Bubble baths are underway. Dinner is made to order. The daily itinerary? Naps, training sessions and facials.
Outside, a happy pack tears around fenced-in play areas as staff keep watch from offices overlooking the grounds. The guests are dogs. And this is their country escape.
On a sunny afternoon at Far Fetched Acres in the Hudson Valley, one eager pup worked through a training session while others mingled in thoughtfully matched playgroups.
Inside the custom-built, 10,000-square-foot postmodern barn, lavender-scented air sets the mood. Each dog has a personalized cubby stocked with food, medications, toys and detailed instructions from home.
The menu is just as tailored. Alongside provisions brought from home, the camp serves special treats such as rabbit fur and dried mackerel.
Spread across 127 acres, the retreat gives city dogs room to roam, play and get gloriously filthy. Their parting gift? A much-needed bath before heading home.
Forget the doghouse. New York’s most pampered pooches are checking into country retreats where chauffeurs, gourmet meals, personal trainers and five-star pampering make every getaway the ultimate dog’s life.
A 2023 Pew Research Center survey found that 51% of dog owners consider their pets as much a part of the family as human relatives. With owners shelling out eye-popping sums to give their four-legged family members the good life, it’s clearly a dog’s world — and the humans are just footing the bill.
At Far Fetched Acres, off-peak boarding starts at $125 a night, while intensive puppy and training programs cost as much as $250 a day, founder Colleen Safford told The Post. For some frequent-flying clients, those costs add up to more than $100,000 annually for their dogs’ stays.
And if dog owners are shelling out that kind of dough, it’s no surprise that Safford has received some remarkably specific requests, including hand-feeding their pups an exact number of freeze-dried kibble pieces
But when pampering clashes with a pup’s preferences, the dog wins. “Sometimes what humans consider spoiling isn’t what a dog actually enjoys,” she told The Post. “The dog is our primary client.”
In New York, that primary client might have a chauffeur, a designer wardrobe and living quarters that put many human residents to shame.
Just ask Seth Cooper, owner of Roam Camp, a “rustic” boarding retreat in northeastern Pennsylvania where city pups trade apartment life for 50 acres of fenced play areas, wooded trails, a swimming pond and even a trout stream.
After a day of outdoor fun, they can kick back in a farmhouse with couches and beds.
Rates vary depending on the length of stay and number of dogs, starting at $450 for four nights and five days. A weeklong stay for two dogs can cost a little over $1,000, including transportation and a bath.
Although these visiting pooches are looking for a break from the concrete jungle, some come from rather grand digs.
Cooper recalled one Financial District client whose owners bought the apartment next door and connected it to their own, giving the dog a space of its own where it spent much of the day.
“If the owners were at work when we picked up, we would go into this dog’s private apartment and just snap the leash on,” he recalled.
While some pups stay for a few nights, others settle in for months.
One client recovering from back surgery paid about $5,000 a month to board her two large mastiffs at Roam for roughly six months, Cooper said. The dogs had separate accommodations, bringing the total bill to more than $30,000.
For Chelsea resident AJ Johnson, Roam offers something her 6-year-old rescue, Juna, can’t get in the concrete jungle: the chance to feel “real earth under her paws” and run free.
It’s not cheap — $2,000, to be exact. But Johnson considers it money well spent. She’s even been known to plan her own vacations around Roam’s Monday and Thursday shuttle schedule.
“I love letting her go and be a dog for a while,” she said. “She’s having fun while I’m having fun.”
In Fort Greene, Brooklyn, Mollie Zalman’s two Labradors, Pedro, 9, and Paloma, 3, need little coaxing to head to their country getaway.
The moment they know their belongings are being packed, “They sometimes wait for hours [by the door], tails wagging!” she said.
Depending on her travel schedule, Zalman spends roughly $15,000 a year boarding her dogs.
A weeklong stay for both runs a little over $1,000, including transportation and a bath; a recent three-week visit cost her just under $3,000. She also shelled out about $3,500 for Paloma’s two-week residential training program as a puppy.
