COVID–19 hits dog daycare industry, local businesses persevereDate: 2/15/2021 WESTERN MASS. – During this time, people are staying home more than ever and taking care of their pets. Reminder Publishing reached out to numerous local doggy day care facilities to see how they are faring through COVID-19.
According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, "Families are still training pets in their household, including dogs that are newly adopted or in new foster homes. Whether a dog is young or old, new to the household or a seasoned family pet, socialization – preparing it to enjoy interactions and be comfortable with other animals, people, places and activities is – an important part of responsible pet ownership.”
The Good Dog Spot on 35 Central North Chicopee St. in Chicopee opened in 2007. Owner Elizabeth Staples worked in the pet care industry before starting her own business in the field. The Good Dog Spot does day care, grooming spa, boarding, bark bus, self-serve dog wash and their Spot’s Tots program for young puppies. Elizabeth’s husband, Cory Staples, took over the day to day operations in 2013, while she focused on marketing and building the brand.
"When I took over in 2013, we had about 12 employees and in 2016 we opened a second location in Northampton. Prior to COVID in 2020, we probably had 34 employees on payroll total and still have that number,” responded Chris Staples. “We’ve been fortunate not to have lost anybody during COVID, but business was going great. We were steadily growing at 10 percent revenue a year if not more. We were starting to get our foothold in Northampton having been there three and a half years prior to COVID. We took out a tremendous amount of loans and capital to leverage ourselves to try to open Northampton, and COVID really hurt us hard there.”
When the governor decided to close all non-essential businesses, the day care and boarding part of the Good Dog Spot was deemed essential which allowed them to stay open, but they had to close their grooming department for six weeks.
Staples told Reminder Publishing the Good Dog Spot revenue as a company was down 60 percent April through June versus the prior year. Their margins really rely on how many people take vacations and choose to board their dogs with them during the summer, he explained. Considering less people took trips over the summer, he shared they had fewer dogs staying with them, so their business suffered immensely.
“Since July, we have been slowly increasing in Chicopee, running on about 80 percent of 2019 revenue. Our Northampton location is much slower to rebound as we are just a little over half of 2019 revenue over the same span,” Staples shared. “I want to see our numbers come back, the dogs coming to us for daycare every day returning to us. What we need as much as anything is people to start traveling again so we can take care of their pets while they are on vacation.”
The Good Dog Spot in Chicopee is open Monday through Fridays from 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sundays from 8-9 a.m. and 4 to 5 p.m.
For more information on programs and The Good Dog Spot in general, go to gooddogspot.net.
The Dog Shop on 15 Baldwin St. in East Longmeadow has been in town for 30 years. It’s a full-service pet salon providing all breed dog grooming, doggie day care, training classes, self-service dog wash and retail dog items.
“Business was doing very well,” Manager Sandra St. Germaine said. “We do operate with usually about 20 dogs and under. We take reservations and base our staff for the day care on the reservations.”
Germaine shared with Reminder Publishing that they had to close the business at the end of the third week of March. They were out of work until Gov. Baker decided they can open back up. The shop reopened with the COVID-19 restrictions, and during that time they were taking dogs in outside. They brought their full staff back the first week in June.
“Day care started extremely slow. People were worried not knowing anything about COVID or whether or not the dogs could pass it,” Germaine added. “As time progressed, the business built back up again, so I would say currently we are probably doing close to what we were doing before. The building is big, but only half of it used for the day care and we have a couple of outside areas. We would like to keep it on the smaller side for the day care at least.”
She continued, “A lot of customers are going back to work right now and they don’t want to leave their pets home alone. They’ve been home with their pets for months due to COVID and they want somewhere to socialize their dogs.”
The Dog Shop is open Tuesdays through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Interested parties can call 525-5005 to make a reservation.
After being in Agawam for 19 years, K9Capers Dog Training & Day Center moved to a smaller facility in Wilbraham on 2 River Rd. in June of 2020. According to owner and operator Heather Staas, they had been looking up this area as a possible second location to begin with. When the Agawam location went up for sale, zoning prevented the business from keeping their primary location there.
K9Capers offers an enrollment-based behavior program, providing a behavioral day center that includes training, social play and indoor and outdoor activities. They also provide private training one on one and an online education website.
“We don’t do drop-in or temporary care,” Staas replied. “What that means is that dogs enrolled with us as a puppy and they come in for an evaluation and then they sign up for a regular weekly schedule. In addition to group play and exercise, we include work on house training, manners and crate training so dogs are comfortable and happy being crated for rest time.”
