This interview is with Abdelhak Hacht, Founder, DEWELPRO LLC.
Abdelhak, as the founder of a plant‑based flea and tick brand, how do you introduce your expertise to pet owners discovering your work for the first time?
Most people discover DEWELPRO after something has already made them uncomfortable: a dog that reacted badly to a conventional collar, a treatment routine that felt too harsh, or an ingredient list that raised more questions than it answered. That is usually where my work begins.
I am not a veterinarian, and I do not pretend to be one. My perspective comes from building a pet wellness brand around one question: Why should protecting a dog from fleas, ticks, and mosquitoes feel like a compromise?
Before DEWELPRO, I kept seeing the same concern from dog owners. They wanted protection, but they also wanted to understand what was sitting on their dogs neck every day. So I became obsessive about the details: ingredient lists, customer concerns, safety questions, prevention routines, and the real fears pet owners have when their dog cannot tell them something feels wrong.
DEWEL is built around prevention, not panic. The goal is to help repel fleas, ticks, and mosquitoes before they become a bigger problem – using a plant-based approach that feels simpler, gentler, and easier to live with daily.
What I tell pet owners discovering DEWELPRO for the first time is simple: read the ingredient list on your current collar, then read ours. Ask what you feel comfortable trusting for daily wear.
Prevent Early. Protect Naturally. That is not just a slogan. It is the standard I wanted for my own product.
Im Abdelhak, and I built DEWELPRO because the usual options felt like a compromise I was not willing to accept.
What personal experience or market gap pushed you to create a plant‑based flea collar company, and how did that shape your early product decisions?
My own dog. That’s the honest answer.
He had a reaction to a conventional flea collar—nothing dramatic, but enough to make me read the ingredient list properly for the first time. What I found made me uncomfortable: chemicals I couldn’t pronounce, warnings about skin contact, and the kind of fine print that assumes you won’t look closely.
I looked closely.
The market gap wasn’t hard to spot—most natural alternatives were either ineffective, overpriced, or both. Nobody had built something that took prevention seriously without defaulting to the same chemical playbook everyone else was using.
From your founder’s perspective, what convinced you that a plant‑based flea collar can match or exceed conventional options in day‑to‑day results?
Conventional collars are more powerful. I’ll say that plainly because pretending otherwise would be dishonest, and dog owners deserve straight answers.
The chemistry behind pesticide-based collars — compounds like tetrachlorvinphos, propoxur, and amitraz — is designed to kill—fast and effectively. That’s not marketing spin; that’s the mechanism. And for severe infestations, that killing power matters.
But it comes at a cost that doesn’t show up on the packaging. Several conventional collar ingredients have been linked to serious neurological reactions in dogs — seizures, lethargy, and skin lesions. The EPA has issued warnings. Pet owners have reported losses. These aren’t fringe cases buried in forums — they’re documented adverse event reports that most buyers never see before purchase.
DEWEL was never built to compete with that; it has a different purpose entirely. Our collar is prevention — fleas, ticks, and mosquitoes stopped before they land, before they bite, before an infestation begins. Plant-based actives work as repellents, not killers. That’s a narrower job but a safer one.
The honest conversation with any dog owner is this: if your dog has a serious infestation, you need a vet and possibly a stronger intervention. If you want to prevent one from happening in the first place, without the chemical tradeoff, that’s exactly what DEWEL is built for.
Prevent Early. Protect Naturally. That positioning only works if we’re transparent about what it means.
What design or delivery choices enable a plant‑based flea collar to provide up to 8 months of protection without relying on synthetic pesticides?
A plant-based flea collar depends less on a ‘strong hit’ and more on a slow, consistent release.
With DEWEL, the design choice is the TPE base, which acts like a carrier material that holds the essential oil blend and releases it gradually over time instead of dumping everything at once. That slow-release structure allows the collar to provide long-lasting, daily repellent coverage.
The delivery matters too. Because the collar sits around the dog’s neck continuously, the oils can spread through normal movement, body warmth, and contact with the coat. The goal is to maintain a light, ongoing aromatic barrier that makes the dog less attractive to fleas, ticks, and mosquitoes.
If a household is already facing an active flea problem, what is your step‑by‑step infestation plan that uses a collar as the anchor while breaking the flea life cycle across pet, home, and yard?
