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JAY CRIDLINPet resorts aim to ease separation anxiety and spoil their guests. And they do, with every perk but the fluffy bathrobe.
When Beth Daniels took off last week for a vacation in Virginia, she knew something had to be done with Peanut.
The basenji-husky-shepherd mix couldn't stay home alone. So Daniels reached for the phone, just as she has done for the past nine years, and called Almost Home Pet Resort in Valrico.
"Hey, we're going on vacation. Why shouldn't Peanut?" she said. "It's air conditioned, they play music - I know that they are going to be attentive."
Almost Home isn't just a kennel. It's a genuine hotel for animals, with laundry service, an in-ground swimming pool and, if you ask nicely, filet mignon.
It's also one of several eastern Hillsborough County businesses catering to pet owners who view luxury dog and cat care - once exclusively a big-city indulgence - as a staple of modern life.
"When you've invested as much time and money and love in a pet as we have," Daniels said, "you want to make sure that somebody out there is going to take care of my animal as well as I am."
Across the Tampa Bay area, the range of pet products and services - animal acupuncture, kosher kibble, parrot psychotherapy - is extravagant enough to placate even the most discriminating dachshund. Nationwide, owners spend more than $30-million each year on their pets, a sizable chunk of that going toward such luxuries as limo services, Louis Vuitton animal carriers and bottled dog water.
It's no surprise, then, that pet owners in eastern Hillsborough - a veritable animal Eden, with its parks, rivers and acres of agrarian greenery - have found themselves willing participants in pet couture.
Among the services offered by pet care businesses in the greater Brandon area:
- VIP suites, replete with miniature human-style beds and themes like "Country Dreamland" and "African Safari," for cats and dogs at Almost Home Pet Resort in Valrico.
- Housing units with televisions, aquariums and views of a frog pond at A Country Cat House in Riverview.
- Hydro massages, nail trimming and polishing, and cologne at Dogs and Cats Spa Inc. in Brandon.
"For a lot of people, their cats or their dogs are their babies," said Eileen Dalton, owner of A Country Cat House. "They're here to be pampered."
Author Warren Eckstein, the Today show's resident pet expert and host of a nationally syndicated radio show for pet owners, said it's no surprise people have begun to embrace a life of extravagance for their pets.
"People have always been kind of closet fanatics with their pets," he said. "I think right now, it's even okay for blue-collar people to come out and admit that they do these special things for their pets."
Barbara Valiente's Persian tabby Arthur is a frequent guest at A Country Cat House. It's worth the extra money to ensure her pet's happiness.
"He's so spoiled being there. They know him, he knows them," said Valiente of Brandon. "The first time I brought him home, the first time he stayed there, he came back very unstressed. That's very, very important."
Betsy Hicka was a flustered pet owner herself when she started the Almost Home Pet Resort 11 years ago.
"I had standard poodles, and I was a snob," she laughs. "I went to go look at kennels, and I said, "That dungeon! That dark place! That stinky place! I can't leave my beautiful show poodles in a place like that."'
The top pet hotels are more than just grassy areas enclosed by chicken wire. A Country Cat House is on the Daltons' picturesque 10-acre ranch. Almost Home looks more like a human bed-and-breakfast than a kennel.
Of course, B&B rooms come with B&B price tags.
- Almost Home's VIP rooms with music, ceiling fans and stuffed animals run $28 per night. Toss in a grooming session and extra playtime each day, and a weeklong stay for a standard poodle costs nearly $290.
- At Dogs and Cats Spa, dogs are cleaned in a giant automated tank that resembles a cross between a sensory deprivation chamber and a carwash. It can cost more than $80 to clean and groom some breeds.
- For about $12.50 per night, felines at A Country Cat House receive top-notch treatment, from football and NASCAR on in-room TVs - they like the constant motion, Dalton says - to a Butterball turkey on Thanksgiving.
- Owners who simply can't bear to send their pet away have another option: Hire a sitter to spend the night at their house. Paula Moore of Paula's Pampered Pets in Wimauma offers the service for $65 and up each night.
"Pets are part of the family," Moore said, "and you need to take care of them as part of the family."
Or, as Daniels half-joked, you can treat your pets even better than your family.
"After the first time I took Peanut and I saw the playground and air conditioning and classical music in the background," Daniels said with a laugh, "I asked Betsy if she'd keep my kid."
- Jay Cridlin can be reached at 661-2442 or cridlin@sptimes.com