Staas explained that she worked with rescue dogs in college. She said largely the number of dogs that were being given up were from busy working families that found themselves with an adolescent dog that they were struggling to meet the dog’s needs, and end up relinquishing the dog.
“After a year of training and socializing the dogs were well rounded and able to be adopted out, so I was looking for a way to provide a support service for owners before they reach the point of needing to actually give up their dog,” Staas explained. “That’s what led me to look into some sort of day time service that will give them the support that they needed to get through late puppies or in the middle of adolescents.”
K9Capers has a waiting list for puppies to come in and they’re not regularly looking for a vacant book of new clients. Staas pointed out that this has more to do with dog behavior than business enrollment. Most of their clients since COVID-19 hit were already regular clients with dogs that have already been through the evaluation process.
Since they moved locations, Staas mentioned it was a big down size, so it is a challenge for her to say how business has been through this past year with so many changes she’s already facing.
“I can't say COVID has affected new business because we downsized, so I haven’t taken in any new clients since COVID started,” Staas responded. “Because we’re new to Wilbraham, we really would like to connect more with local businesses in the area. This is an entirely new location for us – 2021 is mostly going to be focused on getting to know our neighbors here.”
K9Capers are open Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The online training platform is https://www.patreon.com/k9capers where Staas offers a monthly subscription sight with video content on dog training and understanding dog behavior. Interested parties can call 271-1047 for more information.
CEO Christine Pratt of Wagging Tails Pet Resort Inc in Hadley stated, “What we’re finding is dogs that are coming back, that haven’t been here in a few months need to be retrained and re-socialized to fit in with the pack again. They’re suffering from more anxiety and boredom.”
She continued, “It’s great to be home with the parents which is what we call them, but dogs are two-and-a-half-year-old children cognitively and they always will be. With that being true, they need other dogs, other people and engaging activities. They don’t always get that at home.”
Located at 220 Russell St., Wagging Tails Pet Resort provides day care, boarding, grooming and training from puppy classes to working with aggressive dogs.
Prior to opening her own dog day care facility, Pratt had a corporate job at CAIA Association in Amherst. She noticed her dog, Wyatt Earp, was not happy, and she wanted to do something where she could bring him to work.
Before COVID-19, the resort was operating at full capacity. Pratt planned on expanding the business and brought a 30-acre farm in Easthampton back in January 2020.
She said during the pandemic the business had gone significantly down – approximately 75 to 80 percent.
“I can’t cut corners on my pricing because I have to have a staff to dog ratio and payroll is most of my expense. If I cut my prices to get more dogs, then I don't have enough money to pay my staff,” Pratt explained. “My plans for the new year are to try to get through this pandemic and hope for us to come on the other side still in business.”
Wagging Tails Pet Resort Inc. is open every day from 6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Visit waggingtailspetresort.net for more information.
Pet Hotel Hadley on 155 Russell St. in Hadley has been in business since 2013. It's a 6,500 square feet hotel providing boarding for overnight stays, day care for dogs and grooming for dogs and cats.
“It was running very successfully and we were growing at a significant rate,” Manager Dominic Savio said of the business prior to the pandemic.
With the travel restriction for COVID-19, Savio said it made it difficult for people to go on vacations or out of state, so the boarding aspect of the business took a significant hit, going from a full 80 to 90 percent capacity down to less than 10 percent capacity.
He also mentioned with the start of COVID-19, the hotel wasn’t allowed to have grooming available which made that portion of their business shut down. On the other hand, however, Savio explained their business for day care has grown significantly. Throughout the pandemic, they have been hosting events for dogs every month such as ball pits, pool parties and costume contests.
"As of now, we’re looking to increase on our day care and grooming, but I don’t think we’re going to grow with our boarding this coming year until restrictions are lifted,” Savio said. “We are looking to add special pricing especially to first responders, teachers and anybody in the medical field.”
The hotel plans on doing more events for their doggy day care days and special promos for their grooming, including discounted bath days. They already started their initiative $5 toenail Tuesday, which will continue throughout the year.
“I think with this year we’re just trying to reach as many customers as we can and help them throughout this pandemic,” Dominic elaborated. “Whether fundraising with local shelters to bring awareness or partnering with local doggy businesses including dog bakeries and dog supply companies throughout the area to bring their business to a light as well.”
Pet Hotel Hadley is open everyday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Their website can be found at pethotelhadley.com.
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