Woman’s Doggy Birthday Parties Are a Breed Apart : Entrepreneurs: The Encino resident organizes the celebrations for pet lovers. The events can even come complete with gifts and gourmet food.

Rosanne Marcus is probably the only hostess in Southern California who gets out the Pooper Scooper when she invites a few party animals over for the evening.

Her fledgling business specializes in throwing birthday parties for pet dogs. Dressed in a poodle skirt and sweater, the 34-year-old Encino woman greets each arriving canine, hands out party favors of Milk Bones and leads the singing of “Happy Bowwow to You.”

“We think it will go over big,” said Marcus, a cheerful blonde with freckles who describes herself as a single mother of two dogs. “People love to have parties, and the people that have these parties are real animal lovers. Otherwise, they would think it was the stupidest thing they ever heard of.”

Marcus, who also holds a mainstream job as director of business development and physician relations at Encino Hospital, has thrown four parties so far and has others scheduled.

Celebrants pay a flat fee of $200, plus $6.50 and up for each pet, depending on whether the owner wants the regular package or the deluxe shindig, complete with gourmet food. Not for the humans--they get store-bought corn dogs--but for the pampered pooches in the party hats.

“This is such a neat thing to do,” said Gloria Timms, 46, of Simi Valley, who owns a lovesick cocker spaniel named Bud. Bud fell hard for Marcus’ dog Lady at a recent party. Alas, Lady turned up her nose at him. Figuring that clothes make the mutt, Bud showed up in a skimmer and tails Saturday for a party that Marcus threw for Lady’s birthday.

“He’s all excited,” Timms said.

Marcus’ yard was festooned with balloons and ribbon. A long sheet of butcher paper marked with paw prints signified where each dog would sit for dinner. After Marcus led the singing and blew out the four candles on the dog’s bone-shaped cake, Lady nosed into gifts of canine popcorn and dog sunglasses, purchased from a trendy Beverly Hills pet store.

“Only in L. A.,” laughed Judy Gregg, a visitor from Canada.

This four-legged business venture appears to break new ground even in legendarily off-center California. “This is the first I’ve heard of something like this,” said Richard Holden, executive director of the Southern California Veterinary Medical Assn. in Pico Rivera.

It all started with Marcus’ sober-minded father, Clifford, an engineer at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who rescued injured animals in the family’s Pasadena neighborhood. “He used to feed all the strays in the neighborhood and nursed injured birds back to health in shoe boxes.”

Marcus attended USC, became an emergency room technician and married a doctor. But she never lost her love of animals and, when it came down to a choice between her pet-hating physician-husband and her dogs last year, she kept her dogs and asked the doctor to pack his black bag and leave. She said his lack of feeling for her pets was not the only source of friction, but to her it was enough.

Marcus was inspired to throw her first pet party a year ago after she saw several people in the Laurel Canyon dog park singing “Happy Birthday” to a dog while feeding it hamburger. With a birthday approaching for Buffie, her cocker spaniel, Marcus decided to throw a memorable party.

Nineteen dogs attended and prizes were awarded for the best-dressed dog and to the winner of the “bury the bone” contest.

The affair was such a howling success that Marcus and a friend, Long Beach nurse Cathy MacDonald, decided to go into business as “The Party Animals.”

Still in its infancy, the business is continually adapting to the challenges of catering to party-goers who eat off the floor and growl at other guests, even when the only beverage being served is plain water.

The hostesses keep a watchful eye to prevent the outbreak of fights and to keep males and females from sneaking off for a little heavy petting.

Still, even the most careful party-giver cannot prevent the occasional outbreak of boorish behavior. A schnauzer named Schultzie proved himself a bounder when he urinated on several pet owners at one party.

“I had all these people coming up and saying, ‘This dog peed on me,’ ” recalled Marcus, laughing. It is not clear whether that act was Schultzie’s commentary on the quality of the guest list, but Marcus insisted that the parties have been very successful. After a few initial sniffs and a lifted leg or two, the pets usually begin bouncing around the yard in play.

The people who pay for such parties are themselves a special breed. Jaguars and Mercedeses crowd the curb outside a Party Animals event.

It should not be surprising that people who throw human-style parties for their pets tend to anthropomorphize them. “One lady wanted everything done in turquoise because that was her dog’s favorite color,” Marcus recalled. The woman deduced this because the dog preferred to curl up in a turquoise chair at home, even though dogs are said to be colorblind.

The owner of Nanu, a Lhasa apso, said her dog enjoyed Hershey’s chocolate kisses and asked that the dog’s party feature this sweet treat.

“Other times we’ve taken her out to McDonald’s for a hamburger for her birthday,” said Nanu’s owner, Rose Casabianca, 69, of Tujunga.

Marcus said she told Casabianca that chocolate is not very good for dogs and in some cases can be toxic. But the owner was insistent, so Marcus constructed a birthday cake in the shape of a giant chocolate kiss. She went very light on the chocolate, however.

Casabianca said Nanu’s party was well worth the cost. “She’s our baby,” she said.

Things have gone so well with dogs that Party Animals is thinking of expanding its services to other pets. The biggest problem might be figuring out how to convert “bury the bone” for cockatiels.