Dog Daze Bakery

Doggie want a doughnut?

By Kelina Imamura

Ruth Surgis has two children, Harley, 4, and Kolesto, 11. They rule the roost and their parents’ shop, Dog Daze Bakery.

“I don’t have two-legged children,” said Ruth, the co-owner. “They scare the hell out of me.”

Harley and Kolesto are pitbulls who will lick the skin right off you, Ruth says. But it was her rare German pinscher, Derby, that inspired Dog Daze, an all-natural food store for cats and dogs.

“We’re driven by four legs and fur here,” Ruth told a new customer. “If you do it for two-legged children, we do it for four.”

And she’s not kidding. The store, located on South Main Street in Syracuse, brings in Santa for photos during Christmas. They also make doggie-frosted birthday bones and Easter baskets. It’s dog-centric, to say the very least.

Dog Daze boasts display cases full of pizzas, doughnuts with rainbow sprinkles, carrots, and oversized chocolate-covered strawberries. All are made of yogurt, peanut butter, carob, and other natural ingredients. Although intended for dogs, humans can eat ’em, too.

“You could eat 85 percent of the products in my store as an all-natural diet for humans too, not just animals,” Ruth said. “Some of the raws with some of the gizzards and bones, I don’t know if I’d eat that, but you can basically eat everything else.”

The store strains the backs of the vertically gifted. It’s designed so that the tastiest and healthiest foods are at canine height. They’re catering to their four-legged customers, not their owners who carry the cash. It’s easiest for the animals, which is what Ruth, her husband David, and their kids wanted to create: a friendly place for every two-legged pet lover and four-legged pooch in the Syracuse area.