This is our first box to come from Saskatchewan! Now we just need to get The Maritimes and territories on board. If you know or come across any from those places, pass that knowledge on to me!
Waggle Mail Subscription Box Overview
“Canada’s only vet-curated dog subscription box. Packed with purposeful toys, treats, and accessories.”
Cost: $150 + tax
My Cost: $142.81 (I had a 15% off coupon)
Value: Unknown
Box Value: $137.08 w/o tax
Frequency: Quarterly
Cancellation Policy: Cancel whenever through dashboard
Payment: Quarterly
Auto renew: Yes
Focus: “Waggle Mail blends convenience with customization, choosing quality, trustworthy products that support your dog’s age, need and breed.”
Ships From: Dundurn, Saskatchewan
Established in: 2019
Inside the Box
I’m still a sucker for hand-written notes, but it’s better when the name is spelled right. My whole life people have not been spelling my name right. Mistakes happen, but I wasn’t expecting my dog’s name to go from two syllables to three.
I find it amusing that there is a disclaimer that this is not a replacement for counsel from a registered veterinarian when the author is a registered veterinarian.
The inside reads like a children’s book. It’s a bit odd, since only adults would be purchasing this. All the information could probably fit on a card, which would actually be more useful than trying to find a place to store this booklet. They also repeated twice that they included products for the ears. There is only one product for the ears, but I guess it’s technically true.
This greenbean is made of an unknown material that is apparently recyclable and dishwasher safe. It is meant for small dogs, so I’m not sure why this ended up in my box. It’s not intended to be used as a chew toy, but I did specify that Maila is a big chewer. It also says it’s a fairly high treat challenge, but the slots are so big, I very much doubt it. I just threw it to Maila and one of the treats came out. She seems to like it though, and has been chewing on it for a while now.
Ope, she gave up. Less than 15 minutes of excitement there. Coco has taken over now.
Spunky Pup is an American company that manufactures in China.
I had never tried these dental chews before. The dogs seem to like them, but they don’t smell very good. This size is appropriate for dogs up to 66lbs, so I gave each of them a chew. I tend to prefer chews that smell nice because it helps the dogs’ breath also smell nice. These chews do not last long. Like maybe a minute or two at most. I wish there was a more cost effective dental chew for dogs. Maybe I’ll figure out how to make one.
The ingredients are: corn starch, glycerin, soy protein isolate, rice flour, brewers dried yeast, sorbitol, ground corn cob, erythritol, potassium sorbate, water, inulin, & pomegranate.
Weird.
Virban is a French pharmaceutical company. These treats were manufactured in Vietnam.
Freeze dried liver! Always great, just don’t get it wet. My favourite freeze-dried beef liver has always been from Ben & Bully’s, which is selling 500g for $46.99 at my local Bosley’s. Ouch! I just discovered though, that you can purchase them for $29.99 directly, but shipping is $18. Shipping 1lb should never be $18. Might as well go to Bosley’s.
You can get also 500g of these treats for $47.08 through Pets Drug Mart. Beware, though, as Pets Drug Mart has some pretty bad reviews, but I very much stand behind the founder’s vision. If you also agree, there is a petition you can sign.
A side story: when I brought Canek home from 150 Mile House, he had already had his first round of dewormer and needed his second. I had all the information from his previous vet check, and just needed the next round of dewormer. It was very difficult for me to get a local clinic to just sell me the dewormer without the unnecessary $80 vet check fee. This, to me, is insane. Again, I can easily and freely purchase dewormer for my horses for less than $20 each, but one dose of dog dewormer is around $40 each and requires a vet visit? Insane.
Aventix is a Canadian company with a variety of products.
Caru is an American brand started by a Canadian couple. The treats are manufactured in the USA. The dogs enjoyed these quite a lot. The ingredients are as follows: chicken, chickpeas, beet molasses, coconut glycerin, blueberries, cranberries, dried cultured skim milk, salt, mixed tocopherols.
Here is another Aventix product. This time, an ear cleanser! Now it doesn’t actually say that on the bottle, but the product description in my dashboard clarified that for me. Thank goodness. I wasn’t totally sure what I was supposed to be cleansing. I do use ear cleansers, so it will be interesting to try a new one.
The ingredients are: water, lactic acid, butylene glycol, oat extract, ceramides, malic acid.
This was another product I had to check the dashboard for. “They are great to use for local areas like in between toes, ear flaps, skin and they soothe and hydrate itchy, irritated or sensitive skin.” Perfect. I’ll use this for Maila’s chin as it is perpetually itchy. Maybe she’ll finally stop scratching it on the ground, though it is an amusing sight to see! I’m surprise at how expensive these pads are. They smell pretty good though.
These cotton pads have ophytrium as the active ingredient.
Douxo is part of Ceva Animal Health, which was founded in 1999 in France.
For Maila’s weight she would require 9ml per day, which gives me approximately 13 days. However, after 10-14 days you can reduce the dose to 3/4 or 1/2 depending on your dog’s needs. It remains a very expensive joint supplement. I’m not sure what difference it could possibly make in 13 days, but I guess we’ll see.
UbaVet is a Canadian company that was founded in 1994 in Toronto.
Overall Impression
Waggle Mail is an expensive box, therefore I need to hold it to higher standards than the other dog boxes. So far, here are a couple things that I’ve noticed that I don’t like:
- Needing to access your email to log on to the dashboard. I thought it was a one time thing, but it is every time.
- They spelled “Maila” wrong and put “Malia” on the envelope.
- To re-order products online, you send a request and they e-mail you about how to proceed with the purchase. Why not just have a shopping cart? You also cannot undo it when you accidentally press the order button.
I do have to say that this is the absolute nicest account access that I have ever seen, and even managing your order is super uncomplicated. It’s clean, clear (and under control?).
I didn’t know this at the time of filming, but all the products and the information is in your account, and re-ordering is possible. A bonus to this is that all products have a 10-15% discount if you reorder them through the website. You can also give each product a thumbs up or a thumbs down. It’s not the first time I’ve had vets try to get me to buy pet food or treats through their site so they can make a percentage.
The dashboard also contains various resources online, like “How to Address Dog Bad Breath”, signs of anxiety, boredom busters, poison prevention awareness, body condition score guide, etc. Although you can find a lot of this information for free, it is nice to not have to weed through the nonsense that is becoming more and more prevalent online.
Another thing that concerns me a bit is this: “Waggle Mail is a digitally-led DTC brand that is disrupting the pet care industry with a curation at scale approach towards dog health and wellness; the first of its kind. We have recently entered the market and plan to build out our vet-curated brand through hyper-scalable branches in the huge, fast growing and global industry that is dogs.” I already have a lot of beef with vets being insanely overpriced and the pet industry in general taking advantage of people’s love for their animals, and this just feels like more money grubbing. A can of pumpkin in a pet store is $6, but the same thing at the grocery store is $1.50. I got quoted around $2,000 to remove one tooth from “my” senior cat last year when I can have an equine vet do a farm call and do a float and extraction for under $500. It is completely unreasonable. Make it make sense!
wanderingfawn 