There’s nothing like a delivery to brighten up a wet and overcast Saturday morning!

Beanie & Biggles haven’t learned to read yet so they were oblivious to the fact that this package was addressed to them. They were likewise oblivious to other labeling on the package, such as the words “Please keep me this way up” and “Fragile”.

That’s not “logistics”, that’s Beanie & Biggles.

I guess that’s why you rarely see Beagles working as couriers. Regardless, within a few seconds the outer packaging was compromised and Biggles got his first good sniff at the contents. He immediately decided that this delivery was for him alone and started dragging it down into the corridor by our bedroom. We call this the “corridor of doom” because anything that goes down there is highly prized and unlikely to last for long. We took this as a sign that the box was full of very nice edibles. Well, either that or smelly socks. Needless to say we rescued the box from his Biggleship and began unpacking it with rather more care and self-restraint than either of our Beagles could have managed.

Inside the box was a bumper bundle of tasties from The Beagle’s Bakery – a new shop specializing in handmade gourmet biscuits, cakes and cupcakes for dogs. Before we called in Beanie & Biggles to carry out a taste test, we took a good close look at each of the items.

Boxes within boxes, and two bags of very tasty looking biccies

Inside the boxes we found a big cake personalized for our two woofers, and four mouth watering doggy cupcakes and muffins

Everything fully unpacked. Suddenly feeling hungry? We certainly were!

Everything was beautifully and professionally packaged, and each product came with a card giving its name, ingredients and shelf-life. Any time I’ve taken a look through the ingredient list of typical pet-shop treats I’ve seen lots of dodgy “filler” substances like ash, anonymous coloring agents and so on. There was nothing like that here; The Beagle’s Bakery prides itself on using only top quality, dog-safe natural ingredients and it shows. As we unpacked each of the items both of us became distinctly peckish. They all just looked and smelled so good.. I’ve never felt that way about dog treats before!

Of course it’s all very well having treats that whet the human appetite, but what really counts is how tasty they are to doggies. People who’ve seen Beanie & Biggles in action might accuse them of not having very discerning palates. Their definition of “edible” is much broader than ours, and includes things that are repulsive to most humans such as two day old dog poo (although even they draw the line at PotNoodle).  However having survived life with them now for several years we’re able to recognize the behavioral cues that indicate a food’s ranking. So let’s see how the Beagle’s Bakery samples shaped up.

Heart-shaped Cheese Biscuits

Beanie’s “leave” command is normally pretty solid, but it came close to breaking for these biscuits, and she actually drooled (very rare for The Beanster). Definitely tastier than your average biccie!

Flapjack

Biggles’ entire lower half was wagging so much for these flapjacks that he could hardly keep his bum on the seat. Definitely a hit with the Bigglet!

 

Chocolate Pupcake

Note the intent look on Beanie’s face. Really tasty food is a serious matter, and this pupcake was seriously tasty

Wuffin
When you stick a muffin in your woofer, it’s called a Wuffin!

My lighting stands were endangered by this wuffin as the wagging reached epic proportions

The gob-stopper! Biggles tried to swallow it whole for a few seconds before he reluctantly admitted defeat and resorted to chewing.

Doggy Chocolate Celebration Cake

I’ve saved the biggest and best item – the Celebration Cake – for last, though in reality it was the first to get (partially) eaten.

Once we’d got everything laid out on the table, and before the official taste tests began, I wanted to get a shot of our Beagles getting their first look at all the goodies. Susan brought in Biggles first and instantly there was chaos. Even with Susan’s hand firmly gripping his collar, our powerful little boy managed to boing up to the table and grab a nibble of cake!

Biggles struggles to decide which treat to target. Will it be the flapjacks?

Nope, it’s the cake! This was taken a millisecond after his mouth scored a hit on one of the bones surrounding the celebration cake. The last time I saw wild eyes like that was in a Bruce Lee film!

And here’s the damage. It was lucky we got a shot of the cake before The Bigglet took a nibble out of it!

We decided against trying to get photos of Beanie & Biggles with the cake after that; it’s clearly the nuke in the Beagle’s Bakery arsenal! When all the shooting was finished and our two pups had calmed down, Susan served a slice of cake up for them in their bowls. There was almost complete silence as they ate it. In our house, that’s the mark of something really, really tasty, and its typically reserved only for Susan’s home-made chicken soup (we get hours of plaintive wailing at the kitchen door during preparation, then merciful silence during the actual feeding).

And finally..

All the treats were a hit with Beanie & Biggles, but the cake was the clear favorite. Susan’s done home baking for our pups before but we’ve never had this kind of reaction, so The Beagle’s Bakery has definitely hit the mark in the taste department. As a bonus their stuff is visually & nasally appealing to us humans too; I know that shouldn’t matter of course, but it does. Looking through the website the prices seem very reasonable; the doggy gift packs you see in supermarkets and pet shops aren’t much cheaper but they’re typically full of junk while these treats are made only with top notch natural ingredients.

What’s more there seems to be the option to personalize nearly everything, not just the cake; you can even order up a jar full of bone-shaped biscuits with your dog’s name stamped into them. I’m certain I’ll be ordering something when The B’s birthdays come along.. but what? I’m attracted by the cake and love the idea of personalized biscuits, but still I just can’t get over the sight of Biggles with a whole Wuffin jammed in his cakehole!

Visit the Beagle’s Bakery here: http://www.thebeaglesbakery.co.uk

Every time I’ve seen the ad for Pedigree Jumbone – the one with the Beagle – I’ve always been highly skeptical. Our two regularly make light work of toys and chews that are meant to stand up to hours of abuse from far bigger dogs, yet here’s an advert claiming that a Beagle’s chewing gear is not up to the task of a jumbone? No way could I believe that, but I never put my belief the test, until now.

May I present the Pedigree Jumbone “Maxi” – designed for proper big doggies rather than small-to-medium woofers like ours.

This particular jumbone was a gift to Beanie & Biggles from Zak, one of their pals. Since it is intended for larger dogs, I decided to share it between our two but cutting it in half was surprisingly difficult. I took a sharp carving knife to it but encountered stiff resistance immediately. I soon found however that once I’d scored it with the knife I could easily break it in two with my hands. This discovery didn’t bode well for the “it goes om & nom & nom” claim, but there was of course only one way to find out for sure.

A few seconds into the trial there were fragments of the jumbone’s inner core on the carpet. Obviously this thing was seriously tasty, but how long could it last against Beanie & Biggles’ battle-hardened chewing gear?

30 seconds into the trial. Amazingly it’s still there and not substantially reduced in size

Have Pedigree actually made something tough enough to occupy a Beagle for more than a couple of minutes? Will Beanie really fare no better than the Beagle in the advert?

Err, no. Not really.

At the 90 seconds mark all that remained of Biggles’ jumbone was a crumb or two, and trust me, one lick later they were gone.

Beanie finished a close second, and still well under two minutes. In my book that is not “om & nom & nom & nom & nom & nom” etc. That’s barely one and a half noms at best. So either Pedigree have found a Beagle with defective chewing equipment or they’re openly telling porkies. Still, the jumbone appears to be tasty, possibly even tastier than the bed from Biggles’ basket, though not nearly as long lasting.

The bed from Biggles’ basket, in Beanie’s gob.

Vetbed. It really does go om & nom & nom & nom & nom…