The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Trio unleashes new pet day care in city
NEW HAVEN — Dogs of all sizes and breeds were playing, lounging, sniffing, slobbering — you get the idea.
It was open house Thursday at Paw Haven, a new pet boarding and day care facility in a very large, renovated space that decades ago was the building where trolley cars were stored when those existed in New Haven.
After sharing the care of a new puppy named Mia, the three owners said it wasn’t easy to find quality doggy day care nearby so their entrepreneurial solution was to create one themselves.
City officials, some with their own pets, and friends showed up at 1175 State St. to celebrate the event with tours and a rundown of its features.
“It is really a wonderful startup story ... of identifying in a marketplace where there is a need and a space that works,” Michael Piscitelli, economic development administrator for the city, told the crowd.
He saw it as an example of what can done with “some creativity and imagination in an old building” — assets or challenges, depending on your point of view — of which New Haven has plenty.
The business is owned by Jackie McFayden, who has had a career in sports marketing; her husband, John McFayden, a real estate developer who helped put together the nearby Corsair apartment complex; and Kevin Rocco, CEO of BioRez, a biomedical device company located in District New Haven, a home to new and startup businesses.
They also brought on Jon Nisula, who they said is one of only two certified professional animal care operators in the state, as general manager.
“John, Kevin and I have a lot of business experience, but Jon really meshes the team together,” Jackie McFayden said.
The 15,000-square-foot space, in addition to its boarding section, emphasizes its four play areas, three of which are directly connected to a fenced-in outdoor space, which, though the pets most likely don’t appreciate it, has views of downtown New Haven.
“It is important to us that we had open air. If you are a dog owner you want your dog to be able to be outside — they can roam from in to out. That was designed on purpose,” the co-owner said.
From the time they received approval for a special exception for the outdoor space, the actual construction took about a year, delayed somewhat when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, as they could only have one contractor at a time on the job.
“We adapted and adjusted,” Jackie McFayden said. “We just put one foot in front of the other” and kept going.
There is an admission protocol in which vaccine requirements are reviewed and the staff also gets a look at a dog’s temperament, followed by a test to see how well he or she gets along with other pets.
McFayden refers to some pets as “human-centric” and said as long as the dog is not aggressive with people, they will take them in, substituting staff play time for play with the rest of the canine clients.
“We place all wags of life,” she said.
She said the design of the facility puts the pet in the forefront, from the pastel colors to the vet-grade epoxy anti-microbial flooring and the dog-specific turf that is easy on their paws and has a large drainage system under it.
She said they paid a lot of attention to the HVAC system. “We wanted a really clean facility,” one that wouldn’t smell like a, well, kennel. The co-owner said they put in an air purification system called AtmosAir, which helps to eliminate bacteria and viruses.
For safety reasons, there are a series of gates in place in the facility. A pet would have to go through six doors to get out of Paw Haven. They also have two quarantine rooms, if an boarded animal were to become ill.
They have been open a few weeks and now have 17 dogs to care for, as well as three cats, and there also is a grooming service. They can take in more than 150 dogs. “Each week we are trending up. That is a good indication, we hope,” McFayden said.
Paw Haven is open seven days a week from 6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.
The owners said given the large number of health care workers in the area, they found there was a need for an extended schedule to accommodate their needs.
There are some 12 to 15 staff members, who are trained on Dog Gurus, an
Jackie McFayden, co-owner of Paw Haven, with friends and visiting pets at Paw Haven.
online course that focuses on animal behavior, as well as pet first aid.
McFayden said the staff it is a “nice eclectic mix” of college students and others with a variety of backgrounds, including the assistant manager who has a master’s of fine arts in creative writing.
“We wanted to make it a fun, safe place to work,” she said.
Nisula, who has been working in the pet industry for more than 10 years, formerly managed two Camp Bow Wow locations in the Philadelphia area
“I had an epiphany early on in my career . ... I love what I do, so I ran with it,” Nisula said.
Mayor Justin Elicker said the opening probably was
the most celebratory event he has been to in recent weeks.
“New Haven is a place where we obviously have many many challenges, but we are also incredibly resilient. For anyone to accomplish what you have accomplished during a pandemic and during the economic crisis that we are in, is amazing,” he told the owners.
He thanked them for their commitment to the city. “New Haven is a growing city. It is a vibrant city and your effort to help make that even more so, is something we are so grateful for.”