After months of careful search, Stina found a spot she thinks will be ideal for our new venture, Scampers Daycamp for Dogs.

Doggy Daycare has become one of the fastest growing industries in North America for a reason: North Americans really love their dogs. They care for them as family members, and that includes everything from gourmet foods to matching designer collars, leashes, raincoats and carry bags. We understand that because we love our dogs too.

Stina’s beagle, Rosie, has benefited so much from her time in Doggy Daycare in Massachusetts, and when the Hughes family moved back to the Pacific Northwest, it was hard to find a doggy daycare near their new home in Redmond.

Well, we’ve decided to fix that for the residents of the east side of Lake Washington. Our ideal location is 1/2 mile from I-405 at Exit 20, easily accessed by commuters passing through the Totem Lake area heading toward the Microsoft campus.

Here we are in the location:

We could clearly see that this was a perfect shop and it also had a great (HUGE!) outdoor area, and it could not be better located for ease of access by our market.

Our next hurdles were: (1) Will the landlord accept our proposed use? and (2) Does the zoning of the City of Kirkland allow for our proposed use? With a call and a visit, we had positive responses to both, and so we set off on our project. But those are the next two stories.