1. Introduction to Dog Boarding
As society changes, so does its needs and expectations, and so are the services that it offers. The family structure of Australian families has changed from living with grandparents to more nuclear families. Families are getting smaller, with less children, giving way to an adult-oriented society. These changes make future predictions on the family structure as an aged society with more dependence on solitary from family activities more likely to happen. Family structures are also modifying their perspectives on pets. Today, pets are being spoiled and included in family activities, and with the emerging phenomenon of “fur babies”, pets are being treated as a real family member. Pets nowadays have more accessories and products than ever, and over 70% of Australian dogs sleep inside with their owners; a clear indication of their humanization.
Services will evolve depending on the needs of society, and new products and services for pets will appear, as has already happened with pet daycare, grooming services, and even psychologists for pets. Accommodation services for dogs are also evolving to accommodate the needs of dog parents. Dog boarding in perth services are now offering products and services to take care of dogs while their parents are away from home. Specialized dog hotels are partitioning their rooms with their specific needs in mind and are preparing spaces for dogs to play, run and socialize. From normal hotels that provide the basic services for dogs while their owners are away, to specialized hotels that provide different spaces according to the size, breed, and wants of the dog, everything is now available for the pet parent that wants only the best for their pet.
In this context, this paper offers a list of the current dog boarding services that exist in Perth, Australia, as well as identifies several trends in the dog boarding service. Contents will prepare the way for improvements that are aligned with those trends. The information and conclusions presented will be useful not only for people who plan to travel and are looking for a safe, fun place for their dog, but also for entrepreneurs who are thinking of investment opportunities in dog boarding.
2. The Need for Innovative Solutions
As dogs increasingly become cherished family members, ensuring their well-being during our absences has become an essential consideration, as parents of dogs have become more discerning when selecting appropriate dog boarding facilities and services. Consequently, the boarding sector has experienced escalating demands for more innovative and unique propositions. At the same time, the rising growth of the pet services market globally creates a more competitive environment, tipping the demand-supply balance in many areas. Enterprises and entrepreneurs operating in those areas must consider new strategies and approaches to enhance their value propositions. Creating more value and greater differentiation in provision and experiences would allow firms the chance to charge higher fees while ensuring higher profit margins. While offering hotel-like comfort and atmosphere may appeal to many, a growing segment of the dog-boarding clientele would become disenchanted with sterile environments that eliminate the sensory rewards that dogs enjoy.
Dog boarding has historically been a cottage industry, where people, typically with spare capacity in their homes, provide dog sitting services in their homes, or take in a few clients at their residences. There are mass service firms or chains with retail presences that provide sterile environments that clients frequent as many corporations do. Our concept is aimed at a growing segment of the dog boarding clientele willing to pay a premium for a unique dog-boarding experience for their pets based on their preference for authentic experiences, and find entertainment in their dogs’ playing with other dogs. Inhibitions to fully utilizing their historical locations are the predominance of a cottage industry that offers clients personalized services and connections, and the lack of scale to cover fixed costs, or the chance to charge higher prices continuously. They identified three segments of customers willing to pay higher fees for unique experiences for their dogs.
3. Current Trends in Dog Boarding
As more and more Perth pet owners travel for business trips or to see family and friends, the demand for dog boarding services has skyrocketed. Fortunately, the dog boarding industry has happily responded to this increase in demand. There has been a boom in dog boarding kennels and pet hotels. In general, these businesses offer packages with various prices, depending on what “treats” you want for your pampered pooch. For example, the most expensive packages may include indoor accommodation, grooming, belly rubs, and even
Dog boarding facilities want your dog to be comfortable and happy while you’re away. To that end, many facilities are going to great lengths to make their dog kennels feel like home, including wall-to-wall carpeting, calming colors, cutesy artwork, and fluffy dog beds. Some larger kennels are even including webcams, video screens with pre-recorded messages, personalized dog doors, and more to convince owners their dog will be relaxed and calm during the stay.
