A Seven Days Canine Staffer Samples New Offerings from Vermont Dog Bakeries 

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• Matthew Roy ©️ Seven Days
• Cleo choosing between two dog treats

Mom feeds me really good dog food. It's a mixture of fresh meat, usually turkey or pork, with fruits and vegetables. She's fussy about the treats I eat, too. She favors healthy ones with simple ingredients. For my part, I'm not so picky. I'd just as soon grab a discarded pizza crust or chunk of chicken burrito off the street.

But I was all wags when she asked me to sample a few of the latest luxuries from Vermont dog bakeries. House-baked pup treats seem to be all rover the place these days. When Mom buys coffee or her own goodies at Barrio Bakery, Leunig's Petit Bijou or Kestrel Coffee Roasters in Burlington, each spot has jars of homemade dog delights for sale, too.

The bakers behind the three lines of treats I tested told Mom that they aim to give dogs the benefit of the bounty grown and produced in Vermont. They source as many ingredients locally as they can — the same stuff they eat themselves — with animal nutrition standards in mind.

They figure dogs like me don't give a howl about how a treat looks or whether it has fancy icing. "It matters more what's in them and how they're made, which is with organic and local ingredients, and we make them all by hand," Vermont Dog Eats owner Elisa Garcia-Rey said. "It's just good whole food."

My first lick of homegrown treats was at the Vermont Dog Eats tent at the Burlington Farmers Market when I was a puppy. Mom had me try all the flavors, and I liked every one.

Garcia-Rey started Vermont Dog Eats in 2012 at her home in Burlington and later expanded into a shared production space in Colchester. She moved into the first dedicated Vermont Dog Eats kitchen on State Street in Montpelier late last year and opened a retail store in May. The shop had samples and a photo booth spot where pet parents could outfit their dogs with a flowered lei or crown and sit them for a portrait under a chalkboard thought bubble.

Then, last month, the floods came and ruined Vermont Dog Eats' shop and kitchen. Garcia-Rey lost as many as 300 bags of treats on the drying racks. Two chest freezers floated in the water, which killed the compressors, spoiling about $7,000 worth of fish, meats and other perishables.

The drying process hardens the formulas into crunchy cookies and gives the preservative-free treats a longer shelf life. Vermont Dog Eats uses all-organic ingredients, including pork from Full Moon Farm in Hinesburg and beef from Stony Pond Farm in Fairfield.

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• Matthew Roy ©️ Seven Days
• Cleo's Vermont Dog Eats taste test

"It's not just about the quality of the food and knowing ... [it] doesn't have pesticides [and] it's been grown sustainably," said Garcia-Rey, who now lives in Waitsfield. "It's also just supporting the farmers who are doing that. Not only are they being responsible in the way they're running their farms and treating their animals, but ultimately they're being more responsible for the planet in the way they're farming."

Sold in five-ounce paper bags, Vermont Dog Eats products are still available at many stores and via the company's website. The Montpelier shop got new drywall and a new floor, and Garcia-Rey resumed baking there this week, though reopening the store will take longer, she said.

Last year, Vermont Dog Eats released a new recipe, Paco's Tacos ($12), with black beans from Vermont Bean Crafters, corn and cheese. Each flavor carries the name of a dog from Garcia-Rey's extended family.

Mom's favorite to buy is Tico's Tasties ($12), made with sockeye salmon wild-caught in Alaska and transported frozen to Vermont by Starbird Fish. Each treat has flecks of organic kale in a base of barley and rye flours. Some dogs have wheat allergies that make them itch, so their parents look for wheat-free treats. I'm not so sensitive, but Mom thinks it's worth avoiding the risk of extra vet visits.

On the floor of our living room, Mom set a Tico's Tastie beside a Paco's Taco, a pumpkin-and-peanut-butter Baron's Bite ($10), and a Tootsie's Tidbit ($12) made of apple, cheddar and rye flour. I went for the Tidbit first, then the Paco's Taco. Obviously, I like cheese. Finally, I crunched up the last two.

So many dog biscuits are crunchy that Beckie-Ann LaConte decided to create soft alternatives for Daisy, her Treeing Walker Coonhound. Over the holidays last year, she packaged several batches as gifts for friends and family, who told her their pups loved them. That convinced her to start Daisy Bug's Dog Bakery early this year in her Winooski kitchen.

