Lolahemp Editorial Advisory Board
Our mission is to provide pets with extremely high-quality natural products that improve their lives in measurable ways. We do this by sourcing ingredients from reputable growers and sellers, investing in a trustworthy manufacturing process, third-party lab testing all products, and providing the best customer service possible to pet parents who want their animals to thrive.
What is Our Editorial Advisory Board?
Our content is a huge part of informing and directing customers toward the right decisions for their pets. The Lolahemp Editorial Advisory Board is a big part of that. This board helps to write, inform, edit, and curate our content. This ensures that it is factual, enjoyable, and useful to pet owners who only want the best for their furry friends.
We’re proud to display the members of our advisory board on this page.
Editorial Advisory Board Members
Writer, Reviewer, Advisor
Dr. Helena Randles, D.V.M.
Dr. Helena Randles graduated from Copenhagen University in 2019. Since then, she has undertaken several postgraduate certificates and courses in topics ranging from internal medicine, veterinary medical cannabis, functional mushrooms, behaviour and natural nutrition. She has worked as a veterinarian in Denmark and Costa Rica, and has a passion for veterinary care with a holistic approach.
Writer, Reviewer, Advisor
Dr. Nicole Wanner, D.V.M.
Dr. Nicole Wanner graduated from the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine in 2018. Currently, she is an academic research veterinarian studying CBD and DNA. Her research has been published in trusted international research journals. Dr. Wanner is passionate about pet wellness and has professional interests in genetics, behavior, and healthy aging. In her free time, she enjoys hiking and reading sci-fi novels. She shares her home with her husband Evan and their two mischievous rescue cats, Sylvie and Nemo.
Vet Tech, Advisor
Crystal Litzenberger
Since 2003, Crystal has worked in the veterinary field as a technician helping educate people on how to care for their furry family members. Her experience has grown from nursing and hospital management in general practice to working as a technician in rehabilitation and emergency hospitals throughout New Jersey and New York City. Over the years one of Crystal’s main goals has been to help people care for their pets in the most natural way possible. Helping find people options for more holistic routes to treat their pet’s has always been a major interest for her.
Vet Tech, Advisor
Marissa Soares
Marissa has been a veterinary technician since 2015 and graduated from Texas A&M University in 2018. When she's not overseeing the Lolahemp customer experience, you can find her traveling or planning her next trip. As of 2023, her favorite obsession is her human baby boy, Liam. She's also a dog mom to two large and very hairy dogs, Kaya & Sammy.
Joey founded Lolahemp in 2018 after the success his own dog (Lola) experienced with hemp oil for her debilitating stress and anxiety. He has now made it his mission to educate pet owners everywhere on the benefits of holistic health and the therapeutic properties of the hemp plant. Joey is the visionary behind the brand, managing the director level team members and keeping the company's course. He enjoys long city walks with Lola, traveling with his wife Christa and spending time with family.
For five years, Jay worked at a medical cannabis dispensary in North San Diego. The shop cultivated their own high CBD plants (ACDC) and created CBD tinctures and Rick Simpson Oil for their terminally ill patrons. During that time, Jay was educated on how cannabidiol interacts with the body. Eventually, he opened a delivery service and for three years supplied medicinal cannabis products for folks with cancer and other chronic or debilitating conditions. Jay leveraged this industry experience to help launch Lolahemp for pets and he continues to be a thought leader and expert in the industry.
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Our team is made up of animal experts, professionals in various fields, and passionate pet experts. Further, nearly every individual we work with has a pet who uses our products.
There is a lot of misinformation about pets online. Many articles make extravagant claims about how ingredients can cure ailments, and others are written without care for the actual animal who might be the recipient of the tips or advice found in a given article.
Rather than following the pack, we choose to take time and invest effort into our articles - most of which are written by licensed veterinarians.
We’re a very small team, and at any given time, almost all of us have a small animal sitting by our side. We care about what we do, and we’d never want to steer pet owners in the wrong direction.
We employ our writers and editors to do a great job, and most of our content relates, in some way, to one or more of the products we sell. Our articles are not “sales pitches,” but rather detailed explorations of pet behavior, nutritional ingredients, or insights into responsible pet ownership.
If someone were interested in one of our products, most of our articles would inform them of an aspect of their decision to make a purchase.
It’s also in our interest to help people find our helpful information organically. As a result, we use search engine optimization insights to inform our subject matter in many instances. This enhances the quality of content that we provide because it lets us know what pet owners are looking for online. That way, someone looking to address a question on Google will be met with well-researched information.
Our content is written with one very important ethical guideline - we don’t make claims that aren’t supported by evidence. Our veterinarian writers investigate the research and explore other resources to ensure that our content isn’t making false claims.
We frequently come across trends, keywords, and ideas on other sites that are patently untrue. Strong claims like “this product cures arthritis,” for example, are harmful because they aren’t accurate. Some products may help some dogs with joint struggles, but there is no cure for canine arthritis, and we are always sure to make that distinction, and distinctions like it.
Lolahemp started when Joey DiFrancesco’s dog Lola needed a solution for her anxiety. After giving Lola a vet-formulated hemp oil for dogs, he noticed a massive improvement. Still, he wasn’t satisfied with the transparency or quality of the pet hemp companies he found online.
So, he started Lolahemp - a company that produces the highest quality hemp products for pets with third-party lab tests, family farm-grown hemp, and a serious interest in giving customers the best experience possible.
When it comes to pets, there’s no room to cut corners, and it’s important that pet parents completely understand and trust the products they’re giving their animals.