pamperedpuppy // luxury lifestyles for dogs

The Ultimate Luxury Pet Environment

The sheer ingenuity of Elite Pet Havens (www.pethavens.com) is a dog lover's dream come true. Elite Pet Havens are opulent indoor environments for dogs and other companion animals. They simulate outdoor settings in which your dog can joyfully romp. Each Haven is custom-conceived and executed; they are truly unlimited in potential.

Company CEO K. Michael Berry had his initial inspiration for the enterprise while sitting one day in Greenwich Village's Washington Square Park. Lined by Greek Revival town houses and graced with a monumental marble arch modeled on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, Washington Square Park boasts of a dog run around which grow Catalpa trees, red roses and lavender bushes. Lovely as the park may be during la belle saison, however, during the harsher days of New York City winters it can seem less than ideal for dogs and their humans. Why, thought Mr. Berry to himself, should it not be possible for these cosmopolites and their dogs to enjoy a more al fresco style K-9/human bonding inside their dwelling places all year long?

The outer frame of an Elite Pet Haven can be made of any wood -- black walnut, Brazilian pernambuco, rosewood, sycamore, pear wood and even sapele pomele. The outfitting and interior decorating of an individual installation is determined by a client's tastes and inclinations. Elements fundamental to Elite Pet Haven systems include treadmills and swimming areas as well as advanced technological means of producing special effects related to the five senses. Even proprioceptive simulation systems can be part of the package.

The diverse elements are integrated into a scenario. Let's say, for example, that you and your dog like to frolic on isolated Caribbean beaches. The Elite Pet Haven installation designed for you could create a virtual seashore with sights, sounds and olfactory stimulants evocative of Montserrat, the Netherlands Antilles or Saint-Barthelémy. Pelicans dive, dolphins gambol and a sea breeze blows fragrant with a whiff of fresh conch chowder as your Cocker Spaniel happily pads along. For that frisky charge up and down the hillocks tufted with sea grasses, the angle of the treadmill varies. Toss a Frisbee ring into the unit's swimming basin, and your pooch gets much-needed, diversionary exercise retrieving it.

Here's how it works: After an application is made, the design team as well as dedicated personal care veterinarians evaluate the customers' needs and desires along with the animals' nature and capacities. Following completion of the design and manufacturing stages, installation is accomplished by an Elite Pet Havens-trained mechanical, electrical and plumbing contractor working in cooperation with your contractor or architect. Then, the company's quality assurance team verifies that all elements of the installation are performing according to the stringent standards, including the safety standards set for them. Elite Pet Havens will also provide, to your dog as well as to you and/or your dog's trainer, professional instructive guidance on the optimal use of your installation.

One of the aims of an Elite Pet Haven is to beautify your home and enrich your lifestyle in manners similar to those achieved by, for example, a stupendous coral reef aquarium or an ultra-luxurious, climate controlled walk-in wine cellar. Another aim, though, is to promote your dog's sustained good health. In keeping with that goal, veterinarians working on the design-planning stage of an installation will do complete evaluations of your dog to make sure that the proposals for your customized scenario are most advantageous for your canine. The doggy physicals associated with a newly-commissioned Elite Pet Haven include but are not limited to assessment of a dog's eyesight, what kind of sprinting it can do and how well it can swim. It's worth noting that the company envisions eventually creating high-end environmental enhancement installations not just for canines but also for other animals as varied as cats and horses.

I spoke with Mr. Berry about some existing state-of-the-art animal health care features that may be incorporated into an Elite Pet Haven. "It's just tremendous what we're able to do. We can, for example, have custom-designed for your dog a jacket with telemetric capability measuring blood pressure, pulse, oxygen use and other physiological indicators. The information gets relayed to a center and monitored over time. The practical uses of the health-related data gathering include controlling how many excess pounds an overweight dog can safely lose. Then too, it is possible to simulate with great environmental precision the conditions of anyplace from St.-Tropez to Mt. Everest at different times of year. The Toronto Zoo makes very intriguing use of that sort of technology in several of its projects."

Not only are Elite Pet Havens suitable to the canine-specific gentrification of your living space, be it in a home or aboard a megayacht, they also could conceivably promote the fortunes of your business. I think for instance of very large corporate atriums with public access. An Elite Pet Haven strategically situated in such a place and made available for complementary use would tremendously boost a business's public image. Ingeniously-conceived scenarios for the installations could, furthermore, tie in to the company's goods and services without being grossly commercial. Pet-friendly luxury hotels and resorts, also, could use Elite Pet Havens installations to get a very elegant leg up on the competition. There is, besides, a certain demographic that courts the kind of publicity gained from having one's home featured in publications like Architectural Digest. A stunningly original Elite Pet Haven harmonious with your world-class gesamt décor could well catch those editors' eyes.

These dazzling installations present a technological and artistic quantum leap forward in assimilating dogs as family members into a most gracious mode of living. If you're looking to give your pooch the true lap of luxury, the sky's the limit with Elite Pet Havens.