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• Courtesy Of Daisy Bug's Dog Bakery
• From left: Dizzle Donuts, Pizza Stars, Blueberry Carrot Drops and Walker Bones from Daisy Bug's Dog Bakery

She sells treats in five-ounce bags at dog-focused events at local breweries, including 1st Republic Brewing in Essex, 14th Star Brewing in St. Albans and Switchback Brewing in Burlington, as well as at pop-ups at Lone Pine Campsites in Colchester and markets in Essex.

"I love meeting new humans and talking about their dogs," LaConte told Mom, who feels the same way.

Daisy Bug's pliable Walker Bones ($10) blend oat flour, bananas and peanut butter. I gobbled them up, but the Blueberry Carrot Drops ($12) really brought on the drool. They're an irresistible combination of chunky carrots and blueberries, oat flour, coconut oil, and eggs from the chickens of LaConte's partner's father.

I didn't try other Daisy Bug's options, such as the Pizza Stars ($11.75), which combine tomato paste, basil, parsley and cheese; and Dizzle Donuts ($15 for four), made of banana and peanut butter with a carob frosting.

Because they're soft, Daisy Bug's treats need to go in the refrigerator, where they'll last a couple of months.

It shocked me to learn that LaConte lets her pet rats, Bolt and Swift, test her treats alongside Daisy. In my prey-driven mind, rats are to dine on, not dine with. But as long as they're contributing to the yumminess coming from LaConte's bakery, I guess I'm OK with it.

To keep dogs like me safe, pet treat makers such as LaConte need to make sure they have the right labeling for their packages and documentation for their business, as required by the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets. Manufacturers must also register their products, paying an annual fee of $105 for each, and labeling has to include a guaranteed analysis for protein, fat, fiber and moisture.

One of the downsides of dog cookies made with top-quality, human-grade ingredients is that Mom sometimes tries them, which seems unfair. I don't get to taste her chocolate croissants or scallion pancakes. She said it's because chocolate and onions are dangerous for dogs, but my gut tells me she just wants them to herself.

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• Matthew Roy ©️ Seven Days
• Doggie 'Nolis from Only Cannoli and Bellcate School Dog Treats

Sarah Howley has added pup delicacies to her lineup of pastries for humans with her Winooski-based business Only Cannoli, which she launched in 2022. When she began doing more outdoor events in the spring, she decided customers' dogs should enjoy their own Italian-inspired indulgences, which she calls Doggie 'Nolis.

Howley needed a canine-oriented creator, so she reached out to the humans at Local Maverick, a Burlington business that brings together Vermont makers. They connected her with Bellcate School Dog Treats, a vocational operation at the independent school for young people with disabilities in Essex. Students there learn all types of workplace skills — handling sales and customer service, mixing and baking, packaging and delivery.

Bellcate's teachers knew nothing about dog treats when they started the vocational program four years ago, school director Jesse Bell said. The production team uses mostly local produce, Cabot cheddar cheese and Runamok maple syrup for the Maple Moose Treats ($9), plus moose antler powder from a business in Maine that collects shed antlers to turn into dog chews. Antlers provide some healthy minerals and nutrients to dogs.

Bellcate makes Carrot Beet Spinach Treats that I like — though I refuse to eat fresh carrots or spinach on their own. In the spring, the school added a new flavor, Calming Chamomile Honey Treats, as an alternative to CBD to soothe stressed pets, like during scary thunderstorms.

For the Doggie 'Nolis, Bellcate wraps pumpkin-and-peanut-butter shells around plastic tubes to bake them into curled-up shapes. The shells are filled with pure peanut butter and have pup-safe colored sprinkles on the ends. Bellcate is developing its own decoration from dried yogurt flakes.

"That's what makes them look kind of cool," Bell said.

Howley charges $1 for a Doggie 'Noli, exactly what she pays Bellcate, so the school gets all the proceeds. She also does a Pup 'Noli, filling the Bellcate shell with her own whipped cream.

Several dogs have become Only Cannoli regulars. "They'll eat it right in front of the tent," Howley said. Some parents give their pups a 'Noli on the spot and take a few home. "That's when you know that their dog is hooked."

I'm right there with them. When Mom pulled out my Doggie 'Noli, I was so excited I couldn't sit still. The peanut butter smelled scrumptious.

Impatient, I gave Mom a quick paw. She let me take a bite. Two bites later, the cannoli was gone. Treat testing is a pretty fun job.

I'm one lucky dog.

Carolyn Shapiro is Cleo's mom and helped her report this story.