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Puppy Love, at a Price
Rebecca Kalch is the owner of Four Paws Bakery in Occoquan, Va., which makes Barkday and Bark Mitzvah cakes for dogs. (Jahi Chikwendiu -- The Post)
(Jahi Chikwendiu - Twp)
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"They realize that that's all they're getting so they might as well spoil something!" Kalch said.
Shumaker says she organizes her life to accommodate her two rescued Doberman pinschers, Heidi and Sable, and her cocker spaniel, Hobbes. She and her husband were thinking of their dogs when they chose their Subaru Outback, their pickup and their Fairfax home with its large yard.
Pet acupuncturists and chiropractors make regular house calls. When five-year-old Heidi broke a tooth, she had a root canal. The elderly Hobbes, now 16, requires the most medical care, including his own cardiologist.
"He has more doctors than I do to keep up with him," Shumaker said.
She tries to reduce expenditures on her pets by frequently making their food, adding organic meats and produce to the mix.
With Heidi already a dancer, Shumaker plans to enroll Sable in the next freestyle class offered at All About Dogs. "It's a lot of obedience as well as putting some fun and music to it," said Shumaker. "It's kind of our time together."
The classes are taught by computer technician Susan Brogan as a hobby. The Nokesville resident sometimes dons a Spanish-style costume while her Australian shepherd, Jazz, sports a color-coordinated collar.
In the late 1980s, dog day-care facilities began appearing on the East and West coasts, said Susan Briggs, co-owner of Houston-based Urban Tails, who is leading an effort to establish operating standards through the American Boarding Kennels Association, based in Colorado Springs.
Now, there are more than 1,500 dog day-care centers, including some operated by such giants as PetSmart and Petco, serving pet owners seeking exercise and socialization for their dogs, Briggs said.
In the past two years they've been growing quickly, spreading from urban areas to the suburbs and charging at least $25 a day for the service.
"I'm not that surprised it keeps growing, and it keeps going farther out because commuters keep going farther out," said Rebecca Bisgyer, a former corporate executive who opened the District's Dog-ma Day Care and Boarding for Dogs in 1998. "I would say that it's probably growing much faster in the suburbs than in the city."
Jessica Rockx, manager of the Waggin' Tails Junction in Manassas, says many of her day-care customers are office workers, teachers and government contractors who spend long days working and commuting and are too tired to exercise their dog or play with their rowdy puppy in the evenings.
