‘Boutique’ dog hotel and day care opens in Dundee

A former Dundee mental health nurse has expanded her dog grooming business.

Mandy Grogan has opened a “boutique” dog hotel at the former Blackness Vets on Brook Street, after moving from her previous premises in Lochee.

The new location allows her to run the hotel alongside her well-established dog grooming business.

She told The Courier: “I worked as a mental health nurse for 27 years, before retiring in 2017.

“But obviously, I was too young to retire fully and I wanted to find something else to do and I love animals.

“I have four Shih Tzu’s and they all need grooming, so I thought I might as well learn how to do it.”

Mandy trained at Dundee College and started her dog grooming business Casey’s Groom Room in 2019.

Dundee dog hotel to ‘plug gap in market’

Since then, she has built a customer base in Lochee but decided it was time to expand.

Her new facility includes dog grooming, doggy day care and kennels for longer stays.

Mandy believes Barkers Doggy Hotel will plug a gap in the dog kennel market in Dundee.

The 60-year-old added: “All the kennels are outside Dundee, and there isn’t really anything in the city.

“I thought I could do this as I’ve got a lot of older customers who like to get away but struggle to find somewhere to put their dogs.

“My idea is that I know all the dogs and they trust me to look after them.

“It’s taken about five months to get the hotel how we want it, but we’ve had the grooming service open since summer.

“The kennel will be kept separate as the hotel clients need to have all their vaccinations up to date – I can’t let the dogs from the groomers mingle.

“The dogs will have their own room and will get three walks a day.

“The kennels are like a boutique place for them – a funky hotel for the dogs.

“When you book a hotel, you want it to be nice, but you want the dogs to go somewhere nice.”