about

In early 2015, A.J. Dewey (Chief Design Officer), Suman Shrestha (CEO) and Nishes Shrestha (VP) brought their 36-years of combined experience in consumer product design and manufacturing together to launch Animaganza, llc. It was the first sister company of the Shrestha’s incredibly successful Himalayan Corporation, the manufacturers of the original, and rapidly growing, Himalayan Dog Chew Company.

Suman Shrestha on the Himalayan Dog Chew Company. “On September 2, 2007, our first product – Himalayan Dog Chew – was sold at a fair in Bellingham, WA. After producing Himalayan Dog Chew in Nishes’ kitchen for three months, the operation moved to Seattle in January 2008. We have moved three more times, and expanded exponentially in the past seven years, and we’re still growing. We now distribute to more than 5,000 retailers. As it was when we started, all the innovation, creativity and hard work, is all for the love of dogs.”

Animaganza aspires to become a supreme pet products company known internationally for its innovative, quality, trend-forward, products, humanity and ethics towards community and intelligence that fuels our reinvention of how we care and play for our pets. Under the design and brand direction of Dewey’s 20+ years of award-winning experience, Animaganza will never design or launch redesigns of “me too” products that already exist. Another squeaker toy? No. Another stuffed toy? No. A tan pet bed? Please… no, no, no. Driven from Dewey’s parallel experience in children’s toys and multi-media design and direction, Dewey brings a fresh perspective to the pet industry and vows to only develop unique, first to market products that solve problems and enrich the lives of pets and owners. And he is in a good position to do so…

As an award-winning illustrator and designer whose work has spanned a broad range of mediums, Dewey has been the Creative Director of American Specialty Confections, LLC, the Senior Designer of Manhattan Toy, LLC, the Creative/Art Director of The Fabulatory, LLC, the Creative Director of PM&J, LLC and the President of Pawabunga, LLC. With over 20 years of multi-media and product design experience, his work includes several children’s television, video and book series and thousands of retail products that include Target, WalMart, Toys R Us, FAO Schwartz, Creative Kidstuff and Macy’s. He has also Art Directed many animated projects including “Dr. Seuss’s My Many Colored Days” – the winner of 16 national awards and recognitions. He has designed and developed exclusive licensed product lines for Sesame Street, The Dr. Seuss Estate, Scholastic Books, Groovy Girls, Marvel, Peanuts, Pepsi-Cola, Nascar and Cirque Du Soleil.

In 2010, as the Creative Director of PM&J, Dewey spent his first 5 years in the pet industry as one of Target’s Joint Business Partners for their Boots & Barkley private label pet program. Shortly afterwards, he developed, branded and launched a new company, Pawabunga, that quickly gained market share with its innovative new product line Ruffhides.

Dewey, “Currently through Animaganza, I am able to bring my vast design experience from many different product categories into developing new fresh, innovative, first-to-market pet products for the pet industry. And I am excited to do so, because everyone deserve the chance to play.”

At Animaganza, we are dedicating our loves to creating your pet’s favorite things.