THE age-old question of what our tail-wagging four-legged friends do while their owners are away has been solved.
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With a supportive teacher in year 11 and a good idea, Rhiannon Beach was able to start up her own business after finishing high school. Her dog socialisation and day care focuses on distressed dogs and puppies on prozac. Staff send tweets and facebook photographs of the day's activities to anxious owners and offer behaviour modification to help calm highly strung pooches.
This year, at 25, Ms Beach was a winner in the 2013 ACT Telstra Business Women's Awards. When she started out in 2008 she employed herself and walked just one dog. Now the business has nine staff and looks after more than 80 dogs a week.
''I wanted to start a doggy day care but I couldn't do that straight away so I started dog walking. Through that I realised there was such a need for the service. I was studying full time so I dropped down to part-time study and brought the business up to full time,'' Ms Beach said. ''We specialise with behaviour and working with dogs with anxiety, rather than just go for dog walks.''
In summer, dogs are taken to Uriarra Crossing for swimming lessons as well as outings to local off-the-lead parks in Yarralumla and Belconnen.
''We write a daily blog about 700 words and that includes 60 photos, it's detailed … about the dogs' day and who interacted with who. It gives the owners a chance to experience what the dogs are doing on that day.''
Dog socialisation through Pups4Fun is available 365 days a year and costs about $75 an outing.