Dog Daycare Is Hurting as New Canine Illness Spreads

The dog daycare business is beginning to feel the effects of an outbreak of an increasingly common canine respiratory illness that has resulted in death in several cases.

According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, the exact number of canine infectious respiratory disease complex (CIRDC) cases seen by veterinarians cannot be determined with certainty because requirements for veterinarians to report CIRDC to their state animal health officials vary significantly. The same goes for cases that have escalated to become fatal.

However, cases have been confirmed in 16 states at this point. The state of Oregon alone has reported over 200 cases since mid-August.

Veterinarians are attempting to figure out whether the infections are truly "mysterious" and "new" or just a modern variation of existing illnesses brought on by such factors as a decline in vaccination rates or weakened immune systems due to the extensive time pets were isolated with their owners over the last few years. 

Experts have also expressed concern and uncertainty since the exact nature of the disease is unclear, and antibiotic treatments typically used for respiratory ailments like kennel cough are proving unsuccessful. 

Dog daycare and boarding centers in California, Iowa and Colorado are just a few of the pet service facilities that are seeing a decline in daily attendance as owners opt to keep their pets away from other pets as a precaution. 

Cheri Sparks owns Denver-based Big Dogs Daycare and Training. While she tells The Messenger she hasn’t had any reported illnesses, or even symptoms, among the dogs she cares for, business has slowed. 

During what is typically a relatively busy holiday season, Sparks has had days where 3-4 dogs attend daycare as opposed to the usual 25-30. There was even a day early this month when she had zero daycare dogs and only pets who were being boarded. Over Thanksgiving, 17 dogs boarded with her instead of the usual 45-50. She called those numbers “disheartening.” 

Sparks added she has had to lay off two of her employees and ramp up her own hours. State law in Colorado requires a ratio of one staff member per 15 dogs, and Sparks has not had a need for more employees than that minimum due to the lack of attendance. Her rent for the space is $10,000 a month, she said, and she is currently behind on payments. 

No Cheer This Year

“Christmas is a disaster,” she said of the current state of her holiday bookings. “Christmas is my biggest money-making time of the year. Normally, I can get through January and February, you know, tax time, with Christmas [profits].”

Over her eight years owning the business, Sparks said she has seen upwards of 50 dogs and as many as 85 over Christmastime. As of right now, a mere 14 clients have their dogs signed up for this year. The last time Sparks saw such a dramatic drop was during the pandemic. 

“I'm working 87 hours a week because I’m free. I don't know too many people that can sustain that," she said. "It's ridiculous — six thirty in the morning until seven at night by [myself], daily.” 

Gene Barash, co-founder and owner of Dog-E-Den in Los Angeles, told The Messenger that he also began to see a slight decline in attendance right around Thanksgiving. At the time, he said, the news of the illness was just starting to gain traction. 

Business was only a bit slower than it usually is during the holiday period. Many customers were already set in their travel plans and relied on pet sitters, so the few people who kept their pets home wasn’t yet cause for concern. 

However, Barash said, the decrease in dogs has gradually worsened in the weeks since, reaching what he estimates to be around a 50-75 percent decrease in the numbers of dogs at his facility on any given day. 

Dog-E-Den is not a ghost town, Barash clarified: there is still a group of clients with less flexible schedules who still depend on sending their dogs to daycare. Others who are able to spend time working remotely, or have options for less interactive pet care, have indefinitely paused or cut back on visits. 

Double Whammy

Part of the business model of a dog daycare and boarding center is that customers are investing in a mental, physical and social enrichment for their dogs, Barash explained. When that motivation is challenged by the notion that exposing dogs to one another might actually present health risks, the business becomes more difficult to sustain as time goes on. 

“For us, it's a little bit of a double whammy, where you rely a lot on the business that you generate from people traveling for the holidays, and bringing their dogs [to] you,” Barash said. “So you staff up, like we staffed up for that. You know, there's very likely going to be additional reduction in hours or workforce. And if you tell me right now that this is going to go on for the next five years, I'll tell you this business isn't going to make it.”

However, if this lack of business only continues for a few weeks and then picks back up, Barash doesn’t expect long-term detriment. The unpredictability of the exact danger of this disease, he explained, is the biggest challenge. It affects both the behavior of patrons and the ability of dog service facilities to provide owners with peace of mind that their dogs are cared for and safe. 

In Des Moines, Iowa, Corrine Graves owns 4Paws Unleashed. Both of her locations have gone from hosting 45 dogs or more to 30 on a daily basis. Clients on a regular schedule have been asked to alert the staff of any cancellations, and many have already decided to keep their dogs out for at least the rest of the year. 

“My North location has 65 kennels, and my Clive location has 50, and my Clive location had 20 dogs boarding [the weekend] after Thanksgiving,” Graves said, noting that this is typically a full weekend. “In the history of 4Paws, our weekends are full every weekend, even in December. And so that was pretty hard. We had to call off a lot of employees, and that's the part that really sucks about it — the employees losing their hours. And they're losing their hours right before Christmas.” 

Survival Threat

Graves has some business savings to keep things afloat and employees paid for a period, she said, but she needs to be strategic about making the money last beyond the next month. Because Christmas boarding stays fully booked, she’ll be able to sustain operations through the beginning of the new year. However, similarly to Barash, Graves admitted that consecutive months with a low attendance rate will likely pose a threat to the business. 

“It's kind of been harder than COVID to be honest, but we had the PPP [Paycheck Protection Plan] loans during COVID,” she said. “The government reached out to help, and we appreciated that. But we're not getting any of that right now. We've even looked into [whether] the government is going to step in at any point. They’re not.” 

Sparks, Barash and Graves all emphasized the importance of keeping open lines of communication with staff and customers regarding updates from the veterinary community and within their own establishments. 

That includes transparency about whether dogs might have been exposed to a sick peer; cases and symptoms that might arise in their respective communities; and the health and safety protocols being implemented within the facilities. According to these owners, their facilities have remained free of the atypical respiratory illness since the news broke. 

Surface cleaning only prevents spreading to an extent since respiratory diseases transfer through the air, which is why all of these businesses ask customers not to bring in their dogs if they are exhibiting any symptoms. Since dog socialization facilities often face airborne ailments like kennel cough to begin with, they prioritize their sanitation and air ventilation procedures. Graves said she even has a quarantine room with a separate HVAC system. This is where any dog exhibiting symptoms waits out their time at the facility. 

While working to figure out how best to treat the infections and keep them from becoming deadly, many suggest that owners try to keep their pets from coming into contact with others whenever possible in order to avoid potential transmission. This includes crowded environments like dog parks and daycare and boarding facilities.