Molly Gunsaulis’ schedule changes constantly, and her husband, John,
has to travel a lot. The family needs help taking care of their little
ones — Digger and Marcel. So Gunsaulis takes the Westie and cockapoo to
day care. Yep, doggy day care.
Digger and Marcel go to
Canine To Five, the doggy day care Liz Blondy opened about a year ago on Cass at Selden in
Midtown. Gunsaulis says it’s the reason they were able to choose the city over the burbs when they moved here 11 months ago.
“We
were lucky enough to hear about Canine To Five before moving to
Detroit, otherwise living downtown wouldn’t have been an option,” she
says.
Blondy, a 31-year-old Lafayette Park resident, opened the
5,700-square-foot day care about a year ago. She did it partly out of
entrepreneurial ambition, partly out of frustration with her corporate
job, and partly out of a desire to offer more services to fellow Detroiters.
“Detroiters are desperate for services,” says Blondy, “I was just so sick of having to drive everywhere else for everything.”
Happy pupsDoggy day care, for the uninitiated, is a chance for dogs to enjoy supervised play while their owners are away.
At
Canine To Five, the dogs can come part-time or full-time. They are not
caged, like they might be at a traditional boarding facility. Dogs are
pack animals, Blondy says, so, as odd as it might look to cat people,
they’re quite content hanging out with a couple dozen other dogs for
the day.
On a recent Wednesday, about 20 big dogs, little dogs and medium-sized
dogs chased a chew toy inside the large play area fenced in behind the
greeting desk at Canine To Five. Other than a few random barks
(generally only when one was not sharing or someone came to the door),
it was quiet enough to comfortably hold a conversation. A couple littler guys
snuggled on an old armchair. Other dogs lounged on a sofa, leisurely
watching the toy-chasing pack.
Canine To Five has proven to be
the perfect place for Max, an energetic chow/retriever mix (or as owner
Marie Lee calls him, “a big happy mutt”). Max used to be ornery when
his owners came home from work at Wayne State. He’d be wound up and
want to be played with immediately, Lee says. Once in a while, he left
them unwanted, ahem, presents. Now with all the playtime and attention,
says Lee, “he’s happier and much more mellow when I come home —and
leaner.”
Yogi, an East Side chocolate lab, likes coming to doggy
day care so much “he gets extremely excited when we pull up and he sees
the building,” says his owner, Sarah Swanson. “I can hardly hold on to
him because he wants to get right into day care.”
City dogsBlondy says she got the idea for Canine To Five while having a drink with some friends at
The Bronx Bar in Midtown (where the best ideas are hatched, no?). She says a
Southwest
Detroiter who works west of the city mentioned he takes his dog to day
care. Her first reaction was, “Psssshhhh, you take your dog to day
care?” But when he told her it was in Farmington, she was floored. “I
was like, you guys drive to Farmington? That’s crazy.”
The idea struck a chord with Blondy. She had a corporate job she hated,
loved city life and always has loved animals. She began investigating
dog day cares in other markets and other parts of the city. Armed with
a home equity loan and “lots of credit cards,” she scouted out
locations, and settled on the space in Midtown.
She suspects
she could have opened somewhere like Ferndale and found a bigger market
initially. On the other hand, a Detroit location also let her start off
with a bigger space. “I couldn’t have done it. I’d be paying four times
as much in the suburbs for the amount of space I have here,” she says.
“I have 5,700 square feet. If you figure some places they charge you $3
a square foot (for rent), I pay a lot less than that.”
There are about a
dozen other doggy day cares in metro Detroit, but Blondy felt that
she’d get the bulk of her customer base from commuters like Lee who
might prefer to spend their drive time with Fido and Fluffy.
“I thought it
would mostly be people who work at Compuware or work at GM driving
downtown to drop their dogs off, because they could spend that extra
hour with their dogs. And then they wouldn’t have to hurry, hurry, hurry
to get back to Novi before the day care closes. That’s totally what I
thought it was going to be.”
The commuters have come, but Blondy
has been pleasantly surprised by the number of city dogs who come to
Canine To Five — more than 65 percent of her business comes from places
like
Corktown,
Woodbridge, and Midtown, and even further neighborhoods like East English Village.
She says the location has been a bonus. “I’m close to all the freeways — I’m close to the Lodge, close to 94 and close to 75.”
Blondy says she’s planning on expanding, too. She hopes to purchase
adjacent property to offer traditional boarding facilities (Canine To
Five boards dogs, but only dogs who are part of the day care and can
get along well with other dogs in an open space, i.e., no biters or
fighters. She’s strict on that. Even her own dog isn’t
allowed to come because he’s too feisty.) She also is buying the
neighboring business, Birdtown. The owners are retiring, so later this
spring the dog-grooming portion of Birdtown will move into Canine To
Five, and in
the fall she plans to take up some of the retail side, too.
Canine
To Five also offers dog training, and in colder months Blondy runs an
indoor dog park. The city has no designated outdoor dog park, and the
Saturday play sessions have been a way to bring dog owners together and
boost weekend business.
Slowly, Blondy’s pet empire is growing.
For city residents, Canine To Five has provided an “essential element”
to urban living, Gunsaulis says.
“The more amenities, the more people will move to the city,” agrees Swanson.
For Blondy, it’s been a way to build community and earn a living at the same time.
“I’m
always freaked out that people are going to call me the crazy dog
lady,” Blondy says. “My boyfriend is like, ‘People do call you the
crazy dog lady.’ But you know what? It’s fun.”
For hours, grooming info or more on Canine To Five, click here.
Photos:Liz Blondy and the dogs of Canine to Five
All Photographs Copyright Dave Krieger