KEY POINTS:
Devoted pet owners are spending up to $150 a week so their pampered pooches won't be left home alone.
It's pre-school but not as we know it. Sure, there's nap time, and an array of educational toys.
There are paddling pools, music therapy, time out, and there's even a "nanny".
But it's dogs, not toddlers, that get dropped off at this central Wellington day care. And this nanny is a large black Newfoundland called Allie.
"She's just incredible with the little ones," says Paws in the City co-owner Julia Maiden. "The other day I went in and she was lying there asleep with a little Jack Russell curled up on her head like a hat."
Paws is one of a handful of doggy day care centres in NZ catering to increasing numbers of working professionals unwilling to leave their 'babies' at home alone.
It's the guilty parent syndrome, says Maiden: "A lot of our clients are people who don't have children.
"Their dogs are important to them but they work long hours and don't want to leave them alone for 8 to 10 hours a day, five days a week."
Empty nesters, who can afford to dote on their animals, are also using the service in increasing numbers.
Hayley Popplewell is a typical client. The foreign exchange trader drops her year-old Dachshund cross, Basil, off at Paws each Wednesday.
"I leave home at about 6.45 in the morning and often don't get back till about six at night, so this at least gives him some company."
Staff include a dedicated minder and a canine behaviorist, who is in the UK training in the latest must-do classes for well-rounded pooches.
