This Dartmouth dog business has added boarding to keep up with demand. Why has it boomed?

DARTMOUTH — Johnelle Ciano — owner of dog grooming, daycare, retail and boarding business Emma Marie's — has been boarding dogs at her Mattapoisett location for 15 years, while the Dartmouth location stuck to "doggy daycare" for non-overnight stays, as well as the business's other aspects. However, that's about to change starting in July.

"Originally I wasn't going to do boarding at both locations just because it's a lot — it's 365 days a year," Ciano said. "But the demand has just gotten so high. We started getting, on average, I would say 25 calls a week asking if we did boarding in Dartmouth. So now we've transformed our nap room here into boarding suites."

So, what changed?

"We always had a waitlist for doggy daycare because everyone had work, and before COVID hardly anyone worked from home. Now everybody does, so a lot of those clients have gone from four or five days a week to one or two, maybe just for some socialization," Ciano said. "Then another change we've noticed is people are vacationing more since COVID, so the need for overnight boarding has gotten huge."

Since announcing the upcoming inclusion of overnight boarding at Emma Marie's Dartmouth location at 14 Ventura Drive, Ciano says about 48 reservations have already been booked for the summer.

Dog businesses have been booming everywhere

National data shows pet care services in general have been on the rise since well before COVID. According to an article published by the U.S. Census Bureau in February 2020, spending on pet care services like grooming, boarding, training and sitting — excluding veterinary and pet supply businesses — doubled to $5.8 billion between 2007 to 2017.

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"With over 100,000 pet care service businesses, this industry increased its number of establishments by more than 60% since 2007, for both employer businesses and self-employed (nonemployer) businesses," the article reads.

What is a dog's experience while boarded?

As part of a dog's boarding experience at either Emma Marie's location, Ciano says they get to participate in doggy daycare activities. However, it's not a must for dogs that prefer less social interaction.

"We do a lot of fun things and enrichment activities to get the dogs not only physically tired but mentally tired, so they're not so anxious when they go to their rooms," Ciano said. "We ask people to bring their dog's bedding if they wish, a favorite busy toy — maybe a bully stick, one of those puzzles, or a KONG filled with peanut butter."

Because all dogs are different, Ciano says dogs are catered to according to their personalities and needs. While staff's experience enables them to address most day-to-day issues easily, Ciano says they're not afraid to go above and beyond when the need arises.

Are some dogs too difficult to handle?

When it comes to hard-to-manage dogs, Ciano says staff's experience enables them to address most any issue with relative ease. She recalled only one extraordinary instance — but even then a solution was found.

"In the 15 years I've done this I've only had one dog that just wouldn't settle down. His sister had just passed away," Ciano said, referring to the owner's other dog.

To address that dog's unrelenting stress, Emma Marie's Manager Ashley Smith came in during her on-call weekend to sleep in the dog's room with him.

"The second you'd go in the room with him, he'd lay his head down on you and zonk out," Smith said. "He was so exhausted, but he needed that comfort of someone there to sleep."

No two dogs, or boarding facilities, are the same

If, during the consultation stage, a dog is determined not to be a good match for Emma Marie's, Ciano says she has no problem referring would-be clients to another setting she believes will be a good fit.

"We don't try to make people feel like they have to use us," she said. "People are shocked but we have a running referral list where I can say, well this other place is different in this way or that way; I think this dog would be good there."

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Even between Emma Marie's two facilities, one may be better suited to some dogs than the other. For instance, if your dog tends to be an escape artist, Ciano says Dartmouth may be a good fit with its abilities to contain dogs' wanderlust.

"After having the Mattapoisett one for 15 years, we learned a lot. So in Dartmouth two of our runs have an enclosed top. It's fully breathable but escape-proof," Ciano said. "We took into account the dogs we weren't able to board previously, like huskies that like to climb up crate fronts and things like that."

One-stop shop

Ciano says part of Emma Marie's being a "one-stop shop" — between its boarding, daycare, grooming and retail components — is that it creates opportunities for staff to develop a familiarity with the dogs they deal with. This can be especially beneficial during a boarding, Ciano says.

"When clients' dogs are already involved with us, it helps us because we know what they like, if they skip a meal we know if that's normal for them or not," Ciano said. "Even just from grooming you learn a lot about a dog."

To learn more about Emma Marie's grooming, doggy daycare, boarding, and retail services, call their Mattapoisett location, 19 County Road, at 508-758-8276; their Dartmouth location, 14 Ventura Drive, at 774-206-1019; or visit them online at emmamaries.com.

This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: Emma Marie's in Dartmouth adds dog boarding to services