How Bark & Bramble Began
Hi, we're Lewis and Lauren, husband and wife, co-founders of Bark & Bramble… and this is Winston, our golden retriever and unofficial head of product testing.
Bark & Bramble wasn't created because we simply wanted to start a pet shop.
It came from our experiences as dog owners and the questions that Winston made us start asking.
It Started With Winston
Winston has had a sensitivity to poultry since he was a puppy.
Finding the right premium dog food wasn't always straightforward. We'd pick up bags labelled with one flavour, turn them over and discover other animal proteins hidden within a long ingredients list.
It made us start looking much more closely at what was actually in dog food, rather than relying on what was written across the front of the bag.
How much meat was really in it?
Where was the protein coming from?
Was it complete?
Why were some manufacturers incredibly transparent while others made it difficult to understand exactly what you were feeding?
The more we researched, the more questions we had.
Then It Became About More Than Food
Nutrition wasn't our only experience that shaped Bark & Bramble.
During a trip to Lyme Regis, Winston's collar broke close to a road.
Thankfully, he was okay, but it completely changed the way we thought about dog accessories.
A collar isn't just something that looks nice.
Sometimes it's the thing keeping your dog safe.
We started paying much more attention to construction, materials and strength rather than choosing accessories purely because we liked how they looked.
It's why product safety and durability became another important part of what we wanted Bark & Bramble to represent.
10 Months Travelling Europe Together
In 2025, we packed our lives into our campervan and spent around ten months travelling through Europe with Winston, making our way through countries including France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Albania, Greece and Turkey.
It was an incredible experience… but it also gave us another scare.
While travelling, Winston became seriously unwell with gastrointestinal problems.
Being away from home with a poorly dog made us even more conscious of what we were feeding him and how much trust we place in the companies making products for our pets.
We researched ingredients.
We compared foods.
We looked at different manufacturing methods.
We questioned marketing claims.
And we became increasingly interested in the difference between simply meeting a nutritional requirement and choosing food we genuinely felt confident putting in Winston's bowl.
Somewhere along the way, what started as research for our own dog became the beginning of something much bigger.
From Healthcare To Pet Nutrition
Both of us come from healthcare backgrounds.
Lewis spent eight years working in a busy emergency department, alongside five years previously serving in the army.
Lauren is a registered nurse, with years of emergency department experience before progressing into advanced clinical practice training within cancer care.
We're not vets and we'll never pretend to be.
But our healthcare backgrounds have shaped how we approach information.
Ask questions.
Look at the evidence.
Understand the risks.
Don't accept a claim simply because it's written on the packaging.
When we started applying that mindset to the pet industry, Bark & Bramble began to take shape.
Why We Created Bark & Bramble
We wanted to create the kind of pet retailer we wished we'd had when we first started asking all those questions.
A place where owners could understand what they're buying.
Where ingredient transparency matters.
Somewhere you can shop and have full trust that your pet is at the mind of everything.
Where foods aren't selected simply because they're popular.
Where natural treats mean never any rawhide.
Where accessories are selected with safety and durability in mind.
And where owners can find straightforward information without needing to become canine nutrition experts themselves.
That's why we've developed tools such as our Dog Food Finder, alongside educational guides explaining everything from ingredient labels and protein to allergies, feeding amounts and healthy weight.
We don't want to simply sell you a bag of dog food.
We want to help you understand why you might choose it.
The Winston Test!
There's one simple question behind everything we choose for Bark & Bramble:
Would we be happy giving this to Winston?
If the answer is no, we don't want to sell it to your dog either.
That doesn't mean every product will be right for every dog.
Winston himself is proof of that.
Dogs have different allergies, activity levels, ages, health conditions, preferences and nutritional requirements.
Our job isn't to pretend there's one perfect answer.
It's to give owners better information and carefully selected options so they can make a more informed choice for the dog in front of them.
Pets Deserve Better
Bark & Bramble has grown from three things we care deeply about:
Quality.
Transparency.
Education.
We're still Lewis, Lauren and Winston.
We're just taking everything we've learned along the way and building the pet company we wanted to find ourselves.
Because we don't think our dogs should simply receive enough to get by.
We want them to thrive.
And if we wouldn't be happy giving something to Winston, you won't find it at Bark & Bramble.
Pets deserve better.
Lewis, Lauren & Winston
Bark & Bramble
