Pet day care welcomes shelter dogs

Kennel to house adoption candidates

BY JOHN WISELY
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Posted: Jan. 8, 2010

Tony Caruso runs a business to make dogs feel at home. Now, he’s helping them find one.

Caruso, who runs Camp Bow Wow, a premium dog care facility in St. Clair Shores, has opened his doors to the Michigan Animal Adoption Network, a nonprofit that finds homes for abused and neglected animals. Last month, the group lost its storage space at another facility because of an ownership change. That’s when, Caruso said, he thought he had to help.

“I can offer to do this,” Caruso said. “I can’t not do it.”

Caruso and his staff met over the holidays with Marie Skladd, the president of the network, and her team. Caruso already boards dogs from the Grosse Pointe Animal Adoption Society.

“The teams just immediately clicked,” Skladd said. “He’s fixed on assisting and benefiting the animals. He is doubling our space.”

The network deals with about 50 animals a day, though fewer than a dozen typically are boarded at one time. Most are kept in foster homes.

Caruso will house dogs awaiting adoption. He and his clients already have donated more than 2,000 pounds of food to the network. His first tenant from the adoption network, Murphy, a high-energy German shepherd, arrived Thursday.

“Murphy would do really well with a jogger or someone who could work out some of that energy out,” Skladd said.

All the rescue dogs kept at Camp Bow Wow will get the same exercise and care routine given to the paying customers. .

Caruso said that makes for healthier, happier dogs that will be easier to place in permanent homes.

Contact JOHN WISELY: 313-222-6825

or jwisely@freepress.com