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Albuquerque-area kennels are all full for the holidays

By Maggie Ybarra
Thursday, December 13, 2007

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There's plenty of room at the inn, but it's the stable that's in demand these days.

Pet owners in need of a place to board their pets during the holidays are being turned away from Albuquerque kennels, most of which say they are already full.

Sharon Westhoss, manager of New Mexican Kennels at 4401 Yale Blvd. N.E., said locating a boarding facility that isn't already booked will be more difficult as holidays approach.

"For the holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, we're full up by the first of October," she said. "So we tell everybody to plan no later than the balloon fiesta."

Westhoss said many of her clients make reservations a year or more in advance.

Common household pets are not the only creatures New Mexican Kennels gets, she said. For $10 a night, customers can board smaller pets, too.

"We've had sugar gliders and chinchillas," she said. "We've boarded pigs and goats. We also have a few clients with rabbits that board, and we occasionally get guinea pigs."

At some of the city's kennels the only option people have is to put their name on a waiting list. Westhoss said she had already filled two pages with the names of people who were hoping to receive the Christmas gift of a last-minute availability.

Jacqueline Shaw, retail and events coordinator for the Enchanted Pet Resort and Spa, said some of the people on her waiting list may luck out.

"As you get closer to the holidays, people's plans change," Shaw said. "Somebody gets sick or there's one thing or another, and that's when there is a possibility that there might be a cancellation."

Larry Challenger, owner of Zoey's TLC, said customers shouldn't be worried about the length of a waiting list because it isn't accurate.

"Even though they're on a waiting list, people are going to continue to look," Challenger said. "If we were to get a cancellation at this point, we would have to go through probably half the waiting list to find somebody that still needs boarding. Because people aren't going to wait around. They're going to go out and find what they need."

Patricia Farnsworth said she felt relieved after getting a phone call from New Mexican Kennels informing her there was a kennel run available for her Havanese dog, Sir Winston.

"There are apparently a lot of people on waiting lists all over town," she said. "I began to get discouraged; I called people all over town. I found several people that would take my puppy in a cage, but I'm going to be gone for most of the month so I didn't want him in a cage."

Farnsworth said that since she was planning to go to San Antonio, Texas, she also checked with kennels south of Albuquerque.

"I called Truth or Consequences kennels, I called Las Cruces kennels, and I checked a couple in El Paso," she said. "None of them could take him."

Challenger said the closer it gets to the holidays, the more desperate people become to find a place for their pet to stay.

"We have people begging, and we feel bad because we have to turn away our customers from time to time," he said. "And we hate to turn anybody away. It's unfortunate."

Challenger said he often suggests to people that they try calling other kennels or finding a pet sitter.

"We just need to build more kennels," Challenger said. "There's never enough kennels in New Mexico over the holidays. I think that's a subject that needs to be addressed because you'll find a lot of people in a quandary at this time of year."