Every year, Darlington alumnus Chris Gaba (’81) and his dogs help educate children in grades K through 4 about bite prevention through Purina’s Bears World program.
“This nationwide program involves taking dogs into classrooms and teaching kids about them, specifically how and when they should approach. There is a video and coloring book, and it’s great fun,” he said.
Gaba has owned and trained dogs all of his life, but it was only after 14 years of working in marketing and advertising that he realized they were his career passion as well.
“As the national account manager for the Tenet Healthcare account, I was traveling four and five days a week – tough on home life and tough on my two dogs,” Gaba said. “In my travels, I started to notice the concept of dog day care popping up all over … The in-flight magazines always had articles on the latest and greatest trends, which were always something to do with dogs. I started to do some reasearch and made the decision that there was a need.
“I took the opportunity to visit and tour dog day cares from Montreal to San Francisco. I introduced myself and told people what I wanted to do, and they opened up to me and shared. I developed the concept as a collection of the best of the best and came up with Central Bark.”
The biggest challenge was making the decision to just do it, and once that was done, everything fell into place.
“The agency that I worked for, JWT (J. Walter Thompson) Specialized Communication was great to me,” Gaba said. “I resigned, and they actually kept me on for over six months. They helped with focus groups, demographics, media and feasibility studies. They were a tremendous help.”
The next challenge was finding the right location. Dog day care was not common in South Florida at the time. In fact, there was only one other facility, which was located in Hollywood. So in 2000, Gaba opened the first Central Bark Doggy Day Care in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Five years later the store has doubled in size, and the business has expanded to a chain of four stores and one franchise in Lake Country, Wisc., with Gaba receiving 10 or more inquiries per day on franchising.
“I think the most unique thing about Central Bark is our commitment to dogkind. We have developed a socially cantered program that is responsible,” Gaba said. “We take what we do very seriously, and we have a passion about it. This is evident in our safety records, our client retention and our reputation among the local veterinary community. We would never sacrifice the integrity of our program and the built-in safety features for volume. That’s what makes us different from any other dog day care program out there.”
Since the beginning, Central Bark has also focused on supporting America’s working dogs. Since World War II, Vietnam, Operation Desert Storm and today in Afghanistan and Iraq, America’s war dogs have prevented over 10,000 casualties, according to a recent press release issued by Central Bark to promote its Dog Bless America campaign.
Dog Bless America started after 9/11 in response to the many dogs that went to ground zero to help without adequate equipment.
“We raised enough money to put three vests on police dogs in Florida. We have since added the K-9s serving in the military after learning about the 4,300 dogs who served in the Vietnam conflict,” Gaba said. “After saving more than 10,000 American lives, these dogs were considered ‘useless armament’ and were either euthanized or left behind. Only 200 made it back to the U.S.
“That will never happen again thanks to a law passed by Congress in the year 2000. However, today there are 400 K-9 teams currently in Iraq and Afghanistan. They need our support.”
Central Bark Doggy Day Care has designed a tribute T-shirt that reads “Dog Bless America.” Proceeds from the sale of these shirts will provide care packages, K-9 cooling vests, collars and pads, K-9 boots, and bullet proof vests to the working dogs serving America.
So far, the effort has raised more than $3,000 this year. Monies will be presented to Atlas Guardian Angel Foundation and Operation Military Care K-9 on July 4, 2005.
Click here to order a shirt or to find our more information on Central Bark Doggy Day Care.
