Kelly Delk is not ashamed to say she spoils her 4-year-old beagle, Tanner.
Delk, 40, is single with no kids and has a good job as an operations manager for a brokerage firm, so she happily splurges when it comes to her “baby.”
“He’s the cutest dog in the whole wide world,” Delk said. “He’s a sweet boy and he is pampered.”
Tanner spends three days a week in doggie day care at Barkefellers, which is to pet boarding what the Conrad is to hotels. Opened in 2009 on the Southside, it offers massages and soft-serve doggy sundaes that go with an array of kennel choices. The most exclusive quarters, the $39-a-night presidential suite, gives dogs a flat-screen TV, private patio and raised bed. Mommies and daddies can look in on their furry companions online.
“I just felt like the bar needed to be raised,” said Barkefellers owner Rick Coffey. “We love our pets. We treat them like kids, and sometimes we feel guilty because we can’t provide for them.”
It’s a good time to be a haute dog in Central Indiana. Consider: Dressed in a $26 imported-wool sweater bought at the Choosy Pet in Zionsville, the discriminating dog can travel first-class — in a $200 designer carrier bought in Greenwood — to an acupuncture treatment in Broad Ripple. As a reward for good behavior, perhaps some ground whole muskrat picked up at a raw food pet store in Fountain Square, or a wheat-free “pupcake” at Three Dogs Bakery in Noblesville.
Over the past few years, luxury pet boutiques, bakeries, spas and hotels have opened throughout the metro area. The newest to the scene — Happy Dog Hotel & Spa in Carmel — treats its guests to Dead Sea mud scrubs and hot towel wraps, and scrambled eggs and “mutt-inis” for breakfast.
Americans spent nearly $51 billion on their pets last year, according to the American Pet Products Association. That’s more than they spent — combined — on movies ($18.5 billion), video games ($25 billion) and digital music ($5.2 billion).
And, many say, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Pets are good for their owners’ health and social lives. Animals have been used to teach autistic children to understand feelings and help Alzheimer’s patients feed themselves.
One Purdue University researcher believes this fascination with animals is hardwired into the human psyche and predates the time when our ancestors were painting buffalo on cave walls.
“If you think about how we use animals and what we do with animals, the outcomes are totally predictable,” said Alan Beck, director of Purdue’s Center of the Human-Animal Bond. “Anything that gets you exercise, gets you to relax and improves your relationship with others . . . you’re not surprised that it has health benefits.”
Bob Vetere, president of the American Pet Products Association, said the pet “humanization” trend has grown in the past decade, as more people work at home or spend the day isolated in cubicles. About twice as many homes in America have pets than kids.
“They are looking for something else to fill the void of human contact,” Vetere said. “People are really allowing pets to play a more and more important role in their lives.”
Market research suggests the trend is fueled by baby boomers who have reached an age at which their children are grown, Vetere said.
“Once the kids left, there was this huge emptiness,” Vetere said. “These are former helicopter parents that need to hover over something, and lo and behold, Fluffy is the beneficiary.”
People smirked, though, when Chris Strack opened her day-care center for pets 13 years ago. Strack’s Tender Loving Pets Doggy Daycare, 717 N. Capitol Ave., is thought to be the state’s first foray into what not long ago seemed an absurd business model. It was 1999, and Strack had trouble even getting a lease. “People thought I was joking,” she said.
A few months into it, she was hosting an average of seven dogs, at $14 a day.
But now the average weekday finds her and her staff watching over nearly 80 dogs. She charges $25 a day.
“Some of our relatives think it’s kind of funny what we do,” said John Daniels, a Meridian Kessler resident who regularly transports Obie and Jonah, a shih tzu and a shih tzu/miniature poodle mix, both rescued dogs, to Tender Loving Pets. “My parents think it’s funny. They think we really pamper our dogs. We had dogs growing up, and we didn’t even walk them. We certainly never took them to day care. Back then, you just let your dog go outside.”
While critics may snicker at the thought of shelling out money on dog day care or designer carriers, Beck said, those same critics have no qualms about spending thousands on their hobbies.
“Even though pet ownership is incredibly pervasive and wholesome and supports other social advantages, still, if you buy a cute collar or celebrate a dog’s birthday, it’s pampering,” Beck said. “But if you buy a new bowling ball or spend $24,000 on a golf club membership, that’s wholesome.”
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