About Gigi & Co. Pet Products

Angela is the owner, and most days she’s the person behind the counter.

Before opening the store, she spent 25 years as a doctor of Oriental medicine in Boulder County. She holds a graduate degree in acupuncture, Chinese medicine and nutrition, and she worked for more than ten years alongside a homeopathic house-call veterinarian, providing acupuncture, herbs and nutrition for his patients. She also holds a certificate in homeopathic medicine for dogs.

She has continued studying canine nutrition since, completing courses with Dr. Judy Morgan and Dr. Conor Brady, and she’s a force-free dog trainer who taught puppy kindergarten before the store opened.

She still reads widely: Dr. Lina Roth on the social bond between dogs and people, Dr. Jean Dodds on nutrigenomics and how nutrition interacts with genes, and the Dog Aging Project, whose work on the canine gut microbiome is her current preoccupation.

Twenty-five years across human and animal health have taught her that most pet health questions start with food, that the answers are rarely as simple as the label suggests, and that it’s worth keeping up with the research rather than the marketing.

Angela grew up on a ranch in Virginia. Her father was a farrier and a veterinary assistant, and animals were part of daily life from the beginning. The humane treatment of them has been her life’s work ever since.

When Covid brought her practice to a close, she was already teaching puppy kindergarten and felt a pull to do more with animals. She had spent a career helping people. The store was a way to help their pets too.

Education comes first. The biggest problem in our industry isn’t bad products. It’s not enough education. We’d rather spend ten minutes explaining why one food suits your dog than sell you the most expensive bag on the shelf.

Kindness is not optional. We’re force-free. We don’t sell shock, vibration or prong collars, and we don’t allow them in the store. Research shows aversive tools cause more problems than they solve, and there’s always a kinder way.

Fair prices. We could charge more. We choose not to. What we won’t cut, ever, is safety and quality.

Small companies, real people. We seek out smaller, family-owned businesses because we trust their quality, support their local economy and enjoy having a relationship with the people who make what we sell. We choose Made in the USA whenever that option exists.

We aim to be friendly without being intrusive. If you want to browse, browse. If you have a question, ask, and you’ll get a clear answer and as much detail as you want.

Bring your dog. Bring the new puppy. Tell us what’s going on at home, whether that’s a sensitive stomach, a picky eater or a dog who pulls on the lead, and we’ll help you work out what to try.

The question we hear most often is what to do when our advice differs from a veterinarian’s.

We aren’t veterinarians, and we don’t diagnose. What we can offer is time, current research on pet nutrition, and an explanation of the reasoning behind what we suggest so that you can make an informed choice. For anything medical, please see your vet. We’re happy to be one more source of information on your pet’s team.

We partner with Summit Dog Rescue and with force-free trainers across the area to promote positive reinforcement training and to share what’s known about the risks of aversive tools.

We also recycle our plastics through TerraCycle, because being a good neighbor includes the ground we all stand on.