There is one dog for every 10 residents here, and Eagle County dog lovers wouldn't have it any other way

Ruth Moon
July 16, 2008

A $19,000 bill might sound about right for a used car, a three-month vacation in Europe, or a semester at Harvard, but how about for a dog? After buying the puppy, that’s the average cost to raise a golden retriever-sized dog in Eagle County for the dog’s 12-year lifespan, calculated by Humane Society Director Char Quinn. That cost breaks down to include food, vaccinations and licensing, treats, toys and beds, training, boarding and medical expenses.

But the Vail Valley loves its dogs, and based on the number of dogs in the area, residents don’t seem to mind dishing out lots of cash for them. With a dog to human ratio of about one dog to every 10 people — Animal Services Director Natalie Duck estimated around 5,000 dogs in the valley, and according to the 2006 U.S. Census estimate there are almost 50,000 people in Eagle County — it seems the cost of having dogs isn’t deterring valley residents from buying them.

For many people, it appears dogs are a basic part of life around the Vail Valley. And the animals don’t get the short end of the stick, either. Quinn, who has lived in over a dozen states, said Eagle County is a great place to be a dog.

“People do a lot with their dogs (in Eagle County) compared to other places I’ve seen or lived,” Quinn said. “It’s very dog friendly.”

Business goes to the dogs
One thing Quinn has noticed is that more dogs go to work with their owners in Eagle County than other parts of the country. But even the dogs that stay at home can be spoiled in the valley.

For $40 per day, Walkin’ the Dog, a pet daycare business based in Avon, houses dogs whose owners don’t want them home alone. Walkin’ the Dog also runs a mobile service that picks dogs up from home, takes them on an hour-long hike, and drops them off again, for $30 per hike.

“Most of these dogs are spoiled; they’re all very well cared for,” Walkin’ the Dog owner Marisa Lahman said. Lahman started the mobile hiking business with her husband, Merrill, 10 years ago, and opened the daycare in 2002.

Lahman, who has four dogs, two cats and a cockatoo of her own, said she usually has 30 dogs at the daycare each day, and she’s boarded six or more dogs overnight. Overnight doggie guests stay at the Lahmans’ home.

“It’s like babysitting, but they don’t talk back and they just want to have fun,” Lahman said. “They hardly ever throw temper tantrums.”

And when the animals do throw temper tantrums, there are plenty of training classes available in the valley to help solve the problem.

Mark Ruark, who owns and runs Wags N Whiskers in Edwards, teaches dog training classes five days a week and trains hundreds of dogs each year. He teaches four puppy classes, a Humane Society class, and a socializing class each Saturday, as well as several private behavior lessons and drop-in classes for graduates.

Ruark said he sees a variety of breeds, some as exotic as the Nova Scotia Duck-Tolling Retriever, sold for $750 to $1,500, and the Cane Corso, which can cost as much as $2,000, according to dogs4sale.com.

“We do have a valley (where) people can afford to find the dogs that they want,” he said. “I do a ton of rescue dogs, mixed breeds – but we have a lot of novel breeds in the county.”

Ruark said personality, more than breed, endears him to specific dogs. The personality can make a dog easy or difficult to train, he said. He had job offers to locate his training and dog business throughout Colorado, but he decided to come to Edwards.

“We chose this place because there are no fenced-in yards; the dogs here aren’t isolated. They’re part of your family. That’s why I love it up here, because dogs are important” to people, he said. “And they are.”

Cordillera resident Carolyn Moorman was at one of Ruark’s recent puppy classes with Murphy, her 10-week-old Great Pyrenees puppy. Murphy is her third Great Pyrenees; her last dog died in December.

Murphy, already knee-high at the first class, is white, shaggy, and happy to meet new people. Fully grown, he will likely be around three feet tall and weigh close to 150 pounds. He belongs to a breed of French sheep-herding dogs known for their independence and occasional unwillingness to take orders from humans, according to the American Kennel Club. A Great Pyrenees puppy can cost anywhere from $400 to $1,000, according to www.terrificpets.com.

