same size, same color, same sweet­ness — for the price of four fig leaves. The ser­pent planned to use the fig leaves as cam­ou­flage.  Eve intended to turn the fig leaves into a new skirt. Adam planned to feed his fig leaves to the hun­gry doe who had just given birth to a fawn. Which apple would you buy?

If you chose Adam’s apple, then you just might be the ideal cus­tomer for a new busi­ness – one that, like Adam, promises to use its

Glenn Buck­ley, DVM

pro­ceeds to help ani­mals.  Except that in this case, the prod­ucts are pet treats, toys and other sup­plies, with the pri­mary empha­sis on pet phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. Glenn Buck­ley, the vet­eri­nar­ian who founded Pet Res­cue Rx along with his brother Scott, got in touch to intro­duce him­self and share their vision:  all net prof­its to ani­mal shel­ters.  “I have reached an age when I can really appre­ci­ate what money can­not buy:  my health, my life partner…time spent walk­ing my dogs and watch­ing them play.  I want to share that appre­ci­a­tion for life by what I can give back through this busi­ness,” says Buck­ley, whose title is CEO.

Scott Buck­ley,  Pres­i­dent and Com­puter Guru

Giv­ing some­thing back is not a new con­cept, thank­fully.  There are any num­ber of com­pa­nies that donate a por­tion of their prof­its to help ani­mals; adoptashelter.com is one of the best known.  1–800-PetMeds, which adver­tises itself as “America’s Largest Pet Phar­macy,” says it donates thou­sands of dol­lars in pet sup­plies and med­ica­tions to shel­ters.  What sets Pet Res­cue Rx apart is the promise to donate all net prof­its.  “I’m run­ning into some skep­ti­cism,” says Buck­ley, with a note of what sounds like res­ig­na­tion in his voice.  “But we’re doing this for the same rea­sons vol­un­teers at shel­ters do:  to get the money where it needs to go.”

Buck­ley says his eyes were opened to the needs of shel­ter ani­mals when he vol­un­teered in one, and started brain­storm­ing a new way ofsub­si­diz­ing them.  He likens his busi­ness model to Newman’s Own, which fun­nels all after-tax prof­its to human causes.  Newman’s Own says that’s about $370 mil­lion so far.  How much will Pet Res­cue Rx con­tribute?  It’s far too soon to know, as the com­pany just opened in June.  And when finan­cials are avail­able, they do not have to be dis­closed:  Pet Res­cue Rx is not a 501©3 and is not pub­licly held.  Buck­ley says that he is cur­rently fund­ing the startup via his two ani­mal emer­gency clin­ics in Florida and not tak­ing a salary.  Both of those things will likely change if Pet Res­cue Rx takes off.  But he vows that it will always be, “Pets Before Prof­its,” the company’s motto.

Buck­ley says he’s com­pet­i­tively priced with other online pet phar­ma­cies (and here’s where the anal­ogy comes in) because, “when you’re all sell­ing apples, you have to be.” He’s being choosy about his apples, though, car­ry­ing prod­ucts from other “do good” com­pa­nies “out there to make a dif­fer­ence,” like Halo Pet, John Paul Pet Prod­ucts, and yes: Newman’s Own Organic Pet Treats. “I have been given a gift, as we all have, to cre­ate some­thing which can have a greater impact for good.  We should all look within our­selves to find that and let it grow.”

Glenn and Scott out­side the phar­macy with Roz and Geri.

Growth going for­ward will be largely up to shop­pers. It’s cer­tainly a con­cept that holds promise, and entic­ing to those who care about the esti­mated 6–8 mil­lion ani­mals who enter U.S. shel­ters each year, half of them only to face a death sen­tence.  They could use the help.  If Pet Res­cue Rx should bear fruit, we can only hope — and per­haps even allow our­selves to trust — that Buck­ley will keep his promise.

Note:  Pet Res­cue Rx hopes to become licensed in all 50 states.  At this writ­ing, it is get­ting close to halfway there.