Pups high-tailing it to doggie day care

Jill Krueger Staff Writer

ORLANDO -- It is 7 a.m. and the vice president of customer relations at Dog Day Afternoon is nervously pacing, counting down the minutes before the morning's first clients arrive.

In fact, Peanut can hardly contain herself.

At the first appearance of a car, the yellow shepherd and Lab mix is on all fours, barking an unrestrained welcome.

"This is a good place for us to drop off our dogs during the day," says Ellie DeLello. DeLello handed off her two retrievers, Hurricane Andrew and Scooby Doo, to marketing executive-turned-dog day care operator Emily Schlansky.

Schlanskys' is one of the first dog day care operations to open for business in Orlando, but it may not be the last: The nontraditional alternative to a kennel is popping up all over the United States as owners drop their dogs off on the way to work -- sometimes via a drive-through -- and pick them up on the way home. Indeed, doggie day care centers in larger cities such as Chicago typically have waiting lists.

"There's a demand for it," says Emily Berry, owner of Miss Emily's Bed and Biscuit in Orlando, where dogs are treated to "yappy hour" and cats enjoy vertical cat condos -- complete with a bay window for bird watching and a 55-gallon aquarium for the would-be fishers.

Such boarding care is more than a luxury. Sometimes, it can save a pet owner hundreds of dollars and months of frustration.

Take Peanut, Schlansky's Humane Society find, who suffered from separation anxiety when Schlansky left for work. Dogs have a preferred means of expressing such anxiety: methodically destroying a hapless owner's home.

In fact, by the time Schlansky found a dog day care service near her former residence in Atlanta, Peanut had chewed her way through a couch, some chairs, and every pair of shoes she owned.

But Schlansky soon noticed that after enrolling her dog in day care, Peanut was just as tired at the end of a long day as she was. Eventually, she lost the urge to chow down on her worldly goods.

So, after the 29-year-old Schlansky moved to Orlando six months ago, she decided to trade in her power suit for a pooper-scooper and offer the same solution to Orlando dog owners. "This is so much more fun," Schlansky says.

The dogs appear to be having an equally good time. On a recent morning at the newly opened purple and yellow center, Hurricane Andrew, Scooby Doo and Peanut had hunkered down for the day's agenda: Play time, bathroom break, nap time -- in a special room with dog beds suitable for a leisurely doze. Then more play time. Bath time is available, if requested.

As for the cranky pup, there's the traditional day nursery stand-by: timeout, in a special room decorated in soothing colors.

Says DeLello, "I think it is service for the 21st century."