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Bay area leads way in canine day care Centers provide TLC as pet owners work By Jenny Strasburg The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO � Mollie was a problem child from the beginning. She wouldn�t eat. She trembled at everyday noises and shrank from the adults who wanted to hold her and care for her. "She was really a mess," said Angela Padilla, 34, a San Francisco litigator who with her partner, tax attorney Amy Silverstein, adopted Mollie about five months ago. "She didn�t even know how to eat food out of her bowl." Padilla said. But Mollie and her two busy guardians found salvation at K9 to 5, a 3-year-old South of Market day-care center for puppies and dogs and one of an expanding number of such facilities in the Bay area. The industry is striving to meet a rising demand for ever-more-sophisticated services for pets whose owners are balancing longer commutes and workdays but have more disposable income. With Mollie in their hands, the K9 to 5 staff soon tapped into the trusting, affectionate side of the golden-brown shepherd-Rottweiler-Corgi mix, who had been adopted from San Francisco Animal Care and Control. "When I drop her off, I love to see the other doggies come up and greet her. I love that," Padilla said. "It�s definitely expensive, and we have to factor that into our budget. But it is worth it because otherwise we wouldn�t be able to keep her." Pet day care and ancillary animal-care services ranging from therapeutic water treatments to pet taxi services and airline reservation services for pets are flourishing in the Bay area. Many pet-care experts nationally credit San Francisco with launching the day care trend in the 1990s and setting standards for the industry. Jackie Hunt, a professional tax preparer in Oakland, has been taking her 18-month-old yellow Labrador retriever, C.B. (short for Count Basie), to Every Dog Has Its Day Care in Emeryville for about a year now. "When I got him as a puppy, I was taking him to work every day," Hunt said. She had found that C.B. would cry and whine all day � classic symptoms of separation anxiety � if she left him in the house or back yard. Typical of Lab puppies, though, C.B. was too rambunctious to have at work, even though Hunt owned the business and set the rules. She heard about Every Dog and promptly filled out an application. She took C.B. to the center for an interview on a Saturday � paying a nonrefundable $10 interview fee, a standard requirement among day cares. C.B. was accepted. Fortunately, there was room for him. "I was really grateful that he fit in," said Hunt, who relies on Every Dog�s pet pickup and drop-off service during tax season, when her workdays often start before sunrise and stretch late into the night. She pays $345 a month for a six-month enrollment. The price rises for shorter contracts because owner Lauren Westreich, 34, wants clients to commit to long-term contracts so she can better predict her daily census. Westreich receives dozens of calls each month from dog owners she cannot accommodate � sometimes because their dogs are too aggressive, but often because owners want only sporadic day care. The growing demand for her services has allowed Westreich to become more selective. She believes that dogs that are around each other more often are happier and more relaxed. Westreich is considering expanding into a larger building. The one she�s renting now has 6,000 indoor square feet and 1,000 square feet outside. She can accept up to 75 dogs per day. Her eight full-time employees make $9 to $15 an hour plus benefits, she said. Labor and rent comprise about 70 percent of the costs of running the center. Laura Hawkins Smith, the 34-year-old owner of K9 to 5 in San Francisco, researched her business for months before opening the center in January 1997 near Fourth and Brannan streets. Smith also searched three months for an animal-loving landlord who was supportive of her plans. "We didn�t really know how this business was going to go," said Smith, whose professional background lies in marketing and public relations but whose personal life and volunteering habits have involved dogs for nearly 20 years. Lacking an entrepreneurial background, she found typical small-business loans out of her reach and resorted to asking friends and relatives for loans ranging from $1,000 to $14,000 � all of which are close to being paid off, she said. "I do fine. I�m proud of what I do. Will I be as rich as the dot-commers? No," Smith said. Still, her books were sound enough this year to expand K9 to 5�s capacity to 70 dogs from the former 45. The center and her dog-care consultation work will gross about $400,000 this year, Smith said. She expects to net $180,000 and invest most of it in the business. K9 to 5 has a three-month waiting list for adult dogs. Prepaid enrollment for one month costs $425, about $21 per visit. Clients willing to pay more can choose a more flexible 20-visit plan for $500. Those 20 visits, at $25 apiece, can be used over a three-month period. As at other pet day-care centers, dogs staying at K9 to 5 must be spayed or neutered (when they�re old enough), up-to-date on their vaccinations and well-behaved, which means they play and eat without territorial or possessive tendencies. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.