Why Support Racing?

CANIDAE Natural Pet Foods was founded out of a love for pets and the importance of family, friendship, and loyalty. Co-owners and founders John Gordon and Scott Whipple have been friends since they were teenagers and run CANIDAE together as a family company. John knew Scott back when he first became passionate about racing at about age 16. It was during this time in his youth when Scott was affected by the strong relationships he saw formed at racing events. People knew each other by name and were supportive of each other. Competing teams helped one another out when they needed it. They were all passionate about racing, their families and deeply loyal to those around them. This passion extended to the family dogs and cats, many of which came along with the families to the races.

These lessons in family, friendship, and loyalty are deeply ingrained in the company John and Scott founded. Providing customers with the finest natural pet nutrition available is only part of our mission to foster "Responsible Pet Ownership." Other areas of "RPO" include training and exercise, proper veterinarian care, planned breeding, spaying and neutering, as well as supporting reputable breeders and rescue groups -- all so important when it comes to the health, happiness and well being of our family pets.

All of us at CANIDAE are dedicated to promoting the Responsible Pet Ownership message in every way we can. Since our founding, we have chosen to devote ourselves to independent family owned businesses, partnering with them to share the RPO message. We believe that no other pet food company provides more support and loyalty to the independent pet food retailer than CANIDAE. Many of these local businesses have helped us to participate in regional and national charity events. Together, we have raised many thousands of dollars on behalf of pet-related charities throughout North America.

One of the other places we promote our message is at racing events. It's a natural fit for us since Scott is still personally involved in the sport and understands how passionate race fans are about their pets. The Sand Drag teams and the Off-road team Scott and his friends are involved in today are financially supported personally and by outside sponsorships. Because the team members care as much about RPO as they do about racing, they take the opportunity to share their passion for pets with the fans at these races.

In 2007, the Jim Dunn Racing Team approached CANIDAE. We saw this as an opportunity to share the message of Responsible Pet Ownership on a national level with a much larger number of race fans than our private teams are exposed to. From Scott's personal involvement in the sport, John and he knew that race fans, family and pets go hand in hand. They had a unique perspective probably not available to any other pet food company. They discovered the Jim Dunn Team was just about the last family run race team left. With minimal financial support compared to other NHRA teams, they were able to help this legendary team continue racing and at the same time help CANIDAE to promote RPO to millions of fans who may have never heard of us. After the overwhelming response from the NHRA fans, we extended our sponsorships into the passionate arena of motocross and supercross.

All of the team members we support are pet owners. They feed CANIDAE and FELIDAE to their dogs and cats and are as passionate as we are about sharing the message of Responsible Pet Ownership. We thank them for the opportunity they have given us to reach millions of families we otherwise may have never been able to reach.