Puppy Pancake Day: Then and Now

Puppy Pancake day IS BACK! 
Your dog's favourite event of the year returns Sunday, July 5th 2026 from 10am - 2pm at 5111 Bowness Rd NW! (Our Bowness Location)

Puppy Pancake Day is our Stampede tradition that celebrates what makes Bon A-Pet-Treat! so special: YOU!

Now some of you may be asking: What is Puppy Pancake Day? Well, let us tell you all about it!

In simple terms, Puppy Pancake Day is a fundraiser that we here at Bon A-Pet-Treat! host every year. It takes place annually at our Bowness location and it is exactly what it sounds like: A Stampede Breakfast for dogs to raise money for animal rescues!
Puppy Pancake Day has grown into a much larger and highly anticipated event than we could have ever hoped for.
We asked our fearless leader, Mass Destruction aka Emily, for some history and background from over the years. We wanted to share an inside perspective with all of you on why we love this day so much.

Keep reading to hear it right from the heart of Bon A-Pet-Treat! Please read until the end for important information we want you to know.

Puppy Pancake Day Over The Years - Words From The Heart of Bon A-Pet-Treat!

As a born and raised Calgarian, I love this city and the wonderful people in it. At the end of the day, this event is for Calgary. It started for a few different reasons. As a pet bakery, we often ask ourselves, How has this business survived for 20 years? It didn't make sense. It was not something that was supposed to make sense.
The answer is simple: our customers. We love our customers so much and credit our survival to all of the amazing people in Calgary who have been so appreciative, supportive, and kind to us throughout the years.

The first Puppy Pancake Day was held in 2013 after the Calgary floods. We started this event because we wanted to have a hand in helping and supporting our community. We were seeing how people came together and helped each other out in the hardest of times, and how amazing humanity could be.

Being located in Bowness, a community known for its strength, we wanted to do our part in supporting our community.
We wanted to be a part of that because not only were we affected, but our neighbours were suffering as well. We wanted to give back, but also have a hand in helping out the people we hold near and dear to our hearts. We form tight bonds with our customers and people we see here every day.

Not only were we evacuated, but our neighbours were losing their businesses, and their homes. We even had a neighbour that had moved in not even a week before the floods and her entire house was flooded. Seeing this happening around us made the decision to hold this event even stronger.

The other reason we started doing this is because Stampede is the biggest event for the entire city, and at the time there was such limited events for dogs... and that is a BIG DEAL to us! We are a company built on love for animals and celebrating them because they're family. Stampede is also a time where we tend to leave our pets at home, so this was a way for them to be involved too!

It began as a small booth with pancakes formulated for dogs, some paw printing and at the time, a doggie daycare. We had one truck full of stuff and limited set up to do. Now we have multiple trucks, a U-Haul, vendors and volunteers that come every year. We even have an entire warehouse dedicated to storing stuff for this event!

We are so touched and so grateful for our beautiful city and community for always supporting and attending this event. Over time, it has grown so much because we've seen how much people and their pets love this event. Every year, we meet more families and are able to give back even more to the rescues that need our support. However, growth doesn't come without challenges and we have faced a few along the way.

The first being our neighbours; we have had some of our neighbouring businesses that were not in support of us throwing this event.
Usually, we take over parts of our parking lot with the permission of our landlord and neighbours. However, this event has grown so large that the last 2 years we had to expand to the side of our Bowness location and the green space behind it. This is where things like permits and city permission comes in to play, which can be stressful because it can feel like it takes forever to plan when we don't know if we are approved or not. One of our neighbours still has a problem with it and will never support this event. It is unfortunate because what is so bad about puppy pancakes and raising money for rescues? It's 4 hours out of the year, and its unfortunate that this event has caused strain on what could have been a very mutual, and beneficial relationship for both of us.

The stress of planning this event is something that most people don't understand; it's essentially like planning a wedding every year. It's like you crave it and loathe planning it at the same time, but it's so much fun and so rewarding that is makes every minute of planning worth it. It can be exhausting emotionally and physically, but it makes so many people and dogs happy that you want to do it even more than you don't want to do it. Much like Emily's favourite band BTS, we do it for the (fans) the people and puppies that we love so much!

And that's where our biggest challenge yet comes in: The Bearspaw Feeder Main Break.

The last 2 years we have struggled as much as anyone else through the water main breaks. We have faced almost flooding (again), decreased foot traffic because of the construction, and now hosting our event. Because of the construction going on behind our Bowness location, we have had to massively pivot and change the location of our event. This year Puppy Pancake Day will take place at our Bowness location, as well as Montgomery Town Square. This has created an entirely new whirlwind of challenges we have had to face in planning this event. And to be honest, we are still navigating some of those.

We Need Your Help

To be completely transparent, we need the community's support now more than ever.
COVID hit our business hard, and we still haven't recovered. We do not know what next year holds, but it will be a pivotal point to see if our small Bowness business can stay in the community after 20 years of operation

Something we want to clarify is that we are not just a pet bakery, we are a full on pet store as well. We are a completely small, family owned and run business. We have about 30 employees that work across 4 locations, and our family really works their butts off. Supplies are run by Dr.Dad (Emily's dad), we attempt to run our delivery service, and all of our bakery treats are hand made and decorated by our amazing employees.
Puppy Pancake Day is a free event, and by donation only. For 4 hours on the first Sunday of Stampede every year, we celebrate dogs, celebrate people, and celebrate Calgary in general. Not only do we raise money for rescues, but we match and donate all of the proceeds raised that day.

FAQ'S:

1. What if my dog is reactive? Or what if I can't bring my dog? Bring yourself! You do not need to have your dog with you to attend this event. You are 100% able to pick up a doggie bag to take home, and you can freeze the pancakes if you're unable to give them to your dog that day!
2. What if I don't have a dog? What if I only have a cat? You are still invited to attend Puppy Pancake Day! All of our products (including pancakes!) are cat safe. We will also have our customer appreciation sale where all of our cat products will be on special, as well as cat goodie bags!
3. Do you have pancakes for people? We do not have pancakes for people, only dogs and cats! However, Village Ice Cream has so generously donated some Little Villagers Ice Creams for us, so we try to have snacks for the humans too!
4. Where should I park? Street parking! There is tons of street parking near Shouldice pool, as well as street parking near Montgomery Square. The event is only 4 hours long from 10am-2pm, so come any time! Things start to quiet down around 12pm, but we will still be going until 2pm!
5. Lastly, Will you get any bigger or plan to move locations? The honest answer is probably not; we are pretty much fighting for our lives right now. We don't even know what this looks like a year from now. So what we are trying to say is, we need your help now more than ever. If you can't attend Puppy Pancake Day, that is ok! Sharing is the biggest thing everyone can do to help out. If you see our posts on social media, or receive one of our flyers, please share! Send to your friends and families and everyone you know that would love to attend our event.

This was definitely a little longer than we anticipated, but we wanted to be candid with everyone that has supported us over the years. Stay tuned for our next blog where we talk more about why we partner with the rescues we do, and what you can expect for the big day. Click here for our Puppy Pancake Day FAQ page for more details, share the event with your friends and family, and subscribe to our newsletter for updates and sales coming up.

We love our community and our business so much, and we want to continue to be your favourite place for everything you need for your pet. We will keep fighting every day, but we need your help to continue to grow and do bigger and better things!