When Linda Campbell and husband Jeremy Gardner of Wiscasset got Mae the bloodhound from Coastal Humane Society in Brunswick, the dog had some weight to gain. She gained a bit too much, however, and, as the couple worked on her trim-down, it occurred to them that Mae should get to have healthier, less-processed food, just as the rest of the family did.

Mae now gets a refrigerated dog food that Campbell, who works at Harbor-Tech in Boothbay Harbor, orders through Ames Supply. But the upgrade didn’t stop there.

Campbell, 57, and her granddaughter Cadence Thompson, 7, have been baking together since Thompson was about 3.

The Bath girl’s favorite thing to make in her grandmother’s Gibbs Road kitchen is a batch of chocolate chip cookies. But several weeks ago, they decided to make Mae some dog cookies.

“And it kind of went from there,” Campbell said.

Campbell researched how to make the cookies all-natural, leaving out preservatives and GMO’s. She and her granddaughter are now making them in peanut butter, chicken, beef and carob flavors, with Thompson in charge of the shapes.

“Most of all I like the shaping,” she said, gesturing the use of a mold.

The two may make new molds, but for now the beef cookies are hearts; the chicken cookies, turkeys; and the carob and peanut butter, just round so far.

The two are also considering a lobster-flavored cookie.

Mae’s favorite is the chicken, as tested against other flavors she has been offered at the same time.

“She always goes for the chicken,” Campbell said.

Mae’s approval of the cookies was evident when Campbell gave her some during the picture-taking portion of an interview on Oct. 26.

Thompson doesn’t have a favorite flavor. Although Campbell said the cookies have nothing in them that people can’t eat, her granddaughter has yet to try one. They can’t make them in her favorite kind, chocolate chip, because dogs can’t have chocolate; but a chip version of the carob cookies is a possibility, Campbell said.

The planned name for the dog cookie business, Mae’s Inspirations, gives credit to the approximately 5-year-old bloodhound.

“She’s the one that inspired us. It all had to do with her health,” Campbell said.

Campbell has started taking samples around to area pet feed stores in hopes of orders, and with the help of her son, James Humphrey of Brunswick, she is looking into possible online sales. Before she sells any cookies, she will go through a licensing process with the state. She has contacted the Maine Department of Agriculture about starting the process.

Campbell may rent space to do the baking and possibly, at some point, open a dog cookie bakery in the Portland market.

While Campbell and Thompson try to break into the dog cookie business, the baking duo have also taken time to make some cookies that Campbell has then donated to the Lincoln County Animal Shelter in Edgecomb. The feedback was good, and she plans to donate more cookies to the shelter, Campbell said.

“The dogs love them, and we appreciate that she is taking the time to do that,” the shelter’s office manager Carrie Koskela said about Campbell and the donated cookies.