London - My family are a bunch of food snobs - we’re all fussy eaters and very particular about the quality of the food we put in our mouths. Well, all except one family member that is.
Rufus couldn’t be less discerning. In fact, he will eat anything, though he particularly favours the skin of roast chicken, bits of smelly cheese and leftovers on the dirty plates being loaded into the dishwasher.
He has even been known to eat a pencil, a gravy-splashed paper napkin and, when he gets the opportunity, cow dung.
Rufus is, of course, our dog. He’s a labradoodle, and the labrador element manifests itself in his insatiable appetite.
Even after he’s been fed he will sit hopefully by our dinner table - though he has never once been fed from there - hoping for a morsel to come his way. So, when I first heard there was a cookery course that enabled you to create homemade food for your dog, I laughed out loud.
I mean, why would you? It’s not like he is not happy with supermarket dog food - and where would I find the time? I stumble my way through my chaotic life, barely able to find an hour to cook for my fussy family, let alone my mutt.
Rufus already eats what I consider a healthy diet. We feed him a decent dog food made by a brand that proclaims to be good quality, wholesome, “natural” stuff. He has the dry pellets that vets like because they don’t stick to dogs’ teeth.
Aside from that, he has a few dog treats that I buy in the pet shop, but only when he has earned them by doing as he is told. Occasionally, he might have a bit of leftover chicken or salmon.
The result? Rufus is the perfect weight for his size and as fit as, well, a butcher’s dog.
Okay, he does have a rather unsociable flatulence issue that often sends us fleeing from the living room. And he scratches quite a lot and has been to the vet a few times with skin problems.
But I’m sure that is to do with getting grass seeds and burrs tangled in his fur - nothing to do with what he eats.
So, though I was interested to hear about the cookery lessons, I was also convinced it was a publicity stunt by Lily’s Kitchen, the dog food brand behind it.
Lily’s Kitchen is a relatively new dog food brand. It comes in smart, brown packaging and, compared with other brands, it is expensive. It’s £2 (about R22) for a can compared with 60p for a tin of Pedigree Chum.
The dry food is £7.39 a kilo, where other brands cost half that.
It’s favoured by the likes of dog owners Gwyneth Paltrow and Andy Murray.
When I meet the brand’s founder, Henrietta Morrison, she tells me her cookery courses have come about because of demand from customers. Each one they have run has sold out.
She is extraordinarily passionate about the way we should feed our dogs. One in three canines is obese, she tells me, because they are eating the wrong food.
Henrietta started Lily’s Kitchen after her little border terrier, Lily, developed a skin condition that would not clear up.
“We kept going to the vet and the medicine helped, but as soon as she came off it, her skin would break out again,” she says.
“We knew it was likely to be an allergy, but couldn’t work out what it was. Then Lily stopped eating her food and I realised there might be a connection between her skin problems and what she was eating.”
Henrietta - a horticulturalist who has always had a keen interest in nutrition - started cooking Lily meals of meat, rice, vegetables and fruit, taking advice on the quantities and proportions from her brother, who is a vet.
Within three weeks, Lily’s coat was no longer patchy and the scratching had stopped.
“I was amazed and knew I was on to something,” says Henrietta. “So I started looking at what was in dog food and realised they were all full of preservatives, chemicals and cheap fillers that dogs find difficult to digest. That’s why many dogs have terrible wind.
“Yes, it is more expensive to feed your dog healthy food, but I truly believe you’ll more than make your money back because of what you’ll save on vet’s bills. So many dog problems could be solved by eating properly.”
As Henrietta tells me, what manufacturers put into dog food to make it cheaper - and more palatable to dogs, who like salty, sweet, fatty food as much as we do - I start to understand what she means.
“Chicken meal” might sound pleasant enough but is, in fact, made from rendered down carcasses and feather shafts to make the protein content in dog food higher.
“Derivatives of vegetable or animal origin” also might sound fine, but these are basically waste products from the human food industry and are often devoid of nutrients.
They include ground-up tomato vines or grape stems known as pomace, or animal feet, eyes, necks, intestines and other carcass parts that would otherwise be thrown away. Feed is often bulked out with potato powder and bound with oil, making it high in fat, but not satisfying - which is why some dogs continually beg for food, even when they have just eaten.
Henrietta says the fat content in dog food should be a maximum of 10 percent. I look at the label of the “healthy” dog food I feed Rufus. It is 16 percent fat.
She warns me to look out for the “ash” content on the label, too, which is an indication of the amount of meal that has been used. It should be less than 6 percent. Rufus’s food has seven percent.
And the protein content should be around 20 percent - higher can put a strain on a dog’s kidneys, lower is not satisfying enough. Rufus’s food is fine for protein - but I now know much of that is ground-up feathers and the like.
There are also 400 artificial additives allowed in dog food, including flavour enhancers, colourings and preservatives, along with sugar and salt - all of which should be avoided.
I’m horrified. I’ve been feeding Rufus the kind of low-grade processed food I utterly despise. I don’t want him to eat total rubbish - it feels tantamount to cruelty. But why should I make his food myself rather than just swapping brands?
“It’s a really good way to connect with your dog,” says Henrietta, coming over a little New Age. “I’m not saying you should do it all the time, but to do it occasionally is wonderful. It’s like cooking for your baby rather than always giving it jars of baby food.”
So it is that I end up donning my pinny and chopping up pieces of veg and meat for Rufus’s very own lamb hotpot meal-for-one.
Under Henrietta’s tutelage, I cook brown rice in water, adding chunks of lamb, some fresh chicken liver and a host of organic fruit and vegetables - broccoli, butternut squash, carrots, peas, apple, ground flaxseeds (for their essential oils) and a ton of strange ingredients such as marigold petals (excellent for healing and cleansing), aniseed (it stops bloating and flatulence), nettles (high in all sorts of nutrients, particularly iron) and dried kelp (a nutrient-rich seaweed powder).
With a final flourish, I add spinach leaves and blueberries, offering one to Rufus for a treat.
He has not left the kitchen since we started cooking - the smell of simmering meat has him drooling. He loves the blueberry. I had no idea he had such sophisticated tastes.
The completed meal is something like a messy risotto, but when I serve it to Rufus that evening he wolfs it down in seconds, his tail wagging with excitement the whole time.
I can’t help but feel a mixture of happiness that he has had such a wholesome meal and bewilderment that I have allowed him to be so utterly spoilt.
When we sit down to our own meal, there is no begging from Rufus - he is clearly full - and our TV viewing also passes without any unpleasant odours wafting across the room.
So, will I be cooking for him in the future? Well, I’m torn. While I love Rufus, he’s not one of my children. And, as I said, I’m a busy woman.
But, my goodness, when you know what rubbish goes into ordinary dog food it is very, very hard not to feel awfully guilty. So, I’m afraid I’m going to have to find the time, at least occasionally, to add another thing to my list of tasks.
Lucky old Rufus. - Daily Mail