Every year I like to stop in at PAWS, Peoria County Animal Protection Services and take photos of some of the animals there waiting to be adopted. You can see the past posts here, here and here. This year I thought I’d combine my, “Let Them Eat Cake” idea with the tour and take a cake not only for the nice people who work there, but also one for some of the dogs who are patiently waiting for you to adopt them. The first stop for today's trip is at Peoria’s oldest and most famous bakery, Trefzger’s to pick up the custom cakes! So it’s off to the MBIP Mobile we go!
Trefzger’s Bakery
Off we go to Trefzger’s Bakery in their new home here in Peoria Heights! There’s a crowd at the counter as always, but after a short wait, Alexis shows us the first cake of the day. This is the cake for the dogs and it’s in the shape of a giant bone! Very cool! Now it’s time to meet the woman who’s the official MBIP cake artist and baker for this series...
Kayla Bennet! Here’s Kayla with the human cake she designed! She’s joined by Jeff who owns Trefzger’s with his wife Martha. If you need a custom cake for a birthday or any special occasion, Kayla can turn your idea into a sweet piece of cake art! In addition to being a talented baker and cake artist, Kayla is also a musician and plays in the band Thetah. They’re playing live at Peoria Pizza Works on September 30th and you can buy their new album right here! Thanks for the fantastic work on these cakes Kayla! Now it’s off to PAWS!
Paws
Here we are at PAWS, let’s head on in and see what’s happening in here today.
As a rule of thumb when we do these “Let Them Eat Cake” episodes I’m not going to give any advance warning and I’m just going to show up with a cake at a business and see if they want to play along. However since this was a little more involved, I called and set up an appointment for this. The woman I’m supposed to be meeting is Cat...yeah, I know, I thought it was funny to be meeting a woman named Cat at an animal shelter too! Well, she stepped out and I met this nice woman and her name is...drumroll please...Kitty! I swear that’s her name, you can’t make this stuff up! Since Cat isn’t here yet, Kitty agreed to show me some of the cats prowling around in here. So let’s go look at some cats with Kitty!
Looking At Cats: Part One
These cats are lounging around in this back sun room. They are all so cute, if you would like a nice addition to your home, these would be great pets for you! They’re all really friendly but I think I caught them at lunch time, so let’s move along and let them eat. Sadly, they don’t get any cake, maybe next year!
Looking At Cats: Part Two
Kitty took me to another cat room and this one has been re-designed since last year. It used to be filled with cages, but now it’s a room where they can roam around in. Check out the kitty cat on top of the pedestal. I love how he’s looking down at the others like he’s the king of the cats! All of a sudden I felt a camera being pointed at me and I turned around and it was..
Ava Kamm!
You may remember Ava from a post back in May where I spotlighted her work photographing shelter dogs. If you didn’t see it, just click here and check it out. Ava does magnificent work taking photos of shelter dogs and then showing them on her website and facecrack page and she helps get these dogs adopted. Check out her work at her website here and go take a look and like her facecrack page here. You can also see her photography on Twitter and Instagram. Personally I think she should change her name to Ava Kammera, but that's just me.
To show how important Ava’s work is, I took a few photos of dogs here at PAWS. These aren’t too bad, but check out two of Ava’s photos below to see how she showcases and helps get these canines get adopted.
That’s Violet and Trixie who are both here at PAWS waiting to be adopted into a new home, photographed by Ava. Beautiful photos, Ava and you can see the two of them eating cake in a few minutes! Keep on scrolling!
Let Them Eat Cake: The Human Edition
Alright, it’s cake time! I made my way to the PAWS official break room and met Cat, who’s going to be our tour guide for the rest of this post!
Here’s the group for the human portion of our Let Them Eat Cake edition, from left: Brittany, Cat, Ava and Kitty! And there’s the wonderful cake that Kayla made for us! We all took time to marvel at the beauty of this cake and then Kitty took a knife and started cutting the cake!
The cake was delicious and that’s Keith at the table who joined our sweet party! Brittany and Cat fed each other cake and in the second to last photo I got an official PAWS, “Kitty Cat” photo! That made my day! That was a lot of fun, but now it’s time for this post to go to the dogs, literally!
Let Them Eat Cake: The Doggie Edition
Kayla did a marvelous job with the doggie cake too! I love the intricate work on it! We decided to serve the cake to the dogs in bowls and there’s Cat dishing it up. We took the bowls to this back room and she went to get two lucky dogs!
And here they are! That’s Trixie on the left, who we met earlier via Ava’s photos and I don’t remember the other dog’s name, so we’ll just call him Rover. Rover really got into eating the cake and sailed throgh his portion and then kind of bumped Trixie away and started in on her bowl! We let him hog the cake for a minute but then Cat put Trixie back at her bowl and let her enjoy the rest of her cake.
I helped out feeding the next two dogs their sweet treat and they loved it! I’m guessing these dogs have never had cake and they don’t know how lucky they are to be getting Trefzger’s cake today!
The last dog to be getting a bowl of cake is none other than Violet, who you saw above in Ava’s photos. My idea for this photo series was to eat the cake with Violet, but Violet was more interested in licking my face and staring at the camera, so I backed off and let her enjoy her bowl of cake. This was such a fun afternoon and thanks to Kitty and Cat and everyone at PAWS for playing along. And thanks to Ava for showing up and helping out with the photos! We’ll see you all tomorrow!
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4416 N. Prospect Road
Peoria Heights
309-685-9221
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PAWS—Peoria County Animal Protection Services
2600 NE Perry Avenue
Peoria 309-672-2440
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Related Post: Let Them Eat Cake @ Peoria Magazines.