Fortunately for Perth dog owners, the industry boom has given power to choice, meaning pet parents can compare the quality of the services on offer at many different facilities. Many dog boarding companies in Perth provide boutique services to cater to the needs of smaller and mid-sized dogs, as they may require special attention that bigger dogs do not. Some businesses even provide a groom-and-sleep service for pooches who need pampering before an important family event!
Companies are recognizing the growing trend of family dogs that cannot be separated from their owners. To help owners deal with guilt, many dog boarding facilities offer doggy playtime. Some boarding facilities even employ an “in-house dog nanny” responsible for your dog’s care, including company at all hours. In fact, many dog boarding companies are going so far as to record a customer’s dog’s habits and preferences so that the in-house doggy nanny can provide personalized service.
4. Understanding Dog Behavior
Understanding dog behavior might not be very easy at first glance, especially when the behavior might be foreign to us. However, it is important so that you can have a comfortable stay with your pet or to be able to provide answers to any doubts that your client might have had. A good place to start this is to observe wild dogs or captive wolves who still live in such packs. Wild canids tend to be quite vocal, making sounds that we do not commonly hear in domestic dogs. This is possibly because their packs are structured hierarchically: instead of being loose groups of related individuals, they usually consist of a pair of adults who breed and their offspring, which for larger canid species disperse after a few months. This social structure lends towards aggression, which we also see between groups that are artificially put together in small areas, probably because of the competition for resources.
The pack behavior is also visible in the behavior of the primary averted eyes, where the “offended” individual excretes to soothe his or her partner, and sounds heard primarily when a domesticated dog is disturbed. However, there are big differences in pack behavior compared to actual packs, mainly because they have been created through social selection over quite a long time. So why do offspring submit to their parents at home? The likely answer is that submissive behavior is the only way to survive a fight. Adult dogs wish to focus on the “real thing,” often when they appear to be submitting, they are actually just trying to stay out of the way. Once the young become adults, they play by the same rules as other adults and mean their parents for the rest of their lives. What happens is that there must be enough resources such that the larger number of adult dogs do not have to compete, thus limiting aggression.
5. Technology in Dog Boarding
Although dog boarding hasn’t changed much over the last few decades, technology is starting to play a bigger role in how businesses operate, and how clients interact with their chosen business. In this chapter, we are going to touch on some of the innovative technology that dog boarding facilities are using to improve their processes.
5.1. Mobile Apps for Pet Owners
Mobile apps are gaining popularity in many industries, including the pet industry. For pet owners, they streamline the processes of pet sitting, dog walking, and boarding. With a potential to generate high-tech software solutions, the pet boarding and boarding software development solutions play out a constantly increasing demand and grow even more relied upon. With such software and application development processes, an application that permits the pet owners to book a service with ease may be developed and scripted quickly. Other capabilities that such an app that links numerous services and service providers together could include push notifications for pick-up and drop-off times, GPS tracking features for easy monitoring during services, pet care instruction sharing options, as well as secure payment transfer platforms may be built within such business mobile applications. A successful application would offer service consumers and providers the ability to log in, create accounts, manage their profiles, secure payments, unlock detailed booking calendars, rate and reviews options or platforms, as well as on-demand transportation services.
5.2. Live Streaming and Monitoring
When planning your dog’s vacation at a boarding kennel, there are lots of points to tackle: dog-proofing the home, packing your pup’s stuff, filling up on any special needs food in advance etc. But regardless of how you prepare for his or her short time away from home, leaving the pup at a kennel is never easy on a dog owner. After dropping off the dog for the first time, it’s completely normal for the owner to wonder how their furry friend is doing while they are on vacation. Besides being away from the owner, new surroundings and new furry friends can all be tough for a dog. To help dog owners feel better and let them enjoy their time away, providing them with updates and reassurance is a great way to ease any guilt. Thanks to technology, you can offer them real-time updates. Many dog boarding facilities are starting to offer webcams and photobooths that enable on-demand check-ins and live streaming of a pet’s activities while en route.
