Hi, I'm Maren. Welcome to Mom of Paws.

The short version

I'm a mom of two humans and two dogs, married to a very patient man, and chronically incapable of just picking something off a list without doing way too much research first. Mom of Paws started because I kept getting asked the same questions by friends ("which groomer should I try?" "is that food brand actually any good?" "what's the deal with mobile grooming?") and I realized I'd done enough Googling, vet-asking, and trial-and-error to actually have answers.

So now I write them down here. Honest reviews, honest mistakes, and the occasional spreadsheet. Always paid for with our own money, always tested on our own dogs, always written like I'm telling a friend over coffee.

The longer version

I spent the first part of my career in marketing analytics, which is a fancy way of saying I made spreadsheets for a living. When our second kid was born I stepped back from the agency world to freelance, and somewhere in there our golden retriever puppy joined the family and immediately tripled the chaos.

That puppy turned into Winslow, who is now four and built like a small horse. A few years later we adopted Biscuit, a senior Westie whose previous family couldn't keep him. Two dogs, two very different sets of needs, two very different attitudes about being touched, bathed, brushed, or generally fussed with.

I started keeping notes on what worked and what didn't, mostly for my own sanity. Friends started asking. The notes turned into emails. The emails turned into a Google Doc I'd send around. And eventually my husband said "you should just put this on a website so you stop having to copy-paste it twelve times a week." So here we are.

What you'll find here

Mom of Paws is mostly long-form, deeply-researched reviews of things every dog owner has to figure out at some point. The kind of post you'd send to a friend who just got a puppy. A few things I write about:

• 🛁
  Grooming services

  Mobile vs. drop-off, big-box chains, boutique salons, in-home options. What's worth the money, what isn't, and what's right for which kind of dog.

• 🥣
  Food and treats

  What we feed, what we tried and abandoned, and how we navigate the genuinely confusing world of dog nutrition without falling for marketing.

• 🩺
  Senior dog care

  What changes when your dog hits double digits, what's worked for Biscuit, and what I wish someone had told me earlier.

• 🦴
  Gear and the rest

  Beds, leashes, harnesses, the occasional weird gadget. Mostly stuff we've actually used long enough to have an opinion about.

How I do reviews

A few ground rules so you know what you're reading:

I pay for everything myself. No free products in exchange for reviews, no sponsored posts dressed up as honest opinions. If something I love happens to offer a promo code (like the Barkbus MAREN30 code I share for $30 off your first groom), I'll mention it, but the recommendation comes first and is independent of the discount.

I test long enough to actually know. A single use isn't a review. Most things I write about, I've used for at least a few months across both dogs. Some things take a year before I'm willing to recommend them.

I tell you what didn't work too. Negative reviews are usually more useful than positive ones. If something flopped, I'll tell you exactly how it flopped and what I'd try instead.

I update old posts when things change. Companies change. Pricing changes. My opinion sometimes changes. If a review on this site is more than a year old, I'll either update it or note when it was last verified.

One last thing

If you're new here and want a place to start, my dog grooming review is the post that gets shared most. It's the result of testing five different services for five months, including the one I now use exclusively.

Thanks for being here. Give your dogs a scratch from us.