The Crate Escape in Lawrence Park is expanding their services and adding a secondary location.
Kyrie Laubenthal’s The Crate Escape, located at 4214 Main St. in Lawrence Park, has signed a year-long lease at $575 a month to overtake the space of the former The Park Coffee & Bread Co. at 4007 Main St.
The space will now house a secondary location for Laubenthal’s pet grooming, daycare and boarding business.
The Crate Escape aims to create a cat-based offshoot offering grooming, boarding and the crisis comfort program for cats exclusively.
This program, according to their website, “…was created to provide temporary care for pets whose owners are facing challenging situations, such as mental health crises, homelessness, or rehabilitation.”
“Cat boarding is always something I wanted to get into,” said Laubenthal, owner of Crate Escape. “I am a cat person at heart and I wanted to offer a cat only area so … there’s no stress on dogs, no interruptions or chaos. We’ll still do regular enrichment like what we do with the dogs here, but we won’t dress them up as much. It will be pertained to cats and what they like to do, like cat toys and catnip. There will be a television … so they can watch tv.”
Laubenthal said she hopes to have the new building ready by May. For now, she is picturing a space set up as a catio style with boarding along the walls, a play center and grooming area in the back.
Along with the new location, Laubenthal’s business is offering a new service: a low-income grooming program.
She said she had the program in mind since opening the Crate Escape, but never found the time or support.
Now, with a full-time groomer on staff, Laubenthal has the time to focus on starting the low-income grooming program.
“A lot of people think that pet grooming is a luxury, but we saw during COVID when everything got shut down that pet grooming is an absolute need,” Laubenthal said. “The dogs’ toenails could curl into their toe pads and it’s just something that is a necessity, yet not a lot of people can afford the $100 grooms.”
The low-income grooming package could include a basic necessity groom with a clean hygiene cut, nail trims, ear cleaning, a brushout and more. Services will depend on the animal’s needs.
To qualify for the grooming package, customers will need to show proof of hardship with government assistance or disability or SSI.
“It wouldn’t be anything different than what a low-income program would ask,” Laubenthal said.
“It’s affordable and just one length over so that way they’re still clean and maintain healthy (coat),” Laubenthal said. “If people don’t get their dogs groomed it can turn into several health issues including joint pain, matting which could trap moisture under the skin and get infected.”
The price of the service will be based on the size of the dog. Small dogs such as a shih tzu, for example, will be 45% less than what is normally charged. Their normal grooming packages start at $35 for small dogs and go higher depending on the size of the pet and types of services such as severe matting.
Once grooming is done, owners are given a 15-minute alert. If an owner is unable to pick up their pets for over an hour, they are charged a daycare fee of $18 for the day.
“Very seldom do we enforce the daycare fee unless the owner drops off the pet at 7 or 8 a.m. and does not pick them up until 4 p.m.,” Laubenthal said. “But they are aware of the fee.”
The earnings from the crisis grooming program will benefit the crisis comfort program for pet owners who are in need of an emergency pet boarding services.
“Since I’m the one who is doing the grooming and I own the business, all the money that we get from this will be donated to the crisis comfort program,” Laubenthal said. “It would be no different than a dog groomer donating her time. It will go toward the crisis comfort program so we can expand on that and help more people.”
Contact Nicholas Sorensen at nsorensen@gannett.com.
