There are dog watchers, dog walkers, dog hotels, and dog salons, but when you just need to keep your pooch pal outside of a store for a couple of minutes while you run an errand, do you resort to the old “tie the leash to the parking meter” technique? A startup in NYC is betting that you’ll be willing to pay for the convenience of stashing your dog in a “curbside kennel” while you shop.
It’s called Dog Parker and it is currently being tested outside a Brooklyn eatery. CBS New York reports that there’s a $25 membership fee that gets users access to the temperature-controlled doggy lockers (three different sizes) for twenty cents a minute.
The company’s founder says that she follows the same sanitation rules as doggy daycares and that the kennels are cleaned regularly.
What’s a bigger concern is that bad dog owners would abuse the system as a way to cheaply stash their dog for hours at a time. While many dogs might be okay with spending hours in a locked crate on a New York City sidewalk, others may not handle it so well.
The founder says the kennels are intended for short trips, but that stays are limited to three hours. If the dog is left longer than that, they are taking to a boarding facility where owners would have to pay an additional fee to retrieve their furry friend.
by Chris Morran via Consumerist