KANSAS CITY, Mo. — There's a new high-tech solution on the horizon for Kansas City pet owners who like for their pets to accompany them on errands.
DogSpot operates curbside doghouses, where — for 30 cents a minute — members can place their dog into a secure kennel as they go run a quick errand.
Dorothy Johnson and her Shih-Tzu, Samson, are inseparable.
"I wish I could take him to the gym, the store," Johnson said.
When the weather isn't nearing the triple digits, Samson will usually go along for the ride. However, he isn't welcome at most businesses, so Johnson has to come up with creative ways to watch her 9-year-old canine companion.
"Leave him in the car and park close, if the weather is nice, where we can keep an eye on him," she said. "Otherwise he has to stay home.""It's air-conditioned, it's heated, once you secure it ... only you can open it back up," Bob Bennett, chief innovation officer for Kansas City, Missouri, told 41 Action News on Wednesday by phone.
The company's founders, Chelsea Brownridge and Todd Schechter, approached Bennett in March, "so that, unlike some of the other companies in the past that have simply occupied the city without coordinating with us, we can actually figure out where is the public right-of-way, where their private right-of-way opportunities for their company to put their hardware into place where they can still take advantage of the opportunity that exists," Bennett said.
He added if everything goes according to plan the first dozen DogSpots will appear in downtown KCMO and Brookside by late August or early September.
"I hate to leave my Sammy Sam, but I'd use it," Johnson said.
