On a warm evening, a good share of the people walking past a scoop shop are attached to a dog. They stop outside, one person goes in, and the other waits on the pavement holding a lead. That is two customers standing still, and only one of them is buying anything.
Why the format works
A pup cup turns the wait into a second transaction. It is a small add-on, so nobody agonizes over the price, and it converts the person outside from someone killing time into someone with a reason to come back next week.
Paw print pup cups are 4 oz, printed with a paw pattern, and sized for small dog-friendly servings. It is a common add-on at shops with outdoor seating, which is not a coincidence: the format only works where the dog can wait comfortably.
The print is doing real work
You could serve the same portion in a plain 4 oz cup. Plenty of shops do, and it works fine. The printed version earns its difference in two places.
The first is that it signals the offer without a sign. A stack of paw print cups visible on the counter tells a dog owner they are welcome here before anyone has to ask. The second is the photograph. A dog with a printed cup gets posted. A dog with a plain white cup usually does not.
There is a bone print version as well, at the same size and the same case price, if you would rather run that pattern or alternate between the two.
What we are not telling you
What goes in the cup is your decision, not ours. We supply the packaging, and what is appropriate to serve a dog is a question for you and, sensibly, for a vet rather than for a company that sells cups. Shops handle it differently and we are not going to pretend there is one answer.
What we will say is that whatever you decide, keep it consistent and keep it written down, so that the answer does not change depending on who is behind the counter that evening.
Sizing and stock
Four ounces is deliberately small. This is a courtesy portion attached to a real sale, not a second dessert, and a larger cup invites both a bigger serving and a longer conversation about price.
Cases come a thousand at a time, which for most shops is a season or considerably more. The volume is low enough that it does not justify a second size, and low enough that the case sits in the back without pressure. If you already stock a plain 4 oz for children's scoops and samples, as covered in choosing an 8 oz cup, the printed pup cup is a parallel line rather than a replacement for it.
Starting small
Put the cups where they can be seen, decide your serving and your price before the first person asks, and give it a summer. If it works, you will know because the same dogs start arriving on the same evenings. Both prints sit with the rest of the sizes in the ice cream cup range.