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Table scraps

Four-paws review

By Teddy Fitzgerald

That wasn’t just a vegetable I ate?

My mom ceaselessly attempts to cajole my inner bunny out of me. Sure I can jump the back of our couch at home in one leap, but a diet with carrots, potatoes and broccoli, ugh, that’s where I bark the line.

So when I saw my mom beaming on (with what can only mean a cuddle in the near future) while I enjoyed the second course of my dinner at the K9 Wine and Dine at the Hilton Resort, I was a little shocked.

“Look his first vegetable,” she cooed.

Furrowed deep within a ground chicken mixture of rice and gravy was a green bean — and I was eating it, and even liking it.

Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity, Samuel F. B. Morse the Morse code and now Vancouver’s Three Dog Bakery finally cracked Whistler’s most ban-the-beet dog.

But when the company touts three dogs as the founders, is it really any surprise?

From the trials and tribulations of trying to save their deaf, partially blind, anorexic Great Dane Gracie, shop hands Dan Dye and Mark Beckloff looked to their own kitchens to create healthful treats composed of ingredients familiar to most families’ fridges.

Gracie, along with Sarah and Dottie, soon began marketing their afternoon snacks and hearty meals to their furry friends.

For almost two decades now, Three Dog Bakery has been pulling from their oven all-natural, food and treats made from a pronounceable list of ingredients including things like peanut butter, wheat flour, honey, vegetables and fruit.

I still picket the fruit stand at the Whistler Farmer’s Market, but then again, I also turned my nose up at anything pulled from the ground, so who knows?

The first course started with rrrRRRibs. Sweet and tangy. The bone was large, about the size of my leg. I prefer a daintier presentation, unlike the four-legged giants who woofed them down in only a few bites. Mom broke it up, so I could enjoy the texture, the marrying of flavours and of course to help fit it in my mouth.

The accompanying cookie smelled a bit like a pizza and I ate every last crumb. In fine dogging, it is perfectly acceptable to lick the plate.

The third course scared me a bit. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this cupcake-looking dessert with white topping swirled into a rosette on top of a whole-wheat cake dubbed the Yap and Pup Tart. I pushed the plate around, sniffed, checked the colour and put the creamy honey-sweet dessert in my mouth — and like all veteran tasters, I promptly spit it out.

I prefer tones of wet dog and leather rather than honey bouquets.

I went to use the finger bowl, but instead found a Scotty dog drinking from it — amateurs.

Like all great meals, I left with a doggie bag, a sachet of Peanut Woofers. Unlike my tasty yet giant first course cookies, these are little-dog bite size and require more than a two-cookie serving, especially if I dance on my hind legs, which I was only too happy to do with Kostaman and The Vibrations playing some great world beats at the fundraising dinner for the Whistler Animals Galore animal shelter.

I give Three Dog Bakery and the Hilton Resort four paws — Hilton servers accommodated my need to dine in privacy and serve my meal at a corner table just for one.

Three Dog Bakery products can be bought on line at threedogbakery.com or sniff out their Vancouver store on Fourth Avenue.