“I am pretty certain they would beg to move to Roam Camp full time!” she said.
For dogs who prefer a day trip to an overnight stay, Concrete to Creek offers city pups a ticket to the great outdoors. The New York City dog adventure service picks up pups for small-group nature outings beyond the city, then delivers them home the same day.
Founder Nick Viscomi takes the dogs on four-mile hikes, spending about three hours on the trail before giving each pup a wipe-down and tick check before they head home.
The adventures don’t come cheap.
Viscomi told The Post that his highest-spending client shells out about $1,100 a month for three hikes a week.
Not every dog wants to rough it on a group outing or shuttle bus to the countryside. Some prefer a private car — preferably with a driver.
Elliott Levenglick’s Pet Cab chauffeurs dogs to country camps and other destinations across the Hamptons, Connecticut, New Jersey and upstate New York — and sometimes even farther.
He’s driven pups as far as Michigan and northern Maine, with pit stops for water, exercise and bathroom breaks along the way.
Expectedly, the VIP treatment comes at a price.
Trips start at $315 to the Hamptons, $175 to Greenwich and $295 to the Hudson Valley and upstate New York, Levenglick said. Some passengers even arrive with luggage and accessories from Tiffany, Goyard and Hermès.
Beyond domestic travel, Pet Cab also provides door-to-door transportation for pets traveling internationally. When requested, the company’s employees will accompany a pet, or several, overseas.
Levenglick told The Post that some of his employees once escorted two Shih Tzus from Manhattan to Switzerland to join their owners on a ski vacation. The company also shuttles pets to and from Teterboro Airport. And because commercial airlines don’t allow pets in the cabin on UK routes, “many Pet Cab customers flying to the UK choose pet-focused charter flights,” Levenglick said.
For some owners, though, luxury transportation is just the beginning.
Former NFL player Mitchell Marrow has seen firsthand how far people will go — and how much they’ll spend — to pamper their four-legged family members.
Marrow, a former owner of Spot Canine Club, a New York City pet-care business offering daycare, boarding, training, walking and grooming, recalled a famous actress and singer who entrusted him with a rotating roster of six to eight French bulldogs.
“She would take one and leave the rest,” Marrow told The Post. “She would rotate them in and out.”
Basic care for the canine entourage ran the star about $15,000 a month, he said. With additional training, transportation and other services, the bill sometimes climbed to $25,000 or $30,000.
“We would transport them from her to wherever she wanted them to go,” Marrow said. “We were like a pied-à-terre of sorts for her dog menagerie.”
But spoiling a dog isn’t just about how much owners spend — it’s also about their lifestyle. While some pups love romping through the countryside, others prefer a little city glamour.
Chimi, a 6-year-old Chihuahua owned by New Yorker Montina Hardesty, is “more of a city girl” than an outdoor adventurer, her owner said.
When Chimi travels, she brings a suitcase packed with outfit options for every day, plus bows and accessories. Her wardrobe includes six cashmere sweaters priced at about $175 each, a Tiffany & Co. bracelet worn as a necklace and custom seasonal dog bags costing upwards of $500 apiece.
“She’s probably better dressed than I am!” Hardesty admitted.
And for some dogs, the high life is less about the wardrobe and more about the social calendar.
Linda White’s Pomeranians, Lala and Darla, have social calendars of their own.
They travel with her between Massachusetts, Florida and New York. When they can’t tag along, White hires a sitter. In NYC, she even has a driver who stays with the dogs in the car while she runs errands.
Their Florida birthday bashes are no ordinary dog parties: Think Arabian Nights gowns by canine designer Anthony Rubio, a mermaid in the pool, and hula and fire dancers entertaining humans and dogs alike.
White spends at least $10,000 on the annual birthday bashes and another $5,000 a year on Rubio’s designs. Private grooming appointments run about $250 per dog every four weeks. Exercise, however, is another story.
“They barely want to walk,” White told The Post.
“My dogs go from designer gowns to bathing suits, have standing private spa appointments and eat organic…There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to give them the best. It’s a dog’s life. The rest of us should be so lucky,” she added.