5.1. Mobile Apps for Pet Owners
Dog ownership and the array of services available to pet owners have evolved astronomically in the past couple of decades. As an increasing number of people come to rely on their phones and mobile devices, the use of pet-related mobile applications also grows, allowing owners to manage their pets’ needs with ease. Mobile apps allow users to do anything from booking a dog walker to renewing a vaccination, to ordering a grooming service, making it very convenient to handle tasks related to their pet. For potential customers of boarding facilities, however, the array of available applications becomes even more useful.
Not only can customers and potential customers manage their bookings on these apps, but they can also find nearby boarding facilities quickly and with ease. They can browse centers’ services, ratings and prices, check the availability of services, review their reservation history, and see their pending bookings, all from the comfort of their phones whenever they feel the need. In addition to offering a plethora of useful functions to customers, such applications also help the business owner. With these apps, service providers can easily manage their own business pages too. Business owners also benefit from increased exposure through these apps, as users can easily search for dog boarding services. Since searching for pet facilities and services has become as fast as a few minutes, these apps become very important for service and boarding companies who wish to grow and gain visibility.
When boarding their pets, pet owners always worry about how their little buddies are spending their time. They wish to be informed about their pet’s emotional state and current activity levels. Some facilities provide their customers with the possibility of monitoring their dogs first-hand, by sending small cameras to the facilities where the animals stay. Alternatively, some facilities offer live video feeds. Some apps even allow boarding services to offer live video feeds of dogs housed at the facility.
5.2. Live Streaming and Monitoring
Emma Campbell, the owner of Camp Bow Wow Dog Boarding & Daycare — the largest facility of its kind in the state of Colorado — saw a business opportunity when she realized how many dog photo opportunities were left legally unexploited. The people walking the doggie accepts at the daycare would be out strolling along the camp’s fenced-in yards, and Pet Cam could capture their antics. “We installed a closed-circuit camera with a one-way mirror in an outdoor play area,” Campbell remembers. “What we did not know at that time was that people would pay to view their dogs in a play yard. It’s something they can never take pictures of on their own.” She recounts that a couple that was not able to buy a wedding video and was facing retirement party had found their way to Camp Bow Wow’s live camera feeds. Campbell comments that they spent hours glued to the footage coming through the Internet, all while they were attending a company training class at a local hotel. “That is when we realized we had something.”
Many dog boarding companies offer a similar service, which increased their popularity as many customers wanted to view their pets. One company provides Pet Cam remotely, as did another pet resort in South San Diego County, California. The founder developed a secure online camera feed with motion detection that enabled owners to view their pets 24 hours a day from anywhere in the world. She notes, “If the pet resort becomes too busy for this service, I will remove it. But I understand the dogs feel more secure when their owners can watch them play.”
6. Conclusion
It is evident that pet care is of utmost importance and that dog owners want their pups to get the best care available while they take a well-deserved break. There are many innovative and trendy approaches to dog boarding for the travelling dog owner. From leisure boarding facilities with grooming to café boarders offering social media access, mobile pet groomers and pop-up pet-friendly day trips and even in-home dog sitting; there is an option to suit even the fussiest of hounds and their owners. Pet boarding has evolved so that it no longer feels just like a service, it’s an experience that offers the bond with your pet some interesting options. Users of these services can choose how much or how little they want to be involved and the pet care agencies will create an experience that caters to their needs. After all, leaving behind your best four-legged friend is one of the hardest parts of travelling. A personalised pet sitting package allows owners to tailor everything to their best friends’ needs.
It is also clear that running a pet service requires flexibility, knowledge and a love for animals; as while being away from friends and family on holidays may be a luxury, dog boarding businesses require owners’ commitment around the clock and all year round. It takes a very special person to do what pet boarding businesses are doing. They are providing care for the family pet as if they are their own–with love, attention, and expertise. There is no doubt that there is no shortage of dog-friendly travel options; however, we hope by shedding light on some of the innovative dog boarding businesses, any future interaction with neglected pets will hopefully be rectified.
