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Three Dog Bakery is the Kansas City business that invented the dog bakery. It opened in 1989 in Kansas City, Missouri — begun by Mark Beckloff and Dan Dye baking for Dye’s Great Dane, Gracie, who had stopped eating — and grew into a national brand whose treats now sit in the aisles of grocery, mass and pet retailers across the United States and Canada. The company is still headquartered in Kansas City, but it has passed through a succession of private-equity owners since the founders sold in the 2000s, and its consumer-products division was acquired in 2023 by Topspin Consumer Partners of Mamaroneck, New York. Its Country Club Plaza store closed in March 2026 after 30 years.

Description

Three Dog Bakery is the reason the phrase “dog bakery” exists. Wikipedia’s account of the category is unambiguous about where it started: “The first dog bakery was created in 1989 by a Kansas City couple who had been baking for their sick dog,” and by 2008 there were an estimated 800 dog bakeries in the United States.1 Three Dog Bakery is the Kansas City business in that sentence.

The company’s own framing is a mission rather than a history: the original bakery opened in Kansas City in 1989 “with the mission to help pet parents by making dog treats worthy of the word ‘treat,’” and “Today, we continue to craft all sorts of pup-pleasing treats using only real ingredients.”2

What the business sells now is mostly not a storefront experience. Three Dog Bakery is a manufacturer and marketer of branded dog treats — “humanized” treats, in the industry’s word, built on real ingredients, fresh-baked aroma and texture, and products modelled on human snacks: Lick’n Crunch, a sandwich creme cookie; Assort”Mutt” Trio, a soft-baked cookie; Quiche Bites, a savoury breakfast treat. Many are baked in-house, which the company says lets it run small batches and move quickly.3 They reach customers through pet stores, grocery, mass and online retail across the US and Canada; the first-party site’s own “where to buy” names Amazon, Walmart and PetSmart.32

The retail bakeries — the storefronts where a dog could pick a birthday cake out of a case — were once the whole business and are now the part of it that is hardest to pin down. See Operating status below; the KC-metro footprint has changed materially in 2026 and the company does not publish a store locator.4

For the current independent KC-metro version of what Three Dog Bakery invented, the Registry carries Callie Mae’s Barkery & Bath in Waldo and Brookside Barkery & Bath.

Ownership and history

The founding story is a dog. Dan Dye’s Great Dane, Gracie, had a digestive condition and stopped eating; Dye and Mark Beckloff started baking all-natural treats in their kitchen to get her to eat. The two later wrote the story as a book, Amazing Gracie: A Dog’s Tale, which describes Gracie inspiring them to establish Three Dog Bakery in Kansas City.5 The business began at home in 1989, under the name KC-K9 Bakery, and took the Three Dog Bakery name in 1994.6

From there it became a category and then a brand: multiple bakeries, then international shops — Wikipedia records stores in Japan and Korea as well as the US1 — and by the time of its 2014 sale, 36 boutique locations across the United States, Canada and Hong Kong, plus branded and private-label packaged products sold into “national and independent pet retailers, grocery, drug, mass and club merchandisers and through direct-to-consumer internet sales.”7

The ownership chain then leaves the founders. In March 2014 a private-equity group acquired Three Dog Bakery, Inc., and the entity became Three Dog Bakery, LLC. Aziz Giga — formerly vice president of strategic planning at PPG Industries — became chairman, and Brian Wietharn was the president and CEO of the company being sold. Giga’s statement at the time: “We are proud to own the Three Dog Bakery brand that pioneered bakeries for dogs. The team has done a great job expanding the brand, products and distribution across North America.”7

On 21 June 2023, Topspin Consumer Partners, a Mamaroneck, New York private-equity firm, announced it had acquired the consumer products division of Three Dog Bakery. The release states the company is “Based in Kansas City, Missouri,” that the existing management team would continue in their roles, and that financial terms were not disclosed. Jerry Dear, president of Three Dog Bakery, is quoted on entering “our next phase of growth”; Leigh Randall, managing partner at Topspin, on seeing “enormous opportunity in the pet consumables sector.” The corporate entity named in the release’s boilerplate is Three Dog Brands, LLC, the same entity that carries the copyright on threedog.com today.32

The chain has gaps this page does not paper over. The date and terms of the founders’ exit, an intermediate 2013 majority stake reported to have been taken by a firm named Quadrant Management, a reported ~2021 investor group, and the identity of any current CEO were surfaced in search summaries but could not be confirmed against a fetched, citable source this pass. They are recorded as open questions below rather than asserted. What is firmly sourced is the shape: founder-built, then privately held by investors, and since 2023 a private-equity-owned consumer brand still headquartered in Kansas City.

