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it’s the perfect way to pamper your pooch and a paws-atively awesome experience for pet parents.
The decorate-your-own dog-safe treat workshops at DIY Treats 4 Dogs, located at 8B South Rd. in Somers, offer a one-of-a-kind creative experience for dog owners and dog-lovers alike. Under the watchful eye of business owner Donna Shovlin, workshop attendees turn their chosen dog treat shapes into a platter full of Insta-worthy showpieces.
“I truly, truly love it. People come in here and they have more fun than they think they will,” Shovlin shared. “They come in thinking, ‘Oh, I’m going to decorate some treats,’ and they leave smiling.”
Customers register for the workshops online, with each season offering a new selection of themes. “For the workshops in March we’ll do a St. Patrick’s Day theme workshop, a spring-themed workshop and at the end of the month an Easter-themed workshop, Shovlin said, adding that custom decorating themes — such as for a sports team, a birthday party, a date night or girl’s night out, or team building business activity, are also availableby request. Most workshops have from 10 to 12 participants. Workshop prices run from $35 to $55 per person, depending upon the number of treats decorated.
Times and current theme offerings are listed on the DIY Treats 4 Dogs website at DIYTreats4Dogs. There is also a “connect” tab on the website where clients can inquire about private workshops.
The creative force behind these dog-safe treats, Shovlin develops the theme for each workshop and then creates custom cookie cutters to match that theme using a 3D printer. Those cookie cutters leave the treats with coloring-book-like outlines, making it easy for workshop participants to decorate their treats.
“We pre-bake the treats and set up the workshops like being on a food show, where everything is set up in front of them,” Shovlin explained. She then teaches “people how to decorate [their treats] step-by-step.”
“We do it that way so people of all ages can come out and have a good time,” Shovlin added.
The secret ingredient that makes Shovlin’s dogsafe treats so special is the decorator icing, which she said, “dries hard and doesn’t need refrigeration.”
That icing is not only the key to the photo-worthy results workshop attendees get at DIY Treats 4 Dogs, it is also the product that launched Shovlin’s sister — and primary — business — Pastries 4 Pets.
Manufactured in an industrial site in Somers, the specialty icing is a product Shovlin developed working with her father-in-law, a food chemist shortly after she started making dog treats as a business. Shovlin said Pastries 4 Pets now ships the specialty icing — which comes as a powder that decorators mix with water and food coloring — to clients all over the world.
“We invented the icing for [dog] treats because at the time the only thing available had a lot of sugar in it,” Shovlin said. When she began looking for a dog-friendly icing, Shovlin had recently upended her Union, Connecticut, bakery business called Hart Pastries — one where she had been creating cakes and pies and such for people — pivoting to a business baking treats for dogs. That change came when a neighbor asked Shovlin if she could come up with a wheat-free treat for her dog with allergies.
“I was baking out of a commercial kitchen and was learning to make gluten-free baked goods for humans when my neighbor asked me if I could do something gluten-free for her dog,” Shovlin said.
“Little did she know … ” she added with a chuckle. She found baking for dogs enjoyable, and quickly found there was a market for the wheat-free treats, which, 14 years ago when she started baking them and selling them at a farmers’ market in Somers, “weren’t available at the time like they are now.” Her decorated dog treats at local farmers markets soon drew a loyal fan base, outselling her regular baked goods, and Shovlin closed Hart Pastries to open a brick-and-mortar dog bakery — Pastries 4 Pets — and a pet boutique, first in Stafford Springs and later in Wilmington, Connecticut. Her first forays into treat decorating workshops took place at her store, where she offered periodic sip and decorate events.
The icing business soon outgrew her space at Pastries 4 Pets, and as that business took off, Shovlin baked away from the retail pet bakery, moving the icing business to the industrial park in Somers. But she still baked dog treats, using them to host in-person — and during the coronavirus pandemic — online workshops for icing customers to show them how to use the product on their own treats. Shovlin also helped potential dog treat business owners learn how to follow Department of Agriculture guidelines for baking dog-safe treats.
“I am very passionate about people succeeding in their business. I love small business owners,” Shovlin said of her work with other dog treat bakers.
The icing customers’ excitement about the decorating workshops also helped fuel Shovlin’s desire to begin offering treat-decorating for the public again, as she’s now doing at DIY Treats 4 Dogs.
“I always wanted to go back to [the decorating workshops],” Shovlin said, recalling how popular the decorate and sip events were in her original dog bakery in Wilmington.
Shovlin also recently added another option for clients looking for her decorated dog treats, but not able to come to a workshop. She’s created what she calls Pup Packs.
“It’s a convenient way for people to get treats. They can order their dog treats — they don’t have to come in and decorate them,” Shovlin said. Clients can pick from the current themes on the DIYTreats 4 Dogs website and “we decorate about five treats per pack,” she shared.
Shovlin further explained that the Pup Pack would also include a dog toy from the small boutique she operates inside her decorating studio. “We ask the size of the dog, and if it is a boy or a girl” to make sure the toy isappropriate, she added.
The charge for a Pup Pack is $25 — and when it’s ready, Shovlin sends the client a code that unlocks a drop box just outside the decorating studio’s door. That way, she said, clients can pick up the treats at their convenience, whether the studio is open or not. “The code is good from midnight to midnight,” Shovlin said. “We do it [that way] so they don’t have to pay shipping.”
DIY Treats 4 Dogs can also create a dog-safe, treatdecorated birthday cake for a Pup Pack, upon request.
“Lots of people call it ‘Barkday,’ it’s very popular,” Shovlin added.
DIY TREATS 4 DOGS IS AT 8B SOUTH RD. IN SOMERS. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT WORKSHOPS, PUP PACKS OR BARKDAY CAKES, VISIT DIYTREATS4DOGS.COM OR EMAIL HELLO@DIYTREATS4DOGS.
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