BRUNSWICK, Maine — When she opened Blue Dog Day Care in November, Meghan Osborne suspected business would be good, but she didn’t expect to have a full house every day.
“I don’t know if I thought we were going to reach the limit in the first two months,” Osborne said during an interview at the business, located in a former storage building on Allagash Way at Brunswick Landing.
Osborne and her three employees take care of 40 to 45 dogs every day. Owners drop off their dogs in the morning or have them picked up by Blue Dog’s taxi service, then collect them in the afternoon. Blue Dog costs $20 for a full day and $15 for half-day, with extra for added training.
She started with a strong client base from a previous dog-care business, but nearly half her customers learned about Blue Dog through word of mouth or after driving by on Bath Road and seeing the name of the business painted in big, blue letters on the side of the building.
The majority of her clients are working people who want to make sure their furry friends are getting exercise and socialization while they are away from home during the day, Osborne said.
The aim is to let the dogs romp around, get lots of attention and, if needed, get some training, Osborne said. While the experience can be overstimulating for some dogs, most go home tired and happy.
“It’s not for all dogs, but it is for most dogs,” she said.
A Harpswell native, Osborne trained dogs in Massachusetts for several years before she moved back to the area to open her own business in 2007. She named the new venture after Blue, a chocolate Labrador mix that lived with her for 15 years.
Osborne decided to make the move to Brunswick Landing last year. But with such steady business, she said she’s wondering whether expansion might be in her future.
During the coming months, Osborne hopes to add self-serve washing stations, rubberize the building’s concrete floors and upgrade the outdoor play area. The improvements are being funded through a $50,000 Community Development Block Grant micro loan.
Blue Dog Day Care is one of several animal day care businesses that opened in the area in the last decade or so, riding a wave of cash that Americans are shelling out to take care of their pets.
The American Pet Products Association estimates pet owners spent $58.5 billion on pet care in 2014. That spending included $4.7 billion on pet services, such as day care and boarding, a more than 7 percent increase from 2013.
Those numbers delight entrepreneurs like Osborne.
“It’s a good business to be in,” she said. “It’s never going to go away. People are always going to have dogs.”