The Dog Den - Takapuna

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Sustainable and loving - The Dog Den

Helen and I started the Dog Den with a vision to try and build a sustainable businesses that provides the very best in day care, grooming, boarding and dog retail for our customers. We have always had dogs in our lives from Terriers to Labradors. Darby is our border terrier and the chairman of the company. We live at Little Shoal Bay, Northcote Point, and our house borders the park, so you can often hear or see Darby there. We live in the area, our kids go to Willow Park, and WestLake, we play hockey for East Coast Bays Hockey club, and North Harbour. We are Harbour people through and through. We are at the Dog Den every day, and we personally run the business.

So what is different about The Dog Den? We decided we wanted to do things to the highest standards, so we follow the Pet Industry Australia Guidelines (PIAA) for Dog Day Care. They provide guidance on space for each dog, and ratio of dogs to handlers. We designed The Dog Den, which is based in a 650m2 warehouse opposite Countdown at 23 Barrys Point Road, to follow these standards. We applied for an were granted a resource consent for our services to Auckland Council for all the services we offer, and in that resource consent we committed to follow the highest standards. We had input from Dog behaviourists and a manager at the Animal management team at Auckland Council. We also studied many Dog day care centres in NZ and overseas, and took the best of what we found into our design of the facilities for the dogs.

Our flooring is sealed rubber made from recycled car tyres, which is easy to clean, comfortable for the dogs, doesn’t hurt their pads, and has dimples across it - so that it doesn’t feel like your carpet, vinyl floor or any part of your home. So when you best friend has to go at the dog den, it feels more like the back garden - which it is designed to look like. We use sustainable materials like wood to make our play centres, and not imported materials like Steel or Glass. Every area has double doors and an entry area (1.5m2) so that Dogs can get acclimatised to the area they are able to enter. Also Dogs can be separated safely in ‘time-out’ if they are mis-behaving. This seems obvious but many centres do not provide double gates in every play area. We are a zero harm facility and only use instructions, time outs and distraction techniques to control the dogs. We strongly believe in stimulation and organise activities with the dogs including cardboard tear ups, balls games, bubbles, and carefully allowing dogs to play with each other in a supervised and controlled environment. We track which dogs play and get on with each other through our PetLinx system, and use this to match the dogs carefully to provide the highest stimulation for the dogs and the safest environment.

We use natural light throughout our centre on 2 floors, which is better for the dogs, and reduces our energy footprint. The level of light is controllable because we use blinds across all the windows. We also use low power high output evaporative coolers, and a low energy extractor fan in the roof to remove heat and dog smells straight upwards away from our neighbours. Every play area has outdoor play equipment, sleeping platforms for the dogs, blankets, and toys. We clean and remove any waste immediately, and clean with bio-degradable sanitiser. Each play area is fully cleaned and washed down daily with a higher concentration of the sanitiser. You will notice if you come to one of our tours on a Saturday morning that there is no smell from the dogs at all - this regime is the reason why. Healthy, safe and clean for your best friend. We have 30% of the roof area covered with acoustic panels made from recycled materials to reduce the noise inside and outside.

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