Ain’t That Swell: Swell Gelato for Dogs
| Penny loves Swell Gelato for Dogs and I’m just having so much fun blogging, I thought I’d share more about this awesome company with you guys! We recently met the founder and got to try the seasonal spiced pumpkin flavor gelato, Nog for Dogs. In this post, I’ll be talking about how we first discovered Swell, why we love it, and the events we attended while Debbie was in town!
What is Gelato?
Gelato and ice cream are very similar, but what separates them is air density. The internet says that American ice cream tends to use egg yolks, though I made hand-churned ice cream several times as a child and never remember adding eggs. I’ve become lactose-intolerant as an adult, so I never eat ice cream and don’t have any in my freezer to check the ingredients! Anyways, gelato apparently uses more milk instead of the egg yolk that ice cream has, but it’s also churned a lot slower, removing much of the air, which gives it a much denser texture than fluffy ice cream. Gelato is also usually served at a warmer temperature than ice cream to give it a slightly silky texture, but that definitely doesn’t matter to the dogs!
The Swell Story
According to the Swell website, “[it] was created out of nostalgia for a time where food was prepared with simple yet wholesome ingredients to be shared with those you love. Swell gelatos are made the traditional artisan way: the base is cooked, chilled, and then churned into a creamy deliciousness your dog will truly appreciate.”
They also recommend that you “have a sniff yourself” and trust me, you should! Every flavor of Swell Gelato smells amazing and since they’re all made from human-grade natural ingredients, it’s totally okay for us pet parents to taste too!
Where to Buy Swell Gelato:
Swell Gelato is available for purchase in a variety of retail locations across Washington, Idaho, Oregon, California, Nevada, and Arizona. Click here for a list of stores that stock Swell.
Here in San Diego, you can buy Swell Gelato for Dogs at all Muttropolis and Dexter’s Deli Locations.
Click here for an interactive map of all the dog stores in San Diego.
How Did We Find Out About Swell?
I have a pretty good memory and with all of the photos I take, it wasn’t hard to figure out the first time we heard about Swell Gelato for Dogs! We went to an event called Cardiff Dog Days of Summer with the Peake family (@peakepups) on August 11, 2019. There were tons of vendor tents, mostly dog-related, and we stopped at the Muttropolis tent to say hi and take photos with their cute pink beach van backdrop. They were only selling the gelato, not giving out samples, but the bright orange Swell Gelato freezer cart was there in their tent and caught my eye.
A couple of weeks later, on August 25, we went to a birthday party at Muttropolis and the bright orange cart was there, full of free Swell samples! Penny was obsessed with it – after she finished hers, she went around cleaning up everyone else’s leftovers too. It’s at this event that the pictures of Penny on the orange cart with some of her weenie friends were taken.
I saw how much all the dogs at the party were enjoying Swell, so since they stock it at Muttropolis, I purchased several cups to serve at our first San Diego Weens meetup. The awesome people at Muttropolis divided the cups up into shareable samples and were clever enough to add the SD Weens logo to the top of the cups. Everyween absolutely loved the gelato samples!
Fast forward to present day, and on October 17, we had the pleasure of meeting the founder and owner, Debbie, when she came to Southern California on a promotional tour. She was in San Diego for three days and hosted an awesome pop-up event every single day! On the 17th, there was a Swell Gelato pop-up at Dexter’s Deli in North Park! Penny and I went with Liv and Kato (@willsitforcarrots) after we walked around for a little bit so the dogs could get more comfortable with each other. Debbie’s fancy new gold cart made its San Diego debut and we took tons of pictures of Penny posing on top of it with the seasonal flavor gelato, Nog for Dogs.
