SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) – A former NFL linebacker is now back in his home state of South Dakota and has started his own business that’s all about man’s best friend.
Nathan Gerry has spent a good portion of his life on the gridiron — first with the Sioux Falls Washington Warriors, then with the Nebraska Cornhuskers and later with the Philadelphia Eagles, as well as other NFL teams. Now, he’s retired the helmet and is back in South Dakota.
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However, there is one thing from his football career that sticks with him — his nutrition.
“We could never take pharmaceutical drugs or anything. We had to do everything 100 percent organic in the right way,” Gerry said. “And, for us, it was through nutrition. For us, for high performance athletes, nutrition does help us benefit from all of that.”
And when he brought home his best friend Koba, he realized he wanted to transfer those nutrition habits to Koba.
“He had a lot of allergies from us living on the lake, got a lot of bacteria infections and what not, so naturally, we tried to cure all those things the right way which we believe is through nutrition,” Gerry said. “After a couple of weeks of doing the BARF method, it actually did cure him.”
Gerry says the BARF method stands for Biologically Appropriate Raw Feeding.
And because of the success he had using this method on Koba, he decided to start his own natural dog food company called Rawly.
Dax and Harlow. Photo courtesy of Becky Cain
“It follows the nutrition plan of 80 percent protein, 10 percent organs and 10 percent bone,” Gerry said. “So what we did is we incorporated some other supplemental things such as flax seeds, chia seeds, hemp hearts, sweet potatoes, blueberries, bone broth, that helps cover all the minerals and vitamins that dogs do need.”
Dax and Harlow are two of Rawly’s customers and their owner, Becky Cain, says Rawly is a good, local option for trying out a raw dog food diet.
“I started out mixing half and half with my kibble,” Cain said. “And after doing a lot of research on kibble, you kind of find that a lot of the nutrients are baked out of it so when you start making that transition over, you’ll see a lot of good, positive changes as you start working in that raw dog food.”
Gerry partners with local meat lockers and farmers for the products he uses in the dog food.
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