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It’s a dog’s life...
One of the happy clients at Aunties Doggie Day Care, Lostock Hall
Every day, doting parents leave their little ones at nursery before heading off for a long day’s work.
Owner Lisa Pye, 41, takes a register before they embark on a day of play and exercise, and prepares report cards for them to take home, but this is no place for children.
Welcome to Auntie’s Doggie Day Care, Ward Street, Lostock Hall, believed to be the only place in Lancashire where people can take their pets to play in three-and-a-half acres of woodland, rather than bark in loneliness and chew the sofa at home.
Dog-lover Lisa got the idea after her uncle had a serious heart attack and, with seven dogs between three family members, they struggled to give them the attention they needed while he recovered.
Lisa, who quit her job with a North West building firm to open the nursery, says: “We were saying, wouldn’t it be good if there was somewhere you could take your dog if you were busy or at work.
“So I started looking into it, and found it was very big in America. I had a look round the country and just found one person at the time was doing it, in Scotland.
“If you’re a dog person, you get it. All I used to do at work all day was worry about my dogs.
“They’re not lazy owners who send their dogs to us, they genuinely care.”
She set the business up at her Chorley home four years ago, and moved to the dedicated premises, complete with dog spa, leather settees for the pooches and soothing music, in October.
All prospective dogs have a personality test to make sure they mix well with the other nursery-goers, and must be up-to-date with vaccinations.
They will currently have no more than 25 dogs on the premises at any one time, including Yorkshire terriers, Great Danes, dalmatians and pugs, despite a waiting list.
Lisa, who works alongside her husband Mark and a groomer, said: “They’ve all got their little friends and when they come in, it’s like a school yard. They all go up to each other. They all meet and greet. It’s quite a little family.
“We even get postcodes from their holidays to tell us that the dogs are missing us.”
Lisa also updates the nursery’s Facebook page throughout the day, which has proved a massive hit with owners.
Businessman Michael Crowe has been taking his English bulldog Maggie to Lisa for more than two years.
Mr Crowe, finance director at Recycling Lives, says: “It’s better for Maggie that she’s not sitting around in the house all day, she’s not bored stiff.
“She is absolutely knackered when she comes home.”
Mum-of-one Simone Lane, 29, from Saunders Mews, Chorley, has been taking her dog Butters to the nursery eight times a month since September.
She says: “Where we live, she doesn’t get to see many other dogs and I wanted to get her to socialise.
“We’d tried dog training, but it wasn’t that she was disobedient, she just wanted to play with other dogs.
“Now she knows dog etiquette. She knows how to sniff other dogs, before she would run away scared.
“It’s piece of mind and it’s convenient and she loves it.”
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Weather for Preston
Wednesday 22 February 2012
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Wind direction: South west
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