Hundreds of people, many with their dogs, attended the grand opening of the Barking Lot and Hair of the Dog in the former Kaskaskia college Workforce Center at 325 South Poplar in downtown Centralia over the weekend.
The business was the dream of Hannah Shores who had studied the operation of some similar businesses in St. Louis while working unhappily as an attorney in St. Louis. Her goal is to make the business the happiest place ever.
“We have the bar and a dog park as well. We ended up bringing turf out to the yard and put a drainage system underneath it and made it more pet friendly outside so it can be indoor to outdoor. If you go into the Barking Lot side, we have border, grooming, day care and training. We have kennels and dog beds. We have 40×80 yards that are all turfed for the dogs to be indoor and outdoor in the daycare area.”
Shores says there are 53 kennels and two private suites. She says there is boarding as well as doggie day care.
“They can bring them in for a full day or half day. A half day is before 5 hours. If you board here you get daycare included. So the dogs are sitting in the kennel all day, they are out and playing and its always supervised. The daycare attendants actually went through a lot of training.”
Shores says they currently have about a dozen employees, including one dog groomer. There is a second suite available.
Among those on hand for the Centralia Chamber of Commerce Ribbon Cutting and grand opening were members of the Centralia City Council and Mayor Bryan Kuder.
“I have never heard of anything like this. Having the Barking Lot and Hair of the Dog and having an establishment like this. So I started to do research and I found these facilities in Kansas City and St Louis, and I started looking at them and saw how successful they were. So both myself and the council put 100% support behind it. We think it’s a great idea and a beautiful facility.”
Shores was appreciative of the community support. She says lots of people had questions about what the business was all about, which is understandable since the concept is brand new to the area.
Here’s a photo gallery of the event from Pat Hodges: (click for full version)
