The idea came to Michelle Latanski after volunteering to babysit a friend`s pet.
”You know, this could work,” Latanski thought, her entrepreneurial wheels spinning like a mad terrier on a linoleum floor.
The lifelong pet lover-she wanted to be a veterinarian, but couldn`t stand the blood or dying animals-researched the area surrounding her home in Orland Hills and figured she`d leap in and get her paws wet. The result is Pampered Pets, a pet-sitting service she operates with her parents and husband, David Latanski.
Latanski, 35, is a pet owner-three cats, one dog and two cockateels-so she knew what pet lovers wanted.
”People want to feel that their pets are safe,” she said. ”They want peace of mind. Pets are like family. People worry about them when they leave. With us, they know they can go away and everything will be the same when they come back. They don`t have to worry.”
Latanski is one of dozens of unorthodox pet services that have proliferated in the southwest suburbs in recent years. Pet taxi services, obedience colleges, dog bakeries, waste cleanup services, pet cemeteries and pet-sitting services are among businesses seldom found as little as a decade ago. There`s even a veterinarian offering an HMO for pets.
Has the world gone to the dogs?
Latanski doesn`t think so.
”We`re living in a different time,” she observed. ”People seem to care more for their pets these days, they see them as living creatures with feelings. To some people, their pets are their only friends and companions. They treat them like family. And you look after your family.”
Latanski offers more than just walking Fido and feeding Tabby. She administers shots and heats up broth to pour over dried dog food. She holds wriggling goldfish still for arthritic turtles and handspoons vanilla ice cream to a dog. She has served chicken soup to a persnickety parrot and cut out the crust for a dog that loved toast and butter in the morning.
She has been a pet-sitter for dogs, cats, birds, hamsters, rats, mice and fish.
”Some people want me to turn on the TV for their pets,” said Latanski, who speaks about her charges with a bemused motherly affection. ”I`ve had some clients ask me to sit with their cats on my lap and rock them or to put ice cubes in their water bowls. One woman asked me to set her Siamese cat on a heating pad twice a day. It was an 18-year-old cat-she expected it. Another customer has me fry up fresh-not frozen-hamburger and stir in microwaved rice. I have to bribe one dog with liverwurst. That stuff is nasty smelling. All my customers are looking for that extra inch of pampering.”
She said she takes her instructions seriously, even when they`re a little unusual.
”I can`t laugh when I get these requests,” she said. ”This is what my customers want. Sometimes it wouldn`t matter to the pet. But it makes the owner feel good.”
Rita Gehrke of Orland Hills, a social service worker, said she didn`t have the heart to take her two dogs, Fossey and Rose, to a kennel.
”Rose will only go to the bathroom on grass,” Gehrke explained. ”Not cement or pet gravel. She would rather not go, and have a bladder infection. She`s strong-willed. There`s something to worry about with each animal. I had some bad experiences with kennels. It just isn`t worth it. I just felt better having someone come to my house. It isn`t pampering my pets. It`s pampering me. I don`t know how other people do without it.”
Cat lovers feel the same way.
Susan Karr, an Orland Park advertising agency owner, said she didn`t want to leave her orange and white tabby, Bogie, in a cage while she went out of town on business.
”He definitely thinks he`s the king of the house,” Karr said.
”Michelle (Latanski) sends the same person to take care of him. I feel safe and secure. And Bogie seems much happier when I come home.”
Latanski said she tries to treat the pets she watches as if they were her own.
”We play with them, brush and tickle them,” she said. ”We give them real quality time.”
Her clients range from jet-setting executives to housewives on vacation, and from two-income families away from home for 10 hours a day to people who lack the heart to board their animals in a strange kennel.
Some of her clients have sent her thank-you cards from their pets-pawprints and all. ”It`s very rewarding,” she said.
In more ways than one. The number of pet sitters has grown so dramatically that a national organization has been formed. The 3-year-old National Association of Pet Sitters, or NAPS, boasts nearly 200 members around the country. NAPS` newsletter explores quirky pet behavior, lays out a code of ethics, examines pet ailments, reviews new pet products, like leashes, and recommends reading materials for pet sitters.
Deborah Inman of Homer Township, like Latanski, is a member of NAPS. Inman discovered the need for her Leave `Um With Ease Pet Sitting Service when she left for a three-week vacation last year.
”I had to find three different people to look after my pets and it was a hassle,” Inman sid.
Now she pet-sits for about 75 customers, from a hot-pink show poodle to horses and gerbils.
”One customer has an Oriental goldfish named Blue who can`t swim,” she recalled. ”So I have to handfeed it on the bottom on the aquarium. Blue nibbles right out of my fingers.”
Inman said animals, like people, grow into habits and, once set in routines, are loathe to change. Like most pet sitters, she learns the routines and eccentricities of her clients, the way they like their food cut up, the best place to pet them, their favorite tree. ”Some of them are just looking for a little love,” she said.
That love is hands-on when Kathy Bauer of Burbank goes to work. Bauer is a certified shiatsu therapist, practicing the Oriental art of acupressure massage.
She started practicing on her Royal Standard poodle Boo while studying shiatsu. None of her family members would volunteer for her deep-tissue massage.
Bauer said dogs have the same nerve network and feel pain in the same areas as people, so the massage is as effective and therapeutic on pets suffering from arthritis, muscle spasms and surgery recovery.
”I still have a practice with humans,” she pointed out. ”And I even serve some of their pets.”
Bauer said she eventually wants to develop a massage practice with horses. She said her business started to take off when pet owners and breeders heard about it.
”Dogs, of course, can`t talk. So I look at their eyes to see their reaction. If they wince and it`s too painful, I stop,” she said. ”But I know it`s working when their eyes get this glazed, mesmerized look and they go limp on me. And I`ve never been bitten yet.”
Even veterninarians have changed with the times. The Oak Village Animal Hospital in Oak Lawn has established one of the area`s first HMOs for pets, the Tender Loving Care Pet Health Program. Coverage includes office calls, hospitalization, X-rays, blood transfusions, certain lab procedures and dental care.
During this national health-care insurance crisis, it`s comforting to know that for an annual price of $79 (for dogs 4 months to 5 years old) or $98 (dogs 6-9 years old), pet owners can be assured that their animals are covered.
Beth Ray, a receptionist at Oak Village, said the 6-year-old HMO was the brainchild of the clinic`s founder, veterinarian Ron Bowen.
”He saw some people having problems with their pet insurance policies and said there has to be a better way,” Ray said. ”Seventy-nine dollars is a drop in the bucket for the protection of your pet. The HMO offers unlimited office visits. Those can cost $30 each.”
Ray said this service wouldn`t have worked 10 years ago.
”This is something new in our society,” she said. ”Pets have moved from outdoor guard dogs to indoor friends. They`ve become part of our family.”