Moorman loves her puppy, but said he can be difficult to train.

“If you want an obedient dog, get a lab,” Moorman said. “(Murphy’s) got his own agenda. If you happen to fit into it, it’s great, but mostly it’s about him.”

Dogs put to work
But life isn’t all fun and games for valley dogs.

One of Ruark’s classes, the Saturday play session, also serves as a training session for dogs that will go into hospitals as part of the valley’s Pet Partners program. Pet Partners works with dogs to qualify them to work as companions in hospitals.

Gigi Lepley, a Homestead resident, has a two-year-old Newfoundland dog that she is training to serve as a therapy dog. The Saturday training session, outside at Freedom Park, teaches dogs to concentrate through maximum distraction.

“There are skateboarders, bicyclers, fountain running; kids want to pet them, and people ask about them,” Lepley said. “My dog is exhausted after an hour of that.”
Lepley has been training her dog Pearl since the Newfoundland was a puppy; the dog is just now getting old enough to handle the more intense concentration required of therapy pets.

Dogs in the class are distracted by both the environment and other dogs in the group.
“As an owner, my goal is to continually keep my dog’s attention and keep her distracted with me, with my voice, with treats,” Lepley said. “It’s pretty tiring to try to be the most exciting thing outside for an hour.”

Other domesticated animals, such as chickens, pigs and rats, can also be trained in the program. To qualify, the pet must have lived in the owner’s house for at least six months, and dogs must not have been trained to aggressively protect or bite.

To certify as a Pet Partners animal, the owner or trainer must complete a 12-hour training course with the animal, and the pet must pass a health screening exam and receive a rabies vaccination.

One dog that’s gone through the program – a yellow lab named Moose – visits elementary schools with reading programs, Lepley said.

Research has shown that the presence of pets relieves stress in medical situations, lowers blood pressure, and decreases rates of depression, according to a fact sheet distributed by the Delta Society, the umbrella organization for Vail Pet Partners.

There are 25 Pet Partners teams registered with the Vail chapter of the organization, co-founder Blondie Vucich said. She expects the group to grow in August, when she has another training session planned.

The teams go into the Vail Valley Medical Center, the Shaw Cancer Center, and Jack’s Place. Vucich said when teams go into the medical facilities, they hope to speed patient healing and cheer up stressed medical personnel and patients.

Vucich remembers one cancer patient in particular she visited with her partner dog, Murph. The patient had dogs at home but couldn’t bring them in the hospital, so she had been playing with Murph. As Murph was leaving, Vucich offered the customary antibacterial hand lotion.

“She said, I don’t want to put it on, all I want to do is smell my hands and think of home,” Vucich said. The patient died several weeks later.

Too many dogs?
That 10-to-one dog to human ratio in the valley can be problematic during tourism spikes, as much of the valley’s temporary housing is not pet-friendly, said Humane Society Director Char Quinn, who also is an animal protection agent with the Colorado Department of Agriculture.

The Humane Society doesn’t find many dogs abandoned after tourist season, Quinn said. They do have surges of dogs at the center at the beginning of seasons, when tourists looking for temporary housing can’t find pet-friendly places for rent. At least a couple of times each month, Quinn said she gets calls from residents or new arrivals who can’t keep their pets because of no-pet lodging policies.

Quinn, who investigates animal cruelty charges for the state in her role as a bureau of animal protection agent, said county residents generally take good care of their pets.
She has investigated 200 charges of animal cruelty in the last two years, 100 of which were dog cases.

One of the most recent animal cruelty cases she investigated involved a 15-year-old blind and deaf cocker spaniel that had been starved and not given medical care. The case was investigated as animal cruelty, but the owner was never identified and the dog was put down.

The Humane Society has euthanized one other animal this year, a dying kitten from a feral colony. Quinn said the Humane Society tries to treat medical issues and train out behavioral issues whenever possible.

Despite the housing issues, Quinn said dogs seem to be pretty happy in the Valley.
“Dogs have a great quality of life in Eagle County,” she said.


Ruth Moon can be reached at rmoon@vaildaily.com.