AMERICANS LOVE THEIR PETS AND ARE WILLING TO SPEND LARGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY TO PAMPER THAT BELOVED DOG OR CAT (OR BIRD OR FISH OR LIZARD OR…). According to survey data from the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association (APPMA), U.S. pet owners spent $35.9 billion in 2005 on pet-related products and services.

Out of that devotion, carwash operators around the country have developed a profitable new sideline business: self-service dogwashes.

This market is still only a few years old, but carwash operators who have started such facilities say the units are not only profitable in their own right, but also represent an amazing source of publicity for their operators’ main carwash businesses.

Frank Meneghetti, owner of Texasbased Wave Wash, says his Dallas-area dog wash—which includes an exercise park—has become a regional tourist attraction. He relates that people have driven as far as 100 miles just to see the facility.

This curiosity doesn’t surprise Doug Empie, a manager for distributor sales at GinSan Industries of Grand Rapids, Michigan. For the past several years his company, which makes carwash equipment, has also manufactured dogwash systems and related products.

In a phone interview, Empie said that that people come from as far away as Kentucky to see the combination car wash/dog wash operated by the children of GinSan owner Jeff Anderson.

Empie says GinSan got into the dogwash market around three years ago, shortly after the first such facilities started up. Since that time, GinSan has affiliated with a chemical distributor, KC Chemicals of Greenville, South Carolina, which has designed a line of pet-wash products around the GinSan line.

Inspiration finally came from Dallas’ dog parks. “You drive by, they’re always packed.” Meneghetti hired an architect, who helped him design a facility that combined a dog-wash with an exercise area. “It sounds crazy,” he admits, “but it’s worked extremely well.”

He is currently developing another dogwash in Dallas itself, at another selfserve facility; this site, however, will not have a dog park.

The Grapeville facility has attracted pet lovers from around the Dallas area, particularly families. Meneghetti says he gets “all kinds of positive feedback,” and that customers really care about the shampoo and other cleaners available for their pets.

Meneghetti says he isn’t sure how much car-wash business he brings in, by having the dog wash, but at least he knows that he’s bringing customers onto the lot.

Operator commitment is essential, Meneghetti says, to building a successful dog wash. He has intensely marketed the pet wash, putting up highly visible signage at his Grapeville site. It is also important to consider liability, relating to issues such as insurance for dog bites. “The key is just asking the right questions.”

Joe Nance of NANCO Services, Inc., a carwash manufacturer and operator based in North Carolina, has had similar success with Dirty Dogs Done Dirt Cheap, which he opened last summer at his main carwash facility in Swansboro, NC, a coastal community about 50 miles north of Wilmington.

Nance says he got into the dog-wash business by accident when he was asked to install a dog wash at a customer’s facility. “We figured we probably ought to operate one ourselves, so we purchased one and installed it at our main corporate office,” where NANCO operates a two-story wash facility. Like at Meneghetti’s Wave Wash facility, the washing tub and related products come from GinSan.

The coin-operated equipment, which is operated by the pet owner, is built to handle dogs of almost any size. It consists of a stainless steel tub, about waist high, with a leash attachment so the dog can’t jump out. The showerhead mechanism is on a spring-loaded hose. The motor is mounted separately, in the equipment room, to keep the noise away from the animals.

Customers can select from a number of cleaning products, including scented shampoo and oatmeal coat conditioner. There is also a two-speed dryer.

Dog washes are growing in popularity, Nance says: “People are starting to find out about them and put them in.” He admits, though, that he was initially skeptical of the idea. “A year ago,” Nance said, “if you’d said I was going to be in the dog-wash business, I would have said, ‘You’re crazy.’ But now I love it.”

NANCO is currently building another dog wash at a self-service carwash in Richlands, North Carolina, about 30 miles from Swansboro. The facility will be enclosed in a little glass building.

“In the beginning it was a tough market to crack,” Empie said in a phone interview. “It took some time for people to grasp it. And then it took a little more time for them to write the checks to get the systems.”

The first dogwash system GinSan ever made, he said, was for Frank Meneghetti. “They were our building block,” Empie said.

Meneghetti, whose operates several car washes in the Dallas area, said he got into the dog-wash business “by default.” He was developing a new carwash facility in Grapevine, Texas, near the Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) International Airport. The site was bigger than he needed, so he looked at options for sideline businesses, including self-storage.

“But in this case,” he said, “it was more of a driver as to what would the city would approve.” As it turned out, the city was so happy about the idea of a dog wash, that the planning and zoning officials didn’t ask any questions about the car wash itself.

The name, chosen in a companywide contest, spoofs the rock band AC/ DC’s song “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.” The dog wash’s sign shows a tough-looking canine with sunglasses and spiked hair. His four-legged customers don’t always like coming the first time, he said. The second time, though, they love it. “They’ll go up the ramp into the tub by themselves,” he laughed.

The revenues of “Dirty Dogs” compares to the business of his lowestperforming self-service bay. As for daily customers, he numbers them at around “a pack of dogs a day.”

Nance’s facility brings in customers both from the mainland and from Outer Banks communities, such as Emerald Isle, an island about 10 miles from Swansboro. The dogs come in all shapes and sizes; one woman brought in a mastiff so large, Nance said, “I thought she had a calf” with her. Another customer brought in a hound dog. “How’s it going,” Nance asked the man. “Rufus is smelling good,” the man replied.

“Dirty Dogs” has achieved success at minimal cost—unlike the $500,000 he spent to build his new lube station. About two weeks before the dog-wash opened, Nance said, “We put a small ad in the paper, and that same day, people started calling and asking for more information. People asked, ‘Are you serious?’ and ‘How does it work?” They wanted to know if it automatic, and did the dog go through a machine.”

Nance noted, “It brought more publicity to us than anything else we’d done.”

About dog washes, Mark Thorsby, CEO of the International Carwash Association, says, “We certainly have seen them increase in popularity, especially in the self-serve environment, because of the ease of converting an under-performing bay for pet wash use. This is another example of carwash owners creatively responding to customer needs.”

Eric Badertscher is a writer from the Baltimore, Maryland area, whose other freelance work has included assignments for United Press International (UPI). He has a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland at College Park.