The Glencadia Story

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Out of Brooklyn, 2005 to today, the back story to Glencadia Dog Camp from the founder’s point of view

Glencadia Dog Camp, a country getaway for NYC dogs, emerged in 2006. “Emerged” is about right. There was never much of a plan, per se, but it wasn’t some kind of chaotic accident either. This summary of who and what we do could use some rounding out, and this article covers the basic outline of the business from the owner’s point of view (me, Will). But if you want to skip this narrative and see funny videos of dogs, Glencadia.TV might be more up your alley.

From Brooklyn to the Country

After living in NYC for 14 years, my wife and I, with our small son, decided to move from Brooklyn, Park Slope, to Columbia County, NY. It wasn’t that we didn’t like Brooklyn anymore or that having a baby was the critical factor… we just wanted to try something else, and maybe felt a bit trapped in the city.

Moving to the country, we made mistakes. We were naive: surprise!

We had spent a year in Hawaii before we moved upstate. We gave our unstoppable Buick with a defective paint job to Leslie. Kauai, don’t get me started… sighing a lot.

Back in Brooklyn a year later, at the time we had two dogs and I loved going early in the morning to a hill in Prospect Park where I could let them off the leash and jog around — no one was there, literally no one ever at 6 AM. With our great Honda, we went to Far Rockaway in the fall when the crowds were gone without the long train ride. Whales! We could get somewhere like Fahnestock State Park in a bit over an hour. None of those things really had a lot to do with the city, so maybe it was time to try something else. Something like that I think.

After exploring the counties on the other side of the river, Aenne read a bit on the side of a Hawthorne Valley yogurt container about this area; more open fields over here, the hills are not as high and the woods aren’t as deep at the western side of the river. At the winter festival in Philmont in a gentle snowstorm, we decided to go for it.

A lot of this story is recounted in a book, Twelve Years Under Two Maples. It’s getting close enough to another 12 years and another volume might have to happen pretty soon.

After some bouncing around, we settled into a 1790 house on 20 acres in the town of Stuyvesant. It turns out that we were naive: surprise! We should have done more research on schools, town codes, cultures, and all kinds of issues, stuff that turns out to matter more than we thought. But nope. We saw it, thought it was beautiful, bought it and here we are now.

In the city, our dog Moritz was our favorite. Pippi was great but she was a handful. She followed Leslie home from Fort Greene Park in about 1997 or so, covered with ticks and missing most of her fur. We took her in, and got her to eat without growling (that was rough). Still, she scared the bejesus out of the FedEx man and had WAY too much energy for an NYC apartment. Mortiz was cool and mellow, played with baby (Pippi ran away and hid from the baby), a nice easy-going dog.

Then we moved upstate. Moritz killed all our chickens and became a relentless hunter. Pippi on the other hand mellowed out and kept an eye on the place like she had gone to the town hall and researched the property maps. If she knew someone was supposed to be at the house, she didn’t bark. But if she didn’t know them she made them stay in the car until we told her it was okay. She chased foxes away and stopped horses from leaning on posts. Pippi worked all day and was an angel. Moritz became impossible. The house dogs here at Glencadia all have different relationships with the visitors. Gustav was aloof.

One day here in the Falls I saw a woman in a sari pulling a shruti box down the street on a cart. I thought, “What a great little town we stumbled into. This feels like Ann Arbor in 1987.” But I never saw anything like here that again, sadly. It was a one-off.

Since being completely ignorant, doing no research, and taking the plunge without too much banter and rancor worked out great for us, my only advice for anyone thinking of trying some kind of life-altering move like that for themselves, including more specifically someone from Brooklyn or NYC thinking of moving to the Hudson Valley, is, well, you have to know. I can tell you a lot of things, but you might be better off not listening to me since I’m not you and life is pretty random, so, it’s kind of hard to say anything at all.

Our house and barn are kind of perfect for a dog camp — great historic barn, far from any neighbors, zoning allows dog businesses, etc. But we thought not at all about any of that when we bought the property since we had no intention of doing a dog business at that time.

