Day Care Is Dog Owners’ 2nd Best Friend

One-year-old Henry arrives at day care each morning carrying his “Batman Forever” lunch box in his mouth.

There’s plenty of room for an active youngster to run. He also may learn to sit and stay.

And when his birthday rolls around, Henry’s cake--a blend of Milk Bones and cottage cheese--will be served to Henry’s gang, decked out in party hats, who’ll dive in snout-first.

It’s just another day at DoggieDaycare, where harried working dog owners shell out $50 a week for the peace of mind that theirs are among the most pampered canines around.

“My dog is my other kid,” says Aida Reed of Burlington, dropping off Simba, her 4-year-old border collie. Simba pauses briefly by the front desk for a quick pat before scooting off alone to find his friends out back.

“I don’t know what he would do at home all day,” said Reed, who leaves Simba at the center three days a week on her way to work. He’ll have fun at day care, she said. And, she confessed, “Sometimes on a rainy morning I don’t feel like taking him for a walk.”

Simba, Henry and the 30 to 40 other DoggieDaycare wards will be walked. They’ll chase balls, run through barrels, climb on agility equipment and wrestle. If they get tired, they’ll nap. If they’re bad, they get a timeout.

On Fridays, they wear bandannas, just for fun. On Tuesday, flea-check day, they get decorative ribbons on their collars.

To celebrate Halloween, the gang dressed up. Norm the Rottweiler, dressed as a devil, won “the most appropriate costume” award. Little Scout came as Ratdog in a little red cape. The Great Dane was a pumpkin.

Of course, people laugh when they first hear of day care for dogs, said DoggieDaycare owner Pat Clark, her sweat shirt already covered in muddy footprints by 10 a.m. But they’re quickly converted, she said, when they learn the benefits of giving their beloved dogs a day of exercise and socializing with “friends.”

One wall is lined with little cubbies containing each dog’s special something--a teddy bear, lunch boxes, special leashes.

“It’s a lot like kids in day care,” Clark said. “They bring treats, their own beds, anything that will make them more comfortable.”

Chocolate labs such as Henry spend the day romping with Akitas. Terriers such as Jack run with German shepherds. Poodles roughhouse with setters. Two little puppies don’t like the ruckus and watch the riffraff through a wire fence. One quiet room contains dogs who prefer to be kenneled.

Here, the customer rules.

“This was something I really wanted to do,” said Clark, who managed the Burlington Humane Society for three years before launching DoggieDaycare and who brings her own four dogs to the center each day.

One pack of dogs runs in an open area inside the huge concrete building. A colorful mural of dogs at play--complete with a giant red fire hydrant--decorates the walls; an enormous garage door, with the opening fenced, opens to let in fresh air on a rainy day.

Outside, another gang runs loose but supervised in a play yard. Three staffers throw balls or Frisbees, dogs play on climbing apparatus and other playground equipment. And there are brief, romantic doggie encounters taking place in the midst of the hubbub.

Clark knows all her wards by name--although she often isn’t as sure about the owners’ names--and by personality. She knows which dogs are troublemakers, for example, and which are shy.

And like all day cares, the first day can be hard on both the dogs and the owners. “Sometimes, you forget how scary it is,” she said.

But play reigns. Or training, if that’s what the owner wants. Or bathing and grooming.

“They are exhausted when they go home,” Clark said of the dogs. And that can be a huge relief to owners who come home at the end of the day just as tired and prefer quiet time with their pets to walking a jittery, housebound animal.

“People laugh when they start to think about” day care for dogs, Clark said. But, noting the rainfall outside, she added, “Then they think about walking their dog on a day like this.”