Leaving your dog at a kennel can be heartbreaking, and asking a friend to dog-sit can feel intrusive. So what is a traveling dog owner to do?
A new site called Dog Vacay hopes you'll instead find a local home for your dog while you're away. On Thursday, it's launching Airbnb-type listings for dog boarders.
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The startup allows anyone who wants to host dogs in his or her home to apply for a listing on the site. Homeowners set their own price, choose their own schedules and can specify what types of dogs they're willing to host. Dog owners can book nights directly through the site, which takes a 5% to 10% fee depending on the frequency of the host's transactions.
Like Airbnb, Dog Vacay does some legwork to make sure everyone in the transaction feels comfortable. Hosts can verify their addresses and phone numbers, add certifications like "Dog CPR" (yep, that exists), or be interviewed over the phone or in-person by the startup to receive a badge on their profiles. All parties can use Facebook Connect to see mutual friends. Dog Vacay insures dogs (but not yet homes) up to $25,000 for emergencies, and dog owners can request periodic photo updates during their dog's stay.
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"We want this to be very different than finding a stranger on craigslist," says Aaron Hirschhorn, who founded the company with his wife, Karine Nissim Hirschhorn.
Ironically, the Hirschhorns got the idea for Dog Vacay by being one of those strangers with a dog sitting listing. A couple months after posting a Yelp Listing for dog care, they were receiving five to seven calls every day requesting care. Eventually, Karine quit her job and started writing from home while the couple took in more than 100 dogs throughout a nine-month period.
They soon decided there was opportunity to scale doggie home-stays and founded Dog Vacay.
The site will initially launch in Los Angeles and San Francisco, but Aaron says it will "expand rapidly" after that. In its beta phase, he says homeowners have charged on average about $30 to $35 per night.
Will you use Dog Vacay next to find a place for your dog to stay next time you're on vacation? Let us know why or why not in the comments.
This story originally published on Mashable here.
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