Hotel for dogs
WHEN it came to professional assignments, this one had my name written all over it. Reporter needed for under-cover, or under-fur, feature? Call on a Barker for a dogged, flea-on-the-wall documentary.
Weekend’s commissioning editor Vickie Maye wasn’t being facetious in doling out the task to spend time at a dog creche. She knows this hack is a dog owner (two, currently), who could offer up a lucky mutt for a day of extra-attentive care.
Just how diligent a dog owner she was commissioning she didn’t really know. Answer? On the scale of people dropping off loved ones (a pet) to a professional care establishment (sorry, but kennel just doesn’t describe it) this assignee is a poor one, probably bottom of the dog-owning class in this particular field.
Then again, in terms of dog ownership, Cork city’s Doggie Day Care’s clients are high-/over-achievers, at the top of the responsible pet-owning scale. With glaringly obvious similarities to childcare in creches (only for dogs) it can be billed as pooch pampering, but it’s done first and foremost with dog welfare in mind, with peace of mind for owners. And, if a dog’s a typical barker, it gives the neighbours a bit of an aural break as well.
It’s the brain-child and pet project of self-confessed, dog-obsessed Nanci Creedon, whose canine creche business is now four years old (28 in dog years). It has just recently moved into a larger premises in Cork’s suburban Togher, to better accommodate the dozens of canine clients, its new ‘five-star hotel’ kennel option, and services ranging from training and socialising to grooming — as well as holistic spa treatments for prima doggies. She also runs a ‘College of Canine Studies’ with courses for pet owners, and for those who’d like to set up a business in pet care. Her current training focus is bite prevention: “It’s just amazing we haven’t had a fatality yet in this country from a dog bite,” she asserts, with a seminar due on the topic next Monday.
Hers is not a unique service; similar day-care services exist and thrive abroad, in the Continent, the US and the UK. But, with our more relaxed Irish attitude to most things, pets included, it’s only caught on here in the past few years. Dublin, with its far larger human population and corresponding number of dogs, now has a big selection, with a chain of three set up by an entrepreneurial woman who sold a company to Google to get her dog-care business up and walking. And, Dublin’s long-established welfare group DSPCA also operates a service, plus training classes, under a similar Doggie Day Care title.
Nanci Creedon was the first to bound out of the traps in Munster, with Creedon’s Doggie Day Care, and she came to it through a dog-walking service she provided.
Now, the energetic Nanci (daughter of Mona and RTÉ broadcaster John Creedon) is an employer of three trained staff, with others part-time for specific classes. She even has a bright yellow ‘school bus’ in which to ferry dogs whose owners can’t make the centre’s drop-off and pick-up collection times.
“I always loved dogs, and wanted to be a vet but didn’t want to do the study,” Nanci admits with a ready laugh: in fact, her enthusiasm is so infectious, you may need inoculation to avoid catching it. And, yes, all guest dogs have to be fully vaccinated for the humdrum doggie illness threats, kennel cough, etc, as well as neutered, before they can attend.
Nanci may have eschewed doing veterinary (a complete lack of interest in cats could have caused a problem — she’s quite a one-species woman) but she does have a degree in Zoology from UCC, and more letters after her name than you’d get in a good Scrabble hand or could throw a stick at — go fetch.
Leaving dogs at home all day, every day “is just not an option”, the owner of two guest dogs Roz Sheridan tells the Weekend. Roz is here on early drop-off duty of her own two charges to the Togher centre before heading down to Ringaskiddy where she works in one of the harbour’s main pharma employers. “If you take on the responsibility of owning a dog, you have to accept the costs involved,” Roz asserts. Day care rates range from €12.50 to €22 a day — so cost of care is going to be a factor for any family or dog owner.
Roz started bringing Oscar, her white Maltese terrier here three years ago to socialise him as he had problems with larger dogs, and now he’s joined by Mia, Roz’s rescue dog of indeterminate breed, but equally small of stature. A pet owner most of her life, Roz’s last charge was a Cairn who lived to 18, and she also had an Irish Wolfhound, so she’s minded little and large.
Oscar’s nose twitches and tails wag as Tallulah, a canine buddy and her owner, arrive next at day-care, and Roz laughs as the similarity with parents meeting up at the school gate for a natter — to a backdrop creche chorus of barks.
The comparison with good parenting is blindingly obvious — but, given all the woes out there in wider society, from money shortages in families to cash-strapped State services for children, the ill and elderly, how does one square considerable spending on an animal? “Do you mean, like First World Problem?” Roz answers quickly. “If you were to go down that line, what about the money people spend in the pub, on restaurants or on holidays? This is my choice and it’s a responsible one.” Case answered that’s one Barker back in his box.
Soon to follow in the door is Joanne Carney, with her 10-year-old daughter Layla, and a year-old Labrador, with the unlikely name of Derek.
Derek’s in for a ‘hotel’ kennel stay for the weekend, as Joanne is rushing off to a weekend wedding.
Up from Cobh, Joanne says she was given Derek as a surprise present by her boyfriend Kevin, who never even had a dog himself, and the day-care has made Derek a very sociable, happy pet, she relates.
Derek’s kennel (€29 a night) is, indeed five star for dogs: Nanci has built a cluster of brightly coloured timber chalets at the back of the centre, each with soft floors, single bunk beds and sleeping bags, with piped music as part of (g)room service.
If the kennel ‘hotel’ accommodation is reminiscent of 1970’s B&Bs, the grooming/spa treatments are closer to Celtic Tiger times relaxation suites, complete with aromatherapy scents and purr-fect pet sounds.
It’s overseen by Declan Lyne, owner of a dog called Einstein. Unlike Albert Einstein’s wild white mane, Declan’s own spiky black hair is more akin to Edward Scissorhands, appropriately enough, as he wields the clippers in grooming, as well as doing doggie message.
Dog Massage? It proved to be zoning out bliss for this reporter’s seven-year old, already laid-back, white Lab called DJ... as in Dougal Jnr. Dougal Snr, sadly has passed to doggie heaven, where massages are free.
Afterwards, DJ slept like a log. Like he always does (and knowledgeable Nanci says most dogs will happily sleep for 16-18 hours a day hours).
The massage, more practically, is used to calm hyper dogs down, get them used to handling and make them more amenable to training.
Life hasn’t all been a bed of roses to sniff and pee on for several of the dogs here. More than a few regulars are rescue dogs, with hard and cruel histories behind them.
There’s tiny Thor, for example: he’s now a three-legged Jack Russell after an appalling history of cruelty and abuse.
He came to stay with Nanci and her day-care team in April, after vets worked on his gruesome injuries, having being tied up by the back paws. Thor is only slowly coming out of the trauma, has been featured on TV3, and has yet to find a suitable home.
“I’d love him to go to a quiet home, which has a dog already,” says Nanci hopefully, as this reporter’s time at doggie daycare came to an end... beats a day at the office, any day.
