HUTTO, Texas -- You drop them off for the week, choose what they'll eat from a laminated menu and set up a personalized schedule that includes swimming, nature walks and romping after a flying disc.
No, this isn't day care for the kids. It's summer camp with a decidedly doggy flair, and if you want your pooch to participate, you'd better book early. It's just one of the offerings at the Triple Crown Dog Academy, where canine aficionados are heading from across the country to board, train and show their animals.It's also a reflection of a national trend for owners to do more with their dogs. As Triple Crown owner Jerry Wolfe says, "Dogs that sit in the back yard all the time aren't as happy as dogs that do things."
With that, Wolfe glides by a refrigerator loaded with frozen snacks for dogs, past a shelf stacked high with plastic puzzles for canines and sweeps his arm out, showing off the $3.5 million, 360-acre spread 30 miles north of Austin, Texas, where dogs rule the roost.
The huge facility opened in April 1998 near Hutto, and it since has become a Central Texas hot spot for boarding and training as well as promoting competitive canine activities such as dog agility, flyball and schutzhund, a sort of Iron Dog Triathlon.
In agility competitions, dogs run an obstacle course consisting of tunnels, narrow bridges, jumps and a series of poles they must weave through.
In flyball, the dog is timed as it runs through a short course of jumps, hits a box that makes a ball pop out, grabs the ball and returns. In schutzhund, dogs compete in a series of tracking, obedience and protection events.
The academy offers classes and contests for dogs of all abilities in all these events, plus training for police and protection dogs.
Since it opened, Triple Crown has hosted almost 40 events, and the calendar is booked through next June.
In a day when some people bring their dogs to work and spend thousands on veterinary care, clients here have no problem shelling out $33 a day or $165 a week for summer camp. Boarding without all the extra frills is less -- $16 a night or $112 a week.
"We don't give them time to sit around and sulk and be alone," Wolfe said. "We know if the dog's having fun."
Just in case you're not convinced, clients receive a photo montage of their pet partaking in his or her favorite activities, a canine spin on the tradition of human campers sending letters home to parents.
Some clients ship their dogs to Austin on commercial airliners for summer camp or training. Employees then pick up the animals from the airport and transport them to the academy.
John Romaka, 55, a retired stockbroker living in New Mexico, sends his German shepherd, Lucky, to Triple Crown for schutzhund training. The posh digs are nothing new for the 80-pound Lucky, who has spent the night at the Renaissance Hotel in Austin and La Mansion on the Riverwalk in San Antonio.
"He's better behaved than most children you see at these hotels," Romaka said.
Romaka drove his 2 1/2-year-old purebred to Hutto in March and will pick him up this month.
Wolfe said he came up with the concept for the academy after a frustrating search for a place to leave his dog when he went out of town.
"I decided I was going to build a place I would board my dog, where he would have fun," he said. "I figured there had to be at least one other nut like me."
He bought the old ranch outside Hutto in September 1996 and quickly went to work creating a dog's -- and dog lover's -- paradise. The result is a place that pipes new age music and purified air through its 120 boarding kennels, which all have rubber-padded floors. There are event playgrounds and special jet-action massage showers, and Wolfe plans to add a special canine water park and a certification program for dog trainers sometime next year.
There's a climate-controlled, 32,000-square-foot event center, a lighted sports field, ponds for retriever training, a clubhouse and barbecue area, RV parking and a bathhouse for humans -- with a separate tub out back to scrub dogs.
"Everybody wants first-class accommodations for their dog," Wolfe said. "You're just seeing a total awakening to the human-dog relationship."
Some clients bring along favorite toys, blankets or snacks for their dogs. "One lady showed up with two suitcases," Wolfe said. "They were for the dogs -- full of toys and bedding."
Pamela LeBlanc writes for the Austin American-Statesman, Austin, Texas.