For dogs already dealing with an active flea problem, we created the 10-Collar Natural Treatment Protocol. The idea is to replace the collar every 3 days for 30 days, using 10 collars total, so the dog gets a fresher, stronger release of the plant-based oils during the period when fleas are most active. It is a more intensive, natural approach for pet owners who want to avoid harsh chemical treatments while keeping the repellent barrier as strong as possible.
So the difference is simple:
- One collar = long-term prevention.
- 10-Collar Protocol = intensive 30-day natural support for active flea situations.
For rescues, foster networks, or multi‑pet homes considering a 10‑collar pack, what’s your best practice for inventory management to preserve potency and keep cost per pet predictable?
For rescues, foster networks, or multi-pet homes, the biggest rule is to treat collars like a dated care supply, not something loose in a drawer.
I would:
- Keep each collar sealed until it is assigned.
- Store the pack in a cool, dry place away from heat and direct sunlight.
- Label each collar with the dog’s name, start date, and replacement date.
For the 10-Collar Natural Treatment Protocol, I would pre-plan the full 30-day schedule before starting:
- One fresh collar every 3 days.
- 10 collars total.
That makes the cost per pet predictable because you know upfront that one active flea case equals one full 10-collar pack.
For rescues or fosters, I would also separate collars by use case:
- Prevention collars: one collar assigned for long-term daily protection.
- Protocol collars: reserved for active flea situations where the collar is replaced every 3 days.
That prevents accidentally using intensive-protocol inventory for routine prevention, which is how costs can get messy.
The best system is simple:
- Seal
- Label
- Date
- Assign
- Track
As a founder, how do you vet and source plant‑based actives to maintain batch‑to‑batch consistency and ensure clear, compliant labeling?
Vetting suppliers is where most small brands cut corners. We don’t.
Every plant-based active in DEWEL comes with a certificate of analysis — COA — from the supplier, then gets independently verified before it touches a production run. GC-MS testing (gas chromatography–mass spectrometry) confirms the chemical profile matches what was promised. Essential oils in particular vary significantly by origin, harvest season, and extraction method. Lavender from one region isn’t the same as lavender from another. That variability kills consistency if you’re not testing every batch.
We work with suppliers who can trace origin and provide documentation on pesticide residue, heavy metals, and purity levels. If that paperwork isn’t clean, the batch doesn’t move forward. Simple policy — non-negotiable.
On labeling — compliance follows testing. We list what’s in the collar, in the concentrations actually present, verified by that batch testing. Regulatory requirements around pet product labeling are specific, and the shortcuts people take there eventually catch up with them.
Consistency isn’t a manufacturing problem. It’s a sourcing discipline problem. Get sourcing right and the rest follows.
After launch, what real‑world customer or field metrics do you watch most closely to judge collar performance and guide formulation or instruction updates?
Three things tell me more than anything else.
First — reorder rate. A flea collar is a consumable with a defined lifespan. If customers are coming back in months seven or eight, the collar has performed. If they disappear after one purchase without a complaint, something didn’t land the way it should have. Silence isn’t satisfaction in e-commerce.
Second — the specific language in reviews and customer emails. Not the star rating—the words. When someone writes “my dog hasn’t had a single flea this summer,” that confirms prevention is working. When someone writes “I didn’t see any dead fleas,” that tells me they expected a treatment product and I have an education problem, not a formulation problem.
Third — return reasons. Every return gets categorized: skin irritation, ineffectiveness, fit issues—each one points somewhere different. A cluster of fit complaints means the sizing instructions need work. A cluster of ineffectiveness complaints in a specific region during peak tick season means I need to look at the formulation or the wear instructions more carefully.
Field data from real customers is more honest than any controlled test. People’s dogs live in real yards, real climates, real conditions. That feedback loop is the most valuable thing DEWELPRO has.
What single owner habit most reliably helps a flea collar deliver its full eight months of effectiveness in the real world?
Do not take it off.
That’s it: that’s the habit. Consistent wear is where most collars — conventional or natural — fail in practice, not in their formulation.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge and expertise. Is there anything else you'd like to add?
Yes — I’d add that pet owners should think about flea and tick protection before they see a problem, not after.
By the time a dog is scratching, the issue may already be bigger than it looks. Prevention is usually easier, calmer, and less stressful than trying to react once fleas are already in the home.
That is really the idea behind DEWELPRO: to make daily protection simple enough that pet owners can stay ahead of the problem without sprays, messy applications, or harsh synthetic pesticides.