A PET owner from Barrow who feeds her dogs and cats raw meat has opened up her first market stall in a bid to convince others to get their beloved pets on a diet which is growing in popularity.

Kelly Holmes, 41, of Ramsden Street, Barrow, made the decision to switch her three-year-old husky Suki on to a Biologically Appropriate Raw Food (BARF) diet after doctors couldn't get to the bottom of an irritating itch will troubled the pup for months.

After encouraging Suki to eat raw meat, the itch disappeared and Mrs Holmes, a mother of four, has since found that after switching all of her pets, including her other dog Kai and her Siamese cat Fudge, on to the BARF diet they have become much more healthier.

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She said: "They don't get bad breath, they smell a lot better and they have had so much more energy since we've switched them. However, the biggest benefit is that symptoms of MS and arthritis in dogs is reversed by putting them on the raw meat diet.

"People will argue that evolution has changed dogs and that if a dog is fed raw meat it will turn vicious but this isn't true."

After advocating the BARF diet, which is nutritionally superior than cooked meat diets according to its supporters, Mrs Holmes started buying in raw meat for her friends and families' pets from wholesalers across the country.

However, she soon noticed that it was becoming expensive to deliver the produce and as a result, decided to take the plunge and set up her own business selling raw meat on a stall in Barrow's indoor market.

She had her first day of trading on Saturday and was delighted with the positive reaction she received from intrigued market shoppers.

Mrs Holmes, who also works as a youth worker at Walney community centre, said: "We had a lot of interest and a lot of people who came for advice and ended up buying some of our meat.

"The price factor was the biggest factor for people on the day. When you're feeding dogs this diet, they don't need the best cuts of meat from the butcher. We also made sure that for customers with smaller dogs we could offer bones in bitesize chunks which makes it easier for them to digest."

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After her opening day success, she now plans to trade for four days a week and wants to build a partnership with other meat distributors in the Furness area.

She added: "I want to give something back to butchers and farmers in the community. If I can get them involved by getting their bones and scraps off them it would be brilliant because we can advertise our meat as local produce."