When a kennel just won’t do
WILLOW GROVE, Pa. — Max and Leo race around one of the kennel’s two-room doggie suites, still filled with boundless energy even after a day of treats and activities.
“You want me to read a story?” says Sonya DeFazio, a kennel employee sitting cross-legged on the floor with a “Clifford The Big Red Dog” book on her lap.
The bedtime tale at Best Friends Pet Care caps a busy day for Max, a 7-year-old West Highland white terrier, and Leo, a 2-year-old Pomeranian. During their two-day stay, they’ve already had fitness sessions, walks, play time, ice cream breaks, “suite treats” and bottled water.
The final tab: $57 a day for services and $78 daily for boarding in the 56-square-foot “Boathouse Row” suite, which has a low-lying bed and is decorated with oars, sailboat wallpaper and a framed poster of the Philadelphia landmark for which the room is named. Pets typically stay four to five days.
The nation’s pet boarding industry has figured out it doesn’t take much persuasion to get pet owners, often guilty about dropping their dog or cat off at a kennel while they head off on vacation, to pay extra for pampering: In the last five years, spending on pet services including boarding and grooming has more than doubled to $2.5 billion, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association in Greenwich, Conn.
“It’s the art of the upsell,” said Charlotte Reed, a pet trend watcher who is vice president of The National Association of Professional Pet Sitters, in Mount Laurel, N.J.
From boarding kennels to high-end pet hotels, the perks are growing ever more plentiful. Pet services range from birthday parties and spa treatments (such as massages and aromatherapy) to white-glove packages such as recording your dog’s first CD for $1,600.
The extra services, Reed said, can pad a typical pet owner’s bill by 30 percent to 35 percent.
Pet owners expect kennels to do more than board — they want their dogs and cats treated like children, said Jim Krack, executive director of ABKA, formerly the American Boarding Kennels Association, in Colorado Springs, Colo.
At Best Friends, a privately held Norwalk, Conn.-based company with 42 locations nationwide, customer demand has driven the growth in pet services, spokeswoman Deb Bennetts said.
Pet services is one of the fastest growing areas of business at PetSmart Inc., the Phoenix-based pet supply and services retail chain that changed its name last year from PetsMart. In the third quarter of 2005, revenues from pet services jumped 24 percent, to $71.5 million, from the same period a year earlier.
Since 2001, the chain has opened 35 PetsHotel locations, where one popular feature allows owners to telephone their dogs, which bark back in response, said spokeswoman Jennifer Pflugfelder.
Michael San Filippo, a spokesman for the American Veterinary Medical Association in Schaumburg, Ill., said baby boomers and empty-nesters are helping drive the trend.
“The kids are married or away and this sort of fills a parental need,” he said.