About Yappy Kitchen

Hi, I am Kim - the founder of Yappy Kitchen.

If food and dogs are your love language, you are my people.

THE START OF IT

I’ve been in the kitchen for as long as I can remember—rolling pie dough as a kid, cooking for friends, and eventually building a business around feeding people. Creating food has always been the thing that felt most like me.

But like a lot of people, my career didn’t follow a straight line.

For more than twenty years, I worked in transportation engineering, IT, software, and federal planning. I built a career I’m proud of—but none of it matched the energy I felt in the kitchen.

So I followed that pull.

What started as sharing recipes on my first blog grew into a personal chef business and boutique catering company. I built that business from scratch and ran it for five years. It was a meaningful chapter, and I learned a lot. When I moved into event management, I missed the simple joy of cooking and sharing food.

So I leaned back into recipe blogging again, and something became clear pretty quickly:

The recipes people cared about most… were for their dogs.

It was unexpected, but it made perfect sense.

Dogs are family. Just like with the people we love, what we feed them matters. And that got me thinking.

THE HEART OF IT

For me, this isn’t just about treats. It’s personal.

My heart dog, AndyBobby, was diagnosed with cancer. During that time, we made him Chicken and Rice for Dogs every single week. We were just trying to keep his appetite up and make sure he was getting something nourishing.

I half-jokingly said to Doug, "This is the recipe I'm making all the time; I should put that on the blog." He said I definitely should. That recipe ended up helping a lot of other people going through the same thing with their dogs.

Then there’s Paisley, our Basset Hound, who struggled for years with unknown protein allergies. Finding something she could eat and actually enjoy without causing inflammation and ear infections wasn’t simple. So we made our own.

The Blueberry + Peanut Butter Dog Treats started in our kitchen for her. They quickly became the second-most popular recipe on the blog — even among a full collection of recipes I originally created for my personal chef clients.

For so many of us, when it comes to our dogs, we don’t compromise.

And if you have more than one dog, you already know: you’re not making something special for just one of them.

When we moved back to Pittsburgh from Louisville, I wanted to understand what it would look like to turn this into something more.

Because I care deeply about what my dogs eat—and how each ingredient supports their health.

And I know I’m not the only one.

Yappy Kitchen is where my two passions meet: food and dogs.

It’s built on the idea that treats can be simple, thoughtfully made, and actually support your dog’s everyday wellness.

Whether you’re baking at home or picking up a bag, the goal is the same:

Real ingredients. Functional benefits. Food made with care.

This started with recipes.
It’s grown into something more.

And I’m really glad you’re here.

— Kim