an older donor was healthy enough to survive the transplant procedure, he was put through many months of tests.
It was an incredibly anxious time with a cancer scare for Terry along the way but eventually, we got the news we had all been praying for, Terry was a match and had been given the green light to be a living donor.
The operation was successfully carried out on the 8th of November 2017 at St Georges Hospital in London which gave us back our quality of family life. If you would like to know more about our transplant journey, it was filmed for the TV programme 'This Time Next Year' and can be watched on YouTube here:​
Going through such an emotional upheaval in our lives really brought home to us how precious life is and that we wanted to spend as much of it as we could as a family. We didn't want to go back to the treadmill of our original jobs, spending large chunks of time apart so we decided to set up a family business.
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With our own health back on track, the business idea was sparked when we started wondering what exactly was in the treats that we were feeding our beloved pets. We discovered that a lot of animal treats contained sugars and artificial chemicals and colourings which are connected to health issues that are associated with poor animal nutrition and overall well-being.
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And so, Paws Bakery was born in March 2019.
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Our aim is to provide home-baked quality pet treats with no additives or preservatives and to offer an effective nutritious alternative to help our pets live longer and healthier life. Using only quality ingredients help provide better skin and coat conditions and aid digestion and inflammatory problems to make a real difference to the health of our pets.
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The old saying "You are what you eat" applies you our pets too.
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We are very proud to be able to supply a great range of treats including grain-free, wheat-free and vegan varieties.