Get Recall AlertsMeet the Petful Team
At Petful®, we are on a mission to give our readers the best, most accurate information to help their pets live happier, healthier lives. Petful is run by team of animal lovers behind petMD and Great Pet Care, with many of our contributors scattered across the country. Keep reading to learn more about the amazing people who are making Petful possible:
Nico Chereque | Advisor
Nicolas Chereque is a pioneer in the pet industry and serial internet entrepreneur. He has founded multiple pet businesses and sold them to industry leaders, including PetMD (sold to PetSmart) and Great Pet Care (sold to Covetrus). Most recently he launched Smart Pet Collective, a digital pet media agency bringing the industry’s best talent and properties together to help brands reach pet parents with exceptional products and services.
Wendy Toth | Content Director
Wendy is an entrepreneurial writer, editor, and mom of two humans, two dogs and one cat. She’s currently Content Director here at PetFul. For the last 15 years she has held positions at Parents Magazine, NBC, PetSmart, and GreatPetCare, where she was co-founder. Her writing has appeared in many national outlets including PetLab Co., Retail Me Not, Ask Men, and The New York Times, Because she loves her work so much, she’s obsessed with helping others find career fulfillment, and covers it regularly at PowerSuiting.
Carol Bryant | Managing Editor
Carol Bryant is the founder FidoseofReality.com and SmartDogCopy.com. A pet product expert, Carol is the Past President of the Dog Writers Association of America (DWAA) and winner of Best Dog Blog. A dog lover of the highest order is how Gayle King introduced Carol when she appeared with her Cocker Spaniel on Oprah Radio’s Gayle King Show to dish dogs. She helps pet, animal, and lifestyle brands achieve copywriting and content marketing success using well-trained words that work and is well-known in the pet industry.
Dave Baker | Founder
Dr. Debora Lichtenberg, VMD, is a small animal and exotics veterinarian who has been practicing medicine for over 30 years. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Lichtenberg also trained at the Philadelphia Zoo. She now practices in the New York City area and lives in the West Village with her husband and her rescued pets, Cocoa and OG.
Dr. Lichtenberg has been writing for Petful for many years, and she has been recognized with Certificates of Excellence from both the Dog Writers Association of America and the Cat Writers’ Association.
» See Dr. Lichtenberg’s articles
Dr. Pippa Elliott, BVMS, MRCVS | Veterinarian Writer
Dr. Elliott has nearly 30 years of experience in companion animal practice. She earned her Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery from the University of Glasgow. She was also designated a Member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.
Married with 2 grown-up kids, Dr. Elliott has a naughty Puggle named Poggle, 3 cats and a bearded dragon.
Melissa Smith | Contributor
T.J. is the author of Sketch People: Stories Along the Way, A Time for Shadows, Catsong, Souleiado, Derv & Co.: A Life Among Felines and Houdini, a novel for young adults.
Catsong, a collection of her best cat stories, was the winner of a Merial Human–Animal Bond Award.
T.J. has received writing awards from the Cat Writers’ Association (most recently a Certificate of Excellence in 2019), as well as from ByLine and The Writing Self. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including Chicken Soup for the Single Parent’s Soul and A Cup of Comfort for Women in Love, and T.J. has worked as a stringer for the Associated Press, as an instructor for the Writer’s Digest School and as a columnist.
Caitlin Crittenden | Dog Behaviors Writer
Caitlin is owner and head trainer of Life Dog Training. She has studied dog training for nearly 20 years and has helped dogs of all ages learn basic obedience commands, intermediate commands and off-leash commands.
She has also helped dogs prepare for service, therapy and emotional support work. Plus, she has taught nearly 100 different tricks, ranging from “play dead” to “bring the food bowl to me.”
Caitlin is certified through the SIRIUS Dog Trainer Academy and is a member of the Association of Professional Dog Trainers (APDT). In 2019, Caitlin was named a finalist for the Canine Enrichment Award from the Dog Writers Association of America, and she received a Certificate of Excellence.
She and her husband live in Georgia with their Border Collie, Mack, and their Curly-Coated Retriever, River.
Angela DeRiso | Exotic Pets Writer
Angela is passionate about exotic animals, especially reptiles — she has hands-on experience caring for a number of them over the years. Angela works to educate the public on proper care and husbandry of reptiles through local public outreach events and in her writing.
Her articles have been published by HealthyPets, Tampa Bay House Rabbit Rescue, Animal Bliss, the Suncoast Herpetological Society and Reptiles magazine.
Angela also works as an artist creating colored pencil illustrations featuring reptiles and amphibians in fantasy settings to spread the love for these underrated animals, and she runs a YouTube channel in which she shares her artistic process and her love for her own reptiles. You can follow her on Facebook here.
Gayle Hickman | Writer
Bet you didn’t realize Petful was a family business. Guess what? Gayle is Dave’s mom.
She and her husband, Doug, managed Petful’s former shop out of their home in Shiloh, South Carolina, with Gayle handling the day-to-day tasks and Doug happily packing all the orders. He kept a big U.S. map on the wall with dozens of pins marking every location to which he had shipped orders. Almost every state had a pin in it, as he loved to point out.
Before Doug’s death in 2016, he and Gayle shared their lives with many animals over the years — not only dogs and cats, but also rabbits, goats and chickens in the yard — his 2 pet roosters were named George and Merle (after legendary country singers George Jones and Merle Haggard). Doug even wanted to one day get a few emus! And we think he was serious about that. “Every pet deserves love,” he would often say.
Gayle has been researching and writing about pet behaviors since 2011. In addition to Petful, her articles have appeared on Reader’s Digest, Yahoo Shine and WebVet, to name a few.
Allison Gray | Writer
Jillian is a New York City–based writer whose feature articles have appeared in magazines and newspapers including the New York Observer, Marie Claire, Self and many others.
She received a master’s degree in creative writing from New York University, has taught writing and literature at the School of Visual Arts, and is currently working on a novel. Jillian has been honored with several Certificates of Excellence from the Dog Writers Association of America for articles she has written for Petful.
Like the rest of us here at Petful, Jillian passionately supports animal welfare and rescue, and she often covers these topics in her articles.
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