Starting a Dog Business

We moved in and I kept on doing design for trade book publishers in the city. Brainstorming, I did think that if you could pick up dogs in Park Slope on Thursday and Monday evenings, people would like it. Almost twenty years later, and the schedule has never changed. After months of occasionally mentioning the idea to Aenne, she said, “Well, if you want to try it, go ahead and do it.”

Glencadia was the name of Stuyvesant Falls up until some time in the 19th Century, so I used that name. Peter Stuyvesant was the villain in the Flushing Remonstrance and we really shouldn’t be naming things after him. [Henry Hudson also shot two Indians for no reason, just for sport, so we probably should rename the Hudson River the Mohican name, Muh-he-kun-ne-tuk (you can remember that as “My Man Connie Tuck” by the way).]

Anyway, Glencadia: a great name. Chris Bortugno forgot to re-register glencadia.com and I got it. I handed out cards in Prospect Park. That’s all I did for many years afterward to spread the word. Then, in my old station wagon (the Honda went to Eric when he moved from Rwanda), I used only one room in the back of the barn that was already set up. At the time, there was no good GPS system so I was scared to try Queens and stuck to the areas I already knew well, Brooklyn and Manhattan. After a few years, I thought I had a lot of experience. Now, of course, this period from 2006 to 2009 looks embryonic, but at the time I thought it was all so noteworthy I wrote a humorous book about dogs. Or trying to be humorous, if you will.

There are other hints of this period around. This blog and this blog are places I can no longer access and update, as the move to Google email didn’t happen until 2010. This page has some great old videos that bring back bitter-sweet memories.

From the beginning, I meant to build a place where dogs can be dogs. They are “furbabies” as they aren’t babies. They would be competent adults — except they live in a human world. Glencadia is a small corner of the world that is not for people. Here, they can do stuff that dogs rarely get to do in the amount of time they would like to do these activities… without being told no. We let them play. We always have and we always will. Others may fake play to make things simpler for the humans.

The Dog War

From 2010 to 2012 the Dog War raged. The Dog War should be its own book and a documentary (with plenty of video from the time!). There isn’t really a category of experience into which anyone can really fit this event. Every time someone moves it’s a new story, all marriages are different, and every birth leads to a new unique individual, yet they are “relocations,” “births,” and “marriages” are definable by type. This is more of WTF type of experience.

This was a before/after experience. But what else was it?

If I had to write a headline covering three years of legal battles, town hall meetings, stalking, and vandalism I guess it would be, “Government Officials Leverage Hostility to Newcomers to Launch the Petty and Pointless Conflict Intended to Obscure their Larceny but Achieve the Exact Opposite at Great Expense Leading to an Unsatisfactory and Confusing Conclusion for Everyone Involved.” If I get into depth about the Dog War here in this story, it would distract from the overall narrative. Even during the two or three years of the Dog War, other stuff was happening, and that period only represents three years out of a total of almost 20 years or so, depending on when you start counting. But once I start… I should try to keep as short as I can without missing some salient points.

Basically, I got a permit to run Glencadia in 2009 after operating for three years. I didn’t know I needed a permit to operate my business until I tried to do some other business before the town planning board, thinking I was before the zoning board, ignorant as I was. I paid the town’s attorney Tal Rappleyea $437.50 — which is entirely illegal and documented on tape and with paperwork. I paid because I thought I had to get the permit but it was nothing but graft.

After I paid the kickback, the zoning officer started prowling around to see if he could get something too. He didn’t know that a dog business was operating for three years but after I applied for a permit, all of a sudden, he smelled cash. He made up a noise complaint violation when no one had in fact complained in 2010. Scary certified letter. He then suggested it would be cheaper to come into his office (with maybe some cash?) than build a more substantial fence.

