By Gareth Butterfield

Copyright scotsman

Because I’m a bit of a glutton for punishment, I have two dogs. A six-year-old labradoodle called Honey, and an eight-year-old cockapoo called Rupert. Among their many individual quirks, Rupert is a fussy eater and Honey is not. In fact, she’s clinically obese.

Finding ways to keep her weight down has been a constant challenge, especially when she eats in the same room as a dog who likes to pick at his food until he’s hungry enough to finish the bowl. It leaves an open goal for a voracious half-labrador.

And this is why I was very interested to take up a challenge from the nice people at Bella+Duke, who offered to let me try a few rounds of their award-winning raw dog food.

The health benefits of raw dog food are obvious, and if you own a dog, you’ve probably found that, at some point, you’ve been encouraged to feed them a raw food diet.

If it hasn’t been your vet that’s recommended you avoid ultra-processed foods, it’s probably been a pushy seller on a stall at some sort of show somewhere.

That’s not how Bella+Duke works though. Fitting their food into your dog’s routine starts with a friendly survey on their website. You let them know a few details about your pet, what you’re hoping to achieve by switching to raw food, and you get a tailored nutrition plan. You even get a discount on the first few boxes.

So I chose to put Honey’s vital statistics in, and effectively enlisted her for the world’s most delicious boot camp. A few months of carefully-weighed out raw food, to see how she got on.

A few days after signing up to the plan, a box arrived at the door. It’s a double-skinned cardboard container filled with frozen meals and some dry ice, and it needs to go straight into the freezer.

The first box contained 16 complete meals, weighing 500g each, and they filled up a freezer drawer with a few left over. I could have spent time on the website choosing recipes – but there’s a lot to go at, I knew Honey wouldn’t care what was in them, and they all looked lovely anyway. So I went for a broad selection.

It’s advised that you start off the switch to raw by gradually introducing it alongside your dog’s normal food. And that’s fine if your dog has a sensitive stomach, but Honey has an iron-clad constitution, and I knew she could cope.

So on night one, I weighed out the recommended 450g dose, gave it a bit of a stir, and popped it down. It was gone in just over a minute. She absolutely wolfed it down. And then she licked the bowl clean, and looked at me, licking her lips, as if to ask for some more.

Every meal, in fact, has been devoured in no time at all. Her record is 47 seconds.

Normally the problem I’d now face is preventing Honey from moving on to Rupert’s bowl and starting again, because Rupert has ignored his tea and gone off to look for windfall apples in the garden because they taste nicer than kibble. But I’d had a cunning plan. I’d mixed in the remaining 50g of Honey’s turkey-based supper into Rupert’s kibble. And he was properly tucking in.

This is a dog that’s never settled on a meal before. From soft, chewy meat-based food, to fresh raw food from the local pet shop, he’s always either turned his nose up or taken the whole evening to eat it. But here he was, giving it his undivided attention. He’s always been a slow eater, but I’ve never known him to finish a bowl before.

It’s a good job, too, because while Bella+Duke’s servings are handily split up into 50g sections, I’d have had to pull off a section from Honey’s thawed-out 450g serving every evening, store them up somehow, and then serve them up once I’d amassed enough of them. It simply wouldn’t have worked. Rupert’s meagre share saved Honey from over-eating and transformed his bland biscuits.

I do wish the paper labelling of each meal was a little easier to remove and recycle. It’s stuck on and has to be torn away in pieces if you’re in an area that wants you to separate cardboard and plastic.

I’m also never going to get over the smell of tripe. It’s a common ingredient in Bella+Duke meals, which the dogs are incredibly happy about, but if you’ve ever smelled it, you’ll know what I mean.

We’ve always weighed Honey every week and, through what felt like borderline cruelty and meticulous portion control, she had started to lose some kilos on her kibble. And it’s not as if the switch to raw food accelerated this, but we found she maintained a healthy weight so much more easily.

Bella+Duke champions the way some of the nutrients included in the meals promote a glossy coat, and I can’t say I saw a huge difference in Honey’s fur, but it definitely felt softer.

I’m also going to have to talk about another of Bella+Duke’s bold claims, the benefits you’ll see in stools. If you’re having your lunch, or you’re not a dog person, scroll down a few lines. I’m afraid this is something dog people do have to discuss from time to time.

Bella+Duke insists you’ll find your dog’s “offerings” are firmer, and easier to pick up. And they’re right, I definitely did. You wouldn’t be able to bludgeon someone to death with them, but you might land a colourful bruise if you put the effort in.

Honey’s always been energetic, but her raw food journey seemed to have put an extra spring in her step, which meant she always slept soundly at the end of every day.

It’s been a fascinating learning curve, then, switching away from kibble to raw-food. But it’s not the perfect path to utopia I was hoping for.

The biggest issue with frozen raw food is the logistics. It takes up a lot of freezer space, which is fine if you have a big enough appliance, but it’s something to bear in mind. And it’s especially an issue if you happen to go away in a motorhome. Which is what we did for a week, during our trial of Bella+Duke.

Our freezer compartment is very small and, by the time you’ve left enough space for the wife’s critical supply of ice cubes that accompany each critical glass of holiday gin, we could only have fitted in four meal packs.

So we switched Honey and Rupert back to kibble for a bit. To be honest, we didn’t see any ill effects and, remarkably, Rupert continued to finish his bowl in one sitting each time. Even without his extravagant garnish.

And as for Honey, she inevitably gained a few grams. It wasn’t catastrophic, and they were given quite a lot of treats in the shops and pubs we visited, but once she switched back to raw food on our return, the weight quickly dropped off again and it’s stayed steady.

It brings me to a simple conclusion. Raw food is excellent.

To make the conclusion slightly more complicated, the switch is certainly expensive. Honey’s 16-meal bundle would cost around £50 delivered, before any discounts, so it equates to around £3 per day.

It’s possible to save money by making up half the meal with kibble, stretching the box out to 32 days, and Bella+Duke’s excellent website makes that really easy to do. The plans are incredibly flexible.

It’s not as if you’re only buying a box of raw food, either. Joining the Bella+Duke plans feels like you’re joining a little community, with thriving groups on social media sharing advice and stories, and even a free 24/7 video vet care system. My insurance company charges a fortune for that.

The website also has a series of “perks” offered to subscribers, including discounts on doggy day care, insurance and a selection of pet-related products.

If you’ve been dithering over dog food, I’d say give it a go. Switch to raw, even just to try it out and see if it makes a difference. You’ll get 40% off your first box of Bella+Duke, and you can cancel the plan any time.

I’ve seen the benefits first-hand now, and while I’m finding it hard to resist the temptation to switch back to a much cheaper kibble diet for them, I know that raw food is worth every penny.

Get your 40% discount from Bella+Duke by clicking here, and see for yourself.