Fall 2021 Children's Sneak Previews
Business Tidbits: Yakima Canine Club Boarding, Day Care Facility Opens Downtown
The owners of Yakima's newest pet boarding and dog "playcare" center believe they have opened a business the community needs and that suits them as dog lovers and entrepreneurs.
Yakima Canine Club opened in late July at 216 S. Second Ave., in a former downtown wholesale tire warehouse. Longtime Yakima residents and dog owners Paul and Shannon Needham have spent more than a year renovating the facility, and they hosted two open house events on Aug. 3 and 10 to introduce their services to the public.
"Paul and I were trying to figure out what we were going to do for the next phase of our careers," Shannon Needham said during an Aug. 10 tour of the Yakima Canine Club.
She noted that her family, including young adult sons Dane and Brock, have been involved in fostering and caring for dogs for more than a decade. The Yakima area has limited options for both playcare and boarding, Needham said.
"We wanted to provide a place where we would feel comfortable keeping our dogs," she added.
Yakima Canine Club co-owner Shannon Needham shows one of the four outdoor play areas at the downtown Yakima pet boarding and dog playcare facility during a Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024 open house tour.
JOEL DONOFRIO Yakima Herald-RepublicTo that end, Paul and Shannon toured more than 40 pet boarding and daycare facilities in the Pacific Northwest to see what methods, services and facilities worked best. They hired the Turnkey Inc. Company out of Houston as lead architect for the Yakima Canine Club and did many of the renovations themselves.
The new facility features 54 dog kennels in three rooms; three indoor play areas where dogs are sorted by size and temperament; four outdoor play areas on recycled field turf; and a grooming facility that, for now, offers exit baths to dogs boarding there.
Other amenities include an "introduction alley" between the play areas that allows newcomers to be gradually introduced to one another, and a "Zen Den" resembling a family room complete with fireplace and used sofas and couches that dogs can climb and lounge on.
All of the dog kennels include a Kuranda dog bed, which sits slightly above the ground and allows the animals to get up off the floor, Needham said. It's an especially nice option for older dogs. Some kennels include private, fenced in "patios" that allow the dogs to go in and out as they please, Needham noted. Otherwise, dogs are taken out at regular times to "do their business."
Cats are welcome for boarding, too, with a "cattery" room featuring 12 independent boarding spaces, plenty of windows to peek out, and room for playtime with a Canine Club employee. Needham pointed out the double door entrance to the cat area, to prevent any curious felines from sneaking out into the dog portion of the facility.
The business eventually could employ 10 people when fully staffed. In addition, the Yakima Canine Club is looking for groomers to provide grooming services. An area already has been designed and set aside for that purpose.
Needham said most of the kennel and playcare booking is available online, with all necessary forms available to be filled out ahead of check-in. For complete details about booking and services offered, visit yakimacanineclub.Com or their Facebook or Instagram pages.Nt column.
The Current highlights business news throughout Yakima County. Send your information to business reporter Joel Donofrio at jdonofrio@yakimaherald.Com or call 509-759-7851.
Sol Dog Lodge And Training Center Fits Pieces
Workers used a crane to hoist a section of prefabricated building, then slowly lowered it onto the poured concrete foundation at the Sol Dog Lodge and Training Center just south of Tangerine Road in Marana.
While a dozen workers set the structure in place, a small audience of Sol Dog staff, volunteers and donors clapped in approval early Tuesday, Aug. 20.
"That was the goal, to see one land," said a donor, elated with the milestone achievement for the nonprofit.
"It was exhilarating to see the puzzle pieces of the building come together," said Cathy Kastner, a Sol Dog client described as a "volunteer extraordinaire."
"The smiles all around me said it all!" she added.
Placement of building sections, on what was dubbed "Crane Day," came more than six years after Sol Dog's inception, according to executive director Valerie Pullara. Crane Day "is a culmination of many years of planning and caring deeply for dogs and their people," she added.
In 2018, Sol Dog purchased 4.5 acres of land south of Tangerine and east of I-10. To raise more than $4 million for the project, Sol Dog partnered with two community development financial institutions that specialize in funding for nonprofits. Private donors have given significant funds to the project, Pullara said.
Eight buildings, constituting about 8,600 square feet of space, have been manufactured for placement at 11835 N. Tangerine. Through year's end, contractor ESB Design+Build, a Marana-based, woman-owned business, is tying the building sections together and applying finishing improvements. Sol Dog has incorporated green elements, such as solar energy and water recapture and reuse, into its campus design.
When it opens in early 2025, Sol Dog Lodge and Training Center will house all its training, grooming and boarding activities, along with classes for owners and space for rescued animals, Pullara said.
Sol Dog plans to consolidate its current operations onto one campus. It can now board up to 15 dogs a night at its often-full kennels at Prince and I-10. Another 15 dogs are trained and groomed daily at Sol Dog's Thornydale and Linda Vista location.