I chose to build the fence. So he sent more noise complaints in 2011. Now, he actually needed someone to complain, so he convinced a neighbor to complain to him in person. Never mind that the same neighbor had written a letter of support for the dog business in 2009 and that all complaints have to be in writing according to the zoning law. I have a recorded conversation with the same neighbor from the time in which he says, “the dogs don’t bother me — you are so far away.” Basically, this couple seemed to me malleable, and as Gerry Ennis, the zoning officer, had already issued two complaints, he had to get someone to agree to complain.

At this point, I decided to FOIL request (Freedom of Information Law) the invoices for the attorney, Tal Rappleyea. My goal was to see what happened to that $437.50 from 2009. However, when I added up Tal’s invoices for 2009, the town of Stuyvesant paid Tal $10,000 more than he billed, so it was impossible to reconcile anything.

I innocently wrote to the supervisor of the town like a dope, “Dear Ms. Bertram…. Did you know that you gave the attorney an extra $10,000 of the taxpayers’ money?” Well, yes, she did know, as there is some kind of deal between the supervisors and municipal attorneys all over this county. I would later find out that the town of New Lebanon paid their attorney $25,000 for 45 minutes of work.

Well, this FOIL crap got Tal hot under the collar and he and Gerry Ennis came after me full steam ahead. The town of Stuyvesant ended up hiring the biggest law firm in the area and spending $250,000 to try to punish me for sending FOIL requests and operating a blog. I have a lot of posts on the blog about this. Later the town lawyer ginned up more complaints, but the number of people who got behind us and came to hearing after hearing to support us was humbling and beautiful. The whole “us versus them” thing didn’t work out, as long-time residents were extremely supportive.

But writing a lying letter to hurt your neighbor based on the solicitation of a town official is about as squirmy behavior as possible. Two or three people dutifully compiled with the authorities. Everyone else declined, with most people watching a clear injustice from the sidelines, as you would expect with human beings.

In the end, there were three lawsuits, and I won them all. I defeated Columbia County in appeals court. I defeated the Town of Stuyvesant once and twice. In the meantime, we had stuff like this too. And then this weird thing. If you are wondering what I was doing to make him so mad, it was this.

Anyone who thinks I might be exaggerating should definitely click this article in the Albany Times Union and read this decision. More details and videos are scattered around my old blog. I might also suggest this article. Or you can read more here or here or here or here.

I didn’t lose — I won my cases and now they leave me alone. But municipal attorneys are still out there stealing and going to get pensions for no work. Someone with a badge, some determination, and half a brain (and maybe some political ambition?) could still blow this county open in about a week. It’s no Costra Nostra: they would rat each other out in record time.

When I moved to the country, I knew I had a lot to learn. Beekeeping, horses, sheep, cutting wood, those are the things I expected to learn. Instead, it turned out I learned about zoning, planning, FOIL law, filing an Article 78 suit… In NYC, you have to work pretty hard to piss off the government and have them notice you. Up here, apparently, a couple of FOIL requests can do the trick.

Well, by the end, it was WAY more than a couple. Who do you know who won a FOIL lawsuit against a county on appeal as a pro se litigant, hmm? Anyone? It’s not that normal, I’ll admit. And I was to tired of it that I left that incriminating box of hard-earned documents festering in a corner… since no one seemed to care about rampant and widespread corruption, including the comptroller and FBI.

I decided to try other vocations. I wrote a novel — two of my friends thought I was a genius! Or at least they were kind of enough to say something like that anyway! (That would sound pretty bad as a blurb on a book cover right? “Some of my friends liked it” isn’t great copy…) I homeschooled my kids. That book was just one of many great projects. I painted as usual. More of that here. Managed to record a single do a show at the Detroit music awards. Buy it here. Do I mention this? We went to Ethiopia to adopt our daughter, which is another book (or not). That was before the Dog War and maybe related.

Expansion

We’re now rolling into about 2016 or 2017 or so. Glencadia coasted along with Leslie (as of the Buick and Pippi), Vern, Gary, Amy, and me working part or full-time for years. I drove to the city when my three, now four, kids were small and that was exhausting. Not too many dogs, not too many employees.

