You do not arrive at a new puppy by accident a month after losing the dog who felt more human than dog. For Alana Jones-Mann, the Los Angeles cake designer whose pointillist buttercream looks more like fine art than dessert, the through-line of the last year has not been her client list, glittering as it is. It has been her pugs: the one she lost, and the one who arrived to help her carry it.
Jones-Mann’s work is instantly recognizable. Her cakes bloom with flower-power patterns, retro geometric shapes, and rainbow swirls that read like a ’70s shag rug or a Missoni knit, and they have drawn commissions from Aidy Bryant, ModCloth, Vans, and Art Basel favorites the Haas Brothers. But ask her what anchors all of it and the answer is not a brand. It is a breed she did not even understand until adulthood.
The dog who felt more human than dog
“Bigger breeds were what I knew as a kid, and pugs barely registered for me until New York, where they seemed to be on every block,” she says. “My heart leapt each time one trotted past, those compact little bodies, corkscrew tails, faces that say everything. That was it for me.” Riley came first, independent and loyal. Ten months later came Dylan, who was something else entirely.
A genetic spinal condition slowly cost Dylan the use of his back legs, and by age eight he needed a wheelchair. It never dimmed him. “None of it ever dented how upbeat he was,” she says. “He was the easiest-going little soul you could imagine.” When he died earlier this year, the loss reframed the whole relationship for her. “I always knew he counted on me to look after him. What I didn’t grasp until he was gone was how much I’d been leaning on him right back. He radiated something lifting. Just being near him felt like magic.” That, she thinks, is the pug’s quiet gift. “Honestly it’s like sharing your home with your number one fan, one who gazes up at you like you hung the moon.”
Ziggy, a month too soon and exactly on time
She and her boyfriend knew they wanted another pug, but they also knew grief does not run on a schedule. “Only about four weeks had gone by after Dylan, which still felt raw, when Ziggy came into the picture,” she says. “The second we had him in our arms, there was no doubt he belonged with us. The pull was immediate.” A month is, by most measures, too early. It was also, for them, the moment it happened, and the timing turned out to be its own kind of medicine.
Three months in, Ziggy has done what good puppies do, which is insist on the present tense. “He cracks me up constantly, soaking up every new thing about the world around him,” she says. “He’s remarkably good for a puppy and hasn’t wrecked a single thing so far. Set aside his habit of inhaling dirt, leaves, and whatever else he finds down there, and he’s flawless.”
A note on loving the squishy-faced
It is worth pausing on the very feature that makes pugs so magnetic, because Jones-Mann’s own story carries the warning inside it. The flat faces, the squishy bodies, the big expressive eyes are the result of brachycephalic conformation, and that same conformation makes pugs prone to breathing trouble (brachycephalic obstructive airway syndrome), eye injuries, and overheating, alongside the spinal and disc issues that affected Dylan. None of that is a reason not to adore the breed. It is a reason to adore it with eyes open: a good breeder who screens for health, a vet who knows brachycephalic care, caution in heat, and weight kept in check, because every extra pound presses harder on an airway that is already working overtime. Loving a pug well, as Jones-Mann clearly does, means budgeting for that care up front.
Cake scraps, dream collaborations, and a hard no on dog cake
Her dogs have always kept her company while she works, even if the kitchen is off-limits during baking. “Riley and Dylan worked the floor like seasoned crumb hunters,” she says. “The moment the kitchen reopened to them, they’d comb the whole floor for any scrap I’d missed.” A decade of working from home, surrounded by her dogs, is a big part of why she loves the job.
Most clients now come for her freehand “shag” piping style, which means the work is collaborative and a little nerve-racking on both sides. “There’s a lot of trust that comes with ordering a cake that’s done freehand, as you don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like,” she says. A past collaboration with ELLE Decor, turning featured rug designs into cakes, remains a favorite (“it added a level of permanence to the impermanence of my work”), and the dream commission is unchanged: Beyoncé. “Isn’t it every artist’s dream to collaborate with Beyoncé?!”
One thing she will not do is bake her dogs a real slice. Asked whether any of her cakes are dog-safe, she is firm: “They definitely are not safe for dogs.” It is the right instinct. Classic cake ingredients are a minefield for dogs, chocolate, raisins, the sugar alcohol xylitol now common in “sugar-free” baking, and rich butter and sugar that can trigger a painful bout of pancreatitis. “Riley and Dylan would probably want me to mention that a few crumbs and floor scraps don’t hurt,” she allows, before landing where any thoughtful dog parent would: “I think dog nutrition is very important, and I like supporting companies that are experts in the healthy dog food and treat arena.”
And then there is Pride, which she designs a cake for every year. “Pride is such a joyful, fun celebration, and making desserts that are joyful during an extra special time, it doesn’t get better than that,” she says. “There’s deep satisfaction in a career built entirely around people’s happiest occasions.” It is hard not to hear Dylan in that, and Ziggy too: the conviction that the work, and the dogs, are both ultimately about finding the joy and refusing to take everything so seriously. After the year she has had, that reads less like a brand and more like a hard-won decision.
