Hold on to your personalised porcelain bowls — at the weekend Ocado launched the first supermarket ready meals for man’s best friend. For £4.50 a shot, Fido can now enjoy fine dining in the form of lamb with garden mint or venison with blackberries from the start-up Ted’s Bowl. Think prime cuts of human-grade meat with added vitamins and minerals, plus seasonal fruit and veg, sans bones, grains and other ghastly bulking ingredients.
Ocado argues that dogs are now seen as just another family member to be catered for. It stocks more than 800 wet, raw, plant, minimally processed and bog-standard dog food options, including a dog muffin, or “woofin”, while the Ted’s Bowl people observe that “scratch-cooking pet food is not an option for most consumers to produce properly balanced meals”. Er, what? My partner and I barely have time to cook for ourselves, let alone our whippet, Pimlico. That said, I do have a chef pal whose role is to prep steak for his employers’ hounds so perhaps Pim is being short-changed.
The post-pandemic explosion in dog ownership has “given rise to a new demographic of younger, urban owners”, according to Ted’s Bowl co-founder Sara Pearson. Is this code for obsessional, well-heeled dog owners like me who love their pets more than life and can now express their pashes via the Ocado order?
My dog’s local gourmet emporium, The Hound Hut (thehoundhut.dog), is run by Anthony Smallman and his partner, Rob Burns, who set up in 2019 as “a lifestyle destination for those who believe in providing their fur babies with nothing but the best”. Not only does this encompass goose, “pooched” salmon and wild-boar paté, but your charge can also feast on blueberry frozen yoghurt (£2.75 each), along with assorted animal appendages on which the sun doesn’t exactly shine (£3.30 per pizzle).
I may not have contributed to the staggering £69 million spent on toys at Pets at Home last year. However, I bow (wow) to no one in my devotion to Pimlico despite her regarding me as the functionary facilitating her romance with my boyfriend, Terence. I spend my life shelling out for the aloe concoction I pretend is her natural scent, salmon oil to ensure her coat stays lustrous, a wardrobe of leads in flattering shades and sumptuous velvet throws on which she can disport herself.
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I occasionally buy Pim meat, only Terence tends to steal this as his objection to occupying an otherwise vegetarian household. She consumes Barking Heads Beef Waggington at £21.08 for ten pouches, mixed with Harringtons Complete Dry Dog Food at £28.40 for 15kg. Frankly, I consider this costly enough. Didn’t dogs co-evolve on our scraps? As a south Londoner, her favoured fare is Chicken Cottage detritus. Besides, the only thing that’s given her the trots was a ritzy organic dish for sensitive canine stomachs. However, Terence, Pim’s life partner, insists that she is bored, meaning Pimlico will be the first lucky bitch to go gourmet.
• Date my dog: can I find a match for my whippet Pim?
Her quartet of ready meals arrive on ice, via black cab. They are frozen but defrostable in the microwave, should you have one, which we don’t. By supper time, they are soft but unpalatably chilly. Pim doesn’t care. The moment I crack open the container, she is transformed into a psychotic Bisto kid, threatening to rip my arm off unless I come up with the goods. Ted’s chefs clearly know what they’re doing scent-wise. The (recyclable) packaging makes these delicacies look as if they’ll be all silver service, but the contents resemble a block of pulped vegetables.
Despite being freezing, she gulps this down in an ecstatic frenzy, hysterically licking the bowl before turning on me and barking more savagely than I have ever known. The message is clear: “More — now — or shit gets real.” I shunt another half carton in her direction then hide, as more crazed sound effects ensue. Later I find Terence comparing a Ted’s Bowl beef extravaganza with our own dinner. “I’m so happy for her,” he sighs, eyeing the vegan bean balls I have so lovingly prepared. “Knock yourself out,” I retort. “It’s tested on humans.” There could be no greater trial of Pim’s love.
Pet owners will want to know the real test of Ocado’s posh dog dining: what of the next day’s turdometer? Sara had informed me that: “Pim will deliver small, neat nuggets at the other end.” I doubted this, given the aforementioned gorging, anticipating a scene akin to the incident with the elephant handler on Blue Peter (google it). And yet, so it came to pass. Now we simply have to handle the fact that her desire for more ready meals has the ravenousness of a man-eating tiger.
Doggy treats
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• Jude’s Ice Cream for Dogs, ocado.com, £4.80
• Posh Pooch Tailwagger Creek Dog Wine, woofandbrew.com, £3.99
• Burberry medium check dog collar, harveynichols.com, £250
• Loro Piana leather and cashmere dog leash, mytheresa.com, £500
• Prada Re-Nylon dog baseball cap, mytheresa.com, £350
• Pagerie The Pochette waste bag, harrods.com, £145
• Carpe Diem Beds large Hunnebo dog bed, harrods.com, £1,200