I remember when we lost water when the spigot froze in the barn one time and I had to haul buckets from the basement of my house for the dogs. I had driven the night before and was exhausted. I thought, “Just let me lean up against this snow drift and rest.” I fell asleep in the bitter cold leaning on a snow drift.

I was not doing small business right. It should not be that hard. That snowdrift business is some Little House on the Prairie crap I don’t need.

In 2018, I was just about to delete an email that looked like spam when Aenne saw it and said I should read it, that it looked like something important. Turned out to be a guy trying to build a franchise of dog boarding facilities. I followed up and I am glad I did. While that partnership eventually ended as the model he was working with had some basic contradictions (in my opinion), seeing how a business is supposed to work, with debt, advertising, hiring, etc. was healthy for me.

Starting in with that email I didn’t delete, we redid a side of the barn with AC, central heat, and concrete floors, insulated the entire barn, rebuilt the fences, bought three Mercedes Sprinter vans, and went up to 16 employees. Now, getting old myself, I started to act like a more normal small business person, or closer to how many of them work.

In 2022 and 2023 I have been working on a brand new app. Most small businesses do not have something like the subtle and powerful system we have, with AI photo recognition, individual galleries, integrated SMS and VOIP… it’s not a small addition to the Glencadia story. Here is another article on the AI.

We have always gotten into videos around here. We have done some contests and themes. We have a theme song too! You can see some select videos here.

Rain

In 1841, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in Portland, Maine wrote, “Behind the clouds is the sun still shining / thy fate is the common fate of all / Into each life some rain must fall / Some days must be dark and dreary.” You can be pretty proud of your verse when it gets turned into a cliche — it means you got something right.

In any event, trite perhaps but it’s true. A dog running away, dogs fighting and hurting each other or a human, getting sick, and then, after something like that happens, getting sued are all eventualities that people in the dog business have to worry about. Luckily, I have avoided most of those issues. I know that every boarding facility has faced some or all of these issues. The longer you work with dogs, the more dogs you board, the higher the probability of any of these events.

After 50,000+ individual stays (if not closer to 70,000) if nothing bad had ever happened, that would be shocking. Impossible really. I know others in my industry all have stories of stuff that happened. With an average of 60 dogs a day here, there should by simple probability be about one dog death every few months. However, that is nowhere near the case. If someone has a heart attack in a hotel, no one thinks the hotel is at fault. Unfortunately, when it comes to dogs, another modality has been known to show up.

Animals are unpredictable. Unfortunately, so are algorithms. A machine that makes millions of decisions every minute can follow its rules and come up with some pretty questionable results when you are familiar with all the information. Then individuals and industries develop to game the machine in a contest of narrative. Strange world. Since the internet is strange, let me add some random links like this and this and this and this.

If we have had significantly more than 50,000 visits including probably 5,000 trips to and from NYC over 18 or 19 years, maybe two serious fights per decade and none in many many years, no dogs running away and disappearing, no dogs hit by cars, no car crashes, no significant disease outbreaks, only one unwanted pregnancy, no fires, floods, windstorms, that is a fantastic safety record. We have about 500 legitimate five-star reviews on Google, Facebook, and Yelp.

Thanks

There is some conflict in this story, partially because conflict is what we expect in stories. But underlying consistent cooperation is really what made this organization work and grow. I want to make sure I don’t forget to big-up some important people who have been here the whole time. First of all, my wife Aenne, 26 years together, mostly married, putting up with all of this commotion and activity: nothing here is alone. Vern, Jim, Garry, Phil, Patricia, Julia, Beth, and everyone else here now — I have worked with great people over many years and greatly appreciate their hard work and dedication. Getting along and everything going smoother is the story 99% of the time because that’s how it is here most of the time.

And the customers — some of whom became friends, especially in the early years when I drove twice a week. Moki, Lily, Drala, everyone else. Thank you.

It’s been almost 20 years since we left Brooklyn. Life has been good. We are all are doing well, happy here in Columbia County. There are so many more stories on the cutting room floor.

So much for the past… do you want to hear the latest plans I’ve been dreaming up?

This post was originally published on this site