Buffalo Rising Online

Apr 20th 2008, 9:58am By queenseyes

Yesterday was the first day that I had the chance to see what the ‘climate’ was at the buffOLA LaSalle dog park. It wasn’t long ago that a four-month old puppy was fatally wounded by a much larger dog. Despite the terrible incident, spirits were high when I paid a visit to the park around 2pm. All in all there were about 25 dogs running around and Bonnie Orffeo (photo) had set up shop outside of the front gate. Bonnie was selling homemade dog treats (a bag for $2.50) and appeared to be quite content with her homegrown business. “I started in the fall,” she told me. “And I was out here all winter long too. The dogs have gotten to know me pretty well. I started baking dog treats for my own dogs (her German shepherds were featured in a BRO header last fall – they were all wearing yellow raincoats), and I decided that the dog park would be a good place to make a little extra money. During the harvest months I also set up a vegetable stand at the corner of Richmond and Utica.”

Bonnie has already applied for all of her licensing to sell the nutritious and all natural treats. You can find her at the dog park on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays… she also sets up after work hours during the week. The only problem that she has run into so far is not being able to bring her own dogs along because of the sun, rain or snow. “I’m looking into buying a shelter for my dogs,” she told me. “Most likely a tent or something. This park has been very successful so far and I believe that when it moves to its new location (nearby) the park won't see those freak incidents like tragedy that we saw.” Hopefully as the dog park grows, the need for distinct big and small dog areas will be tackled. In the meantime the users of the park have begun to police the dogs on their own. If a dog starts showing any sign of aggression the dog's owner is politely asked to leave. Hopefully this newfound awareness will help to make the park a place where people and pets can continue to have fun.

Maybe in the future we'll see more people come down to the park selling different types of wares. So don’t forget to bring a few bucks to the dog park and support this budding entrepreneur. Otherwise your dogs will be jealous of the rest of the dogs that are munching away on chicken-liver and salmon treats (those are her two best sellers that she keeps in a cooler). Since I was on my bike I grabbed a bag of vegetarian treats for my dog to go.