Owners check on pets using Webcams

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Appleton Post-Crescent

By Heather LaRoi
Post-Crescent staff writer


What pet owner hasn't wondered at some point or another what their animal really does once the humans split the scene.


At some area dog daycare and boarding centers, owners now can satisfy that curiosity.


Two Webcams constantly survey the play area at Bark Avenue, for instance, a dog daycare, boarding and training facility that opened in Appleton in December.


For owners, checking up on their pooch there is a mere click on the Web site away.


Yep, there's Rover trotting around sniffing at the fence. Checking out his companions. Woofing at a newcomer.


For Dave W. Rause of Neenah, the Webcams at Bark Avenue offer welcome reassurance that his two Weimaraners, Loki and Jones, are doing OK when he is not around.


"We travel a lot, but most hotels now have high-speed Internet access so we make a point of taking our laptop with us, and we can wake up in the morning and watch the dogs play and check on them," Rause said. "If you're kind of crazy about your dogs like that, it's a nice thing.


"(It's important) because you miss them. To be able to see them and make sure they're having fun, behaving and all that kind of stuff, it just makes you feel less far away."


For Trisha Young, owner of Bark Avenue, providing the online visual is simply a matter of meeting a need that she herself felt when boarding her pet.


"I always hated not knowing," Young said. "This way, seeing is believing. It's seeing that your dogs are out there, seeing that they're having fun … instead of calling up and having someone say, 'Oh, yeah, your dog is doing great.'


"It was always hard for me to leave my baby. The one thing I always thought is I'd love to check up on him. I'd like to see what's really going on. And now these folks can do that."


The doggy cams also offer undeniable entertainment value.


"We have a doctor who comes in and says, 'My nurses got nothing done today. All they did was watch my dogs,'" said Joan Kerr, co-owner of TailWaggers Doggy Daycare in Menasha, where the two-month-old doggy cams have been such a rousing success with clients that their Web site has to ask people to limit their viewing time to five to 10 minutes.


"We also have people send the Web link to their friends so we have people all over the country watching. We even have people in Turkey who watch us at night. They said it's better than television. Everybody just loves it."


Kerr also uses Webcams to check on overnight boarders.


For 13-year-old Kyle Holzwart of Darboy, the doggy cams at Bark Avenue have been much more than a diversion. They are also a lifeline of sorts, a tangible connection to Bullet and Parker, his beloved Australian shepherds.


Kyle is a patient at Children's Hospital in Madison, undergoing a stem cell transplant to help fight a brain tumor.


The hospital provided Kyle with a laptop computer to do homework, trade e-mails with family and friends or to surf the Net. One of his favorite pastimes, however, has been watching his dogs romp.


"Knowing that he might not see his dogs for months, he was devastated," said Nora Holzwart, Kyle's mom. "But the fact that they have a Webcam and we can watch them all the time is the next best thing to being with them.


"One day we saw our dog in the penalty box, where they keep them separated," she recalled. "I called Trish right away and asked what's happening. She said, 'Oh, you saw your dog in the penalty box. He was just fighting over a toy.'"


Kyle's dogs board at Bark Avenue whenever his mother is in Madison with him.


"This is one way of getting him out of that little crackerbox of a room," Nora said. "It makes a huge difference in this little boy's life."


The one thing doggy cams don't usually offer is sound.


"We thought about adding sound, but I don't know if anybody wants to hear all that barking," Young said, with a laugh.