Bark Chor Mee and Pupperoni Pizza

Pet-safe ingredients like carob powder, oat flour and fresh vegetables make for innovative human-style meals

- Sarah Stanley

Five-year-old female cocker spaniels Popcorn and Mochi are gourmands in their own right. They have sampled some of Singapore's most iconic dishes — like laksa, chilli crab with mantou and kaya toast — all thanks to their owners, government affairs consultant Wong Shiying and journalist Daryl Choo.

Ms Wong, 28, is her dogs' chef de pet cuisine, adapting her favourite recipes by replacing various ingredients with pet-safe alternatives. For instance, her chilli crab recipe uses red bell peppers instead of dried chillies or chilli sauce, as chillies contain capsaicin — a compound that can cause digestive upset, vomiting and diarrhoea in dogs.

Other pet-safe ingredients include carob powder, oat flour and fresh vegetables such as broccoli, carrot and pumpkin.

Since plating Popcorn and Mochi's first human-style dinner of steak and mashed sweet potatoes in December 2023, the dating couple have been documenting their cooking journey on social media.

The pups' Instagram account (@popcornandmochi) now has more than 2,500 followers, while their TikTok account has drawn over 1,900 followers.

In short videos, Ms Wong showcases her ingredient choices and cooking process, whether she is wrapping rice-paper spring rolls or hand-moulding pearl barley for dog-friendly sushi.

Some dishes even come with punny names — like bark chor mee (bak chor mee), Pawtong Laksa (Katong Laksa) or Bark-kun Kaya Toast (Yakun Kaya Toast).

Popcorn and Mochi are part of a growing social media trend where pets are fed human-style meals, as more "pawrents" embrace fresh food diets for their furkids.