This Myrtle Beach resident’s invention is improving lives of dogs, cats — and owners
He’s like the real-life Benjamin Button. Only thing is, he’s a dog.
Brodie, an 18-year-old Yorkshire Terrier owned by Myrtle Beach residents Brian Uhl and Joe’l Sanfilippo, is the face of an invention that is improving the quality of life for many dogs and cats all over the world. And thanks to the product, he’s been thriving for six years now.
The dog, who’s “never played like he plays now,” Sanfilippo said, wasn’t in such great shape six years ago, when she returned home to an animal that was almost lifeless. But now, thanks to an invention by Uhl — coined the Brodie Bowl — that came out in February and won a 2018 Pet Business Magazine award, Brodie is playing like a puppy despite his age.
“My kids call him Benjamin Button because the older he gets, the more energy he has,” said Sanfilippo, referring to the 2008 movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” in which a man played by Brad Pitt ages in reverse. “It’s crazy. My kids are like ‘Mom, every year it’s like he’s getting younger.’”
However, the birth of the invention came under trying circumstances.
About six years ago, Sanfilippo came home from work and found Brodie unresponsive.
“It was terrifying actually. When I came home, he was just laying there,” said Sanfilippo, who owned Brodie before she and Uhl, who are now engaged, began dating about 12 years ago. “He wasn’t walking, he wasn’t eating, he wasn’t drinking.”
After being rushed to emergency care, veterinarians discovered that he was suffering from aspiration pneumonia as a result of a disease called megaesophagus, an illness that Uhl said sometimes is only detected “when it’s too late.”
Megaesophagus is an enlargement of the esophagus — which connects the throat to the stomach — and can prevent food and liquid from making its way to the stomach.
“With the dog in a parallel position, all that food and water he had been eating all this time sat in that pocket,” Uhl said. “So as he breathes, he was actually aspirating leftover food from that pocket into his lungs. The food was always sitting in that pocket but never making it to his stomach.”
After nearly two weeks under veterinarian care, Brodie was able to return home. However, things would never be same — or so it seemed.
Brodie could no longer eat or drink in a parallel position like most dogs and cats do. Instead, Uhl and Sanfilippo had to feed him in a position Uhl described as similar to that of how a baby is fed in an upright position. For about a year, the couple fed the dog in this manner.
“I’m sitting there one day doing it, feeding him, and I thought, ‘There’s got to be another way to give him his independence back and let me go about doing my chores,’” Uhl said. “There’s got to be another way to feed these dogs that have this condition.”
About 30 minutes later, he’d come up with a solution. The first iteration of the Brodie Bowl — 2-by-4 pieces of wood and all — was born.
“I walked out to my garage that day and thought ‘What about putting their paws up higher and utilizing gravity to bring food down. So now on an angle with their spine being at angle the food actually will hit the bump and continue on out of it down into their stomach,” said Uhl, a former Grand Strand firefighter who has home inspection and renovation businesses. “So that’s the whole idea and the whole concept.”
That night, Brodie began eating out of the bowl without issue.
“It was kind of like a light bulb went off,” Sanfilippo said. “It was brilliant.”
Brodie was x-rayed five times in the course of a year and a half or two years, Uhl estimates, with positive results. In fact, the veterinarian was quite impressed.
“The vet said ‘I don’t know what you’re doing, but keep doing it.’ His lungs were clear as a bell. He didn’t regurgitate his food anymore,” Uhl said. “Finally I told her what we were doing.”
With a bevy of positive feedback from the vet, friends and family, the couple decided to see if it was worthy of mass production to help other animals. In 2016, the Brodie Bowl won first place in the Animal Care category at the 2016 INPEX Invention Show in Pittsburgh.
Now, the product is available in small and medium sizes and different colors at Petco, Amazon and the company’s website. The Brodie Bowl retails anywhere from $59.95 to $75.95 depending on size or where it’s purchased.
“It’s overwhelming. I didn’t plan on being an inventor,” Uhl said. “I certainly didn’t plan on being an e-commerce guy selling a product online.”
Uhl said he’s been told by vets that the action of eating in a more upright position is also beneficial to dogs and cats with other health issues, such as arthritis, and the fact the product promotes slower eating also is healthier for pets.
A firefighter for a couple area departments for 19 years and a current volunteer for Horry County Fire Rescue, Uhl believes his problem-solving skills from that job and being a contractor for many years likely played into the creation of the Brodie Bowl.
“If you think about it, any animal on the planet that walks on all fours that can eat sitting up right will do it,” said Uhl, noting that their 1-year-old Yorkie Baxter and 6-year-old lab Skip also use the product. “Could you imagine eating in a parallel position? No. So why haven’t we thought about that for our pets?”
The couple’s company is based out of Indiana, but neither Uhl nor Sanfilippo see the business expanding beyond the Brodie Bowl. After all, they’re not inventors. Instead, they are merely loving pet parents who wanted to make a difference.
But little did they know that they’d one day be making a difference for pets all over the world. Uhl said the positive feedback they’ve received has been overwhelming.
“When I hear things like that, it’s great gratification because we’re helping,” Uhl said. “We’re putting products out there that are great from a health standpoint and we’re contributing to the — we call them ‘furbabies’ — the ones you love. We’re not throwing out 20,000 junk toys that no one cares about.”
This story was originally published December 24, 2018 at 2:38 PM.