Sources

Footnotes

  1. “Dog bakery,” Wikipedia, accessed 2026-09-08. URL (Asserts: “The first dog bakery was created in 1989 by a Kansas City couple who had been baking for their sick dog”; “They eventually opened multiple dog bakeries under the name Three Dog Bakery and now have shops in Japan and Korea as well as the US”; and “As of 2008 there were an estimated 800 dog bakeries in the United States.” Used for the category-creation claim and the international footprint; Wikipedia is cited here as a tertiary source and is not the basis of any owner, address or date claim about a KC business.) ↩ ↩2

  2. Three Dog Bakery — “Our Story,” accessed 2026-09-08. URL (Asserts: the original dog bakery opened in 1989 “with the mission to help pet parents by making dog treats worthy of the word ‘treat’”; the founding city given as Kansas City, Missouri; “Today, we continue to craft all sorts of pup-pleasing treats using only real ingredients”; a “Where to Buy” navigation naming Amazon, Walmart and PetSmart; and a copyright notice in the name of Three Dog Brands, LLC. The page does not name the founders, the dog, or any headquarters address.) ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  3. “Topspin Consumer Partners Acquires Three Dog Bakery’s Consumer Products Division,” Business Wire press release, 21 June 2023, 7:30am EDT, datelined Mamaroneck, N.Y. and Kansas City, Mo. URL (Retrieved 2026-09-08 via Firecrawl; the URL returns HTTP 403 to a plain fetch. This is a company-issued release, not independent reporting. Asserts: Topspin, “an operationally driven private equity firm focused on the consumer sector,” acquired the consumer products division of Three Dog Bakery; existing management continues in their roles; terms undisclosed; “Based in Kansas City, Missouri, TDB is a leading manufacturer and marketer of branded, humanized dog treats”; products Lick’n Crunch, Assort”Mutt” Trio and Quiche Bites; many products baked in-house; a quote from Jerry Dear, President of Three Dog Bakery, and one from Leigh Randall, Managing Partner at Topspin; Lowenstein Sandler LLP as Topspin’s legal advisor; boilerplate for Three Dog Brands, LLC stating “Since 1989, when the original dog bakery opened in Kansas City, Missouri,” and distribution “in the treat aisles of pet stores, grocery markets, mass retailers and select online retailers in the United States and Canada”; and Topspin as a Mamaroneck, NY-based private equity firm.) ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  4. Three Dog Bakery store-locator URL. URL (HTTP 404 on 2026-09-08. The first-party site publishes no store list; its navigation offers a “Where to Buy” retail-channel page instead.) ↩

  5. Mark Beckloff and Dan Dye, Amazing Gracie: A Dog’s Tale — publisher listing, Barnes & Noble. URL (Asserts: the authorship of Mark Beckloff and Dan Dye, and a description of a Great Dane named Gracie with digestive trouble whose owners were inspired by her to establish Three Dog Bakery in Kansas City. Used as the citation for the founders’ names and the founding story; a bookseller listing is a weak source for a date and is not used for one.) ↩

  6. “Local Heroes: Mark Beckhoff and Dan Dye,” Kansas City Public Library, KCHistory.org digital collections, item 84486. URL (Item record not machine-readable on this pass — the URL rendered only the site shell to a plain fetch on 2026-09-08; the title is as indexed. Note the library’s spelling “Beckhoff” against the book’s “Beckloff”; the discrepancy is recorded, not resolved. The claims that the business began at home as KC-K9 Bakery and took the Three Dog Bakery name in 1994 are carried from search-index summaries of trade coverage that could not be fetched and are flagged “ below rather than treated as established.) ↩

  7. “Three Dog Bakery Acquired By Private Equity Firm,” Pet Age, 26 March 2014. URL (Asserts: Three Dog Bakery, Inc. was acquired by a private equity group and the entity became Three Dog Bakery, LLC; Aziz Giga, former vice president of strategic planning at PPG Industries, as chairman; Brian Wietharn as president and CEO of Three Dog Bakery, Inc.; founding 1989 in Kansas City; 36 boutique locations across the United States, Canada and Hong Kong; distribution of “Three Dog Bakery brand and private label packaged products to national and independent pet retailers, grocery, drug, mass and club merchandisers and through direct-to-consumer internet sales”; and the Giga and Wietharn quotes.) ↩ ↩2

See also

On the record — ks.city/registry/three-dog-bakery · record updated 2026-09-08