The new campus should have capacity to board up to 75 dogs per night, and provide grooming and training services to more than 100 dogs and families each day, Pullara said.
"Our new Dog Center will allow us to serve even more dogs and their families, offering expanded boarding, grooming and training services to ensure every dog can thrive in a loving and supportive environment," Pullara said.
"We are not a rescue, we are not a shelter," said Shelley Harris, Sol Dog's director of community outreach and marketing. "We are an organization that strives diligently to meet the needs of families. When this new campus is open, we'll more often be able to support a dog owner who, for example, may forgo a medical procedure because they don't have a place for their dog.
"We train kids, families and those that may have adopted a dog that is a 'little more dog' than they expected," Harris said. "Yes, we also train the dog. Ultimately, we want the dog to stay in their home, and out of the shelter and contribute to the well-being of the family."
"Our vision is to foster a community where all dogs are valued and thriving, and compassionate services are accessible for every facet of their care," Pullara said. "We empower dogs and their families to overcome obstacles that may otherwise jeopardize their bond by providing training, grooming, dog socialization, and boarding services."
"For dog moms like me, Sol Dog Lodge is sort of like a part of your heart and soul," said client Kathy Alden. Beyond "practical services," Sol Dog pursues its vision "to keep dogs in their forever home with the people who love them."
Sol Dog "will always be raising money for the programming," Harris said. Toward that end, it is creating the Forever Home Mosaic Wall, to be placed in the front lobby of the new building, "to help with the costs of the transition from two locations to the single campus" and other expenses.
Families, shelters, rescues, municipalities and community organizations are welcome to use Sol Dog's services. "By fostering stronger pet-owner relationships and supporting community resilience, our efforts contribute to building healthier and more compassionate societies," Sol Dog said in a release.
Among the guests Tuesday was Elisa Ng, who operates EL Design Studio, and her son Sean. Ng has provided "incredible design services pro bono" to Sol Dog, Harris said.
"I love the dogs," Ng said.
So do many others.
The website is soldoglodge.Com.
I Run A Home Daycare. I Made A Huge Mistake By Opening Up My Services To My Inner Circle.
Care and Feeding is Slate's parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.
Dear Care and Feeding,
I am a stay-at-home mom and run an informal day care where I watch a few other children. I had an opening after my neighbor moved away, so my sister suggested the daughter of the man she was currently dating. The girl's name is "Zoe" and I have never met a more spoiled child. Zoe is five and thinks she is an actual princess. She makes demands and throws tantrum after tantrum if she doesn't get her way. Every time I took my eyes off Zoe, she was trying to break into the pantry for snacks, fighting with another child over a toy, or demanding to watch TV.
From what I can gleam from my sister, Zoe is also like this at home. She dictates where the adults sit if they are watching TV, what they eat for dinner, and where and if they sleep at all at their house. Her father does nothing but give in. Any unhappiness on Zoe's part results in every adult trying to placate her. I fear for her teachers when she starts school next year.
I hit my limit when Zoe was upset that I took her iPad away and put her in time out. While I was making lunch…
…Zoe snuck off, open the deadbolted front door, and tried to run away. I caught her before she got very far, but the incident frightened me out of my wits. As usual, her father handwaved away the incident. I told him he needed to someone else to watch Zoe, effective immediately.
This upset my sister and her boyfriend. They argued that I was overreacting. The end result was my sister getting dumped and blaming me for it. I love my sister but I tried for weeks with Zoe. How do I get through to her? We live near a busy road. I have nightmares about what could have happened that day.
–Day Care Drama
Dear Day Care,
First things first: It is neither your problem nor your fault that your sister got dumped, and she needs to get over that.
Day care is a source of enormous stress and anxiety for many parents, because day care in the United States is expensive, hard to find, and hard to depend on. Thus the existence of "informal" day cares like yours, where a neighbor, relative, or (in this case) girlfriend's sister takes care of a handful of kids in an unregulated environment. These day cares fill a crucial niche in a care economy that's operating in a constant state of crisis. But the downside of such ad hoc care arrangements is that they can fall apart at any moment for any reason, leaving a parent scrambling for the help they need.
If you feel you can't keep a child safely, you're well within your rights to tell that child's parent they need to look elsewhere. But I do think it's worth looking carefully at your own response to Zoe, who I bet is a developmentally normal, slightly bratty 5-year-old about whom you wrote some really astonishingly mean things. If you intend to continue caring for children in your house, keep in mind that if you decide you just plain don't like a kid and they gotta go, you're making life very difficult for a family that's likely struggling. So please use your power responsibly.
And if Zoe could get out of your front door, so could any 5-year-old—she's not Houdini. You owe it to the parents who are putting their children in your care to, at the very least, invest in a childproof lock.
—Dan
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