Pooch party planner Kaylee Barbosa has turned her concern for her canine into a thriving business.
The party is in full swing. The guests are crowded around the birthday boy, their party hats tilted at a jaunty angle, their personalised bowls full of treats. The moment they have all been waiting for arrives. The cake is brought out, accompanied by much excited barking. There’s much to celebrate – after all, the next time the birthday boy has his special day, he will be a whole seven years older.
That’s because this party has been thrown by the Dog Duchess, to mark the birthday of one of owner Kaylee Barbosa’s special canine customers.
Kaylee admits that birthday cakes for dogs are still a relatively novel notion – novel enough to prompt exclamations like ‘But who would buy a birthday cake for their dog?’ when she takes part at markets (which she does regularly). They’d be surprised at the answer. Kaylee bakes between 80 and 90 cakes every month.
She admits that, growing up as a tomboy, she didn’t picture herself becoming a mistress of the kitchen – even though she was fascinated by the magnificent wedding cakes her mother used to magic up. “Baking was kind of in the family. My mom was self-taught, having developed her passion from watching her own mother make cakes and pastries.”
The baking bug didn’t actually hit Kaylee until a few years ago – and even then, it came about it a roundabout sort of way. She’d been working for a classic car company for several years, but had made the decision that she wanted to start her own thing. “I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do. I just knew that I wanted to be my own boss,” she says.
The answer came when her mini dachshund, Zara, was diagnosed with back problems so severe she needed a surgery. That was bad news indeed, since she was just three years old – most dachshunds are at least seven before their backs start giving problems – and Zara’s vet was concerned she would need ongoing operations. Determined to prevent such a situation, Kaylee turned to the internet to find out what she could do – and found a wealth of information about natural remedies. It was, as she says, an entire market that had not been tapped into.
Not that she was about to foist a bunch of untested recipes and ingredients onto Zara. She consulted with vets, hyrdrotherapists and pet herbalists before turning her kitchen into a lab, testing various herbs and broths that have remarkable health-enhancing properties. The results were remarkable, too – although Zara still has an annual checkup, her vet constantly remarks on her healthy state. What’s more, at age nine, she is still so feisty that people ask if she is a puppy.
All of this was still to come, though. In the meantime, Kaylee was busy experimenting, first with nutrient rich kibble boosters, then gourmet treats like biscuits before the idea for a bow-wow birthday cake struck. And if you’re going to make a cake, you may as well throw a party – which is how she came to provide everything, from balloons to bowls, for pups with something to celebrate.
Hanging out in Joburg Kaylee’s favourite places to take her dogs? “We love Walkhaven but, if you want to have a more one-on-one experience with your dog, you can book a time slot to have the Vitozol Park all to yourself.”
Kaylee says that being included in the festivities is her very best – and there have been some very special celebrations, indeed. One of her most memorable parties was thrown for a dog about to have his first birthday but his mom, who had just been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, wasn’t certain she’d be around to see it. “She went all out, with a Paw Patrol cake and every accessory you can think of. It was amazing,” Kaylee remembers. Happily, the dog mom has, in fact, lived to see more birthdays, while the Paw Patrol cake has become one of Kaylee’s top sellers.
It was also one of the hardest cakes to bake, at first, because it required her to invent a dog-friendly fondant. Kaylee has become accustomed to requests that take a little grappling, however. “The business has grown largely from word of mouth, with people phoning me once they’ve seen a cake I baked for a friend’s dog. Often, they have their own ideas about the cakes they want, whether it’s a certain colour or shape. That’s how our menu came to expand – but it does mean that I spend several sleepless nights wondering how I’m going to turn a request into a reality!”
The business has grown significantly since Kaylee first started baking: she now employs two assistants, and having outgrown her kitchen, is on the lookout for new premises. “Our ultimate dream is to open a dog café in Johannesburg. There are plenty of places you can take your pup in Cape Town, but nowhere here where both you and your dog can sit down with a treat. We want to change that!”
Details: dogduchess.co.za, @the_dog_duchess
