A ‘Club Med’ for dogs

Israel’s first pet resort and canine training academy aims to return dogs ‘better’ than when they came

By BRIAN BLUM
Monty the dog521 (photo credit: BRIAN BLUM)
Monty the dog521
(photo credit: BRIAN BLUM)
Monty, a two-year-old white Maltese, has a pretty cushy life. He gets lots of love from his owners, long walks around the neighborhood, playtime with his other doggie “friends,” and enough food to keep him fit and healthy (never table scraps). His only idiosyncrasy: he hates it when he’s left alone. So, when his owners planned a family trip to the Galilee, they were dreading the fact that they couldn’t take him too. They had tried leaving Monty with friends before, but that proved to be a disaster, as the friends didn’t get a wink of sleep that night. And a kennel just seemed cruel.
That’s the same kind of thinking that was keeping Shmuel Edelblum up at night.
Before making aliya a decade ago, Edelblum, a building engineer from Florida, would leave his dogs at what’s affectionately known in the US as a “pet resort” – a place where owners can park their pooches to be properly pampered. But there was nothing like that in Israel, which seemed strange to Edelblum. Hi-tech Israel has evolved to include all kinds of luxuries for people, but our pets are still back in the 20th century, he realized.
Edelblum is a dog lover through and through; now retired, he breeds Aussiedoodles – a combination of an Australian shepherd and poodle that is both strong and smart – and he had enough land adjacent to his Mitzpe Yeriho home to create Israel’s first facility for high-end dog boarding.
Along the way, he met David Sidman, a professional dog trainer who had recently returned to Israel after several years in Boston. As Sidman saw it, dogs left without their owners need more than just a comfortable bed and a grassy area to play; they need mental and physical stimulation to stay healthy.
The two joined forces and the result is a unique combination “pet spa” and canine training facility with the playful name Kelevland (dog land).
Kelevland opened at the end of 2012 and has so far seen dozens of four-legged guests. The dogs are given a detailed schedule that may remind their human owners of their own summer camp experiences: wake up at 6 a.m. and go for a two-hour desert hike; at 8:30 a.m., it’s time for obedience class; 9 a.m. is breakfast; then, at 10:30 a.m., get ready for an hour of agility training, climbing up and down the “A-frame” or running an obstacle course. At noon, as the heat peaks, there’s a swim class in Kelevland’s private eight-meterlong dog-only lap pool (cleaned with Dead Sea salt, not chlorine). Lunch is at 2 p.m. and there’s free play (and “free swim”) afterward, before dinner.
By this point, the dogs are so pooped that they are happy to hunker down on the Israeli-made designer beanbag beds crafted especially for dogs in their own airconditioned private rooms, each outfitted with a plasma screen playing 24/7 DogTV (another Israeli invention) and a webcam so owners can watch their dogs sleep. In the morning, the schedule starts all over again.
The goal is not just dog-sitting, Edelblum explains. It’s more like “Club Med for dogs. We want to bring back to you a ‘better dog’ than the one you left,” he says.
Sidman concurs. “This is like a start-up,” he says. “It’s a new concept that we’re introducing to the world, to give the dogs a total lifestyle change and get back to basics with the exercise and mental challenges they need.”
AS A start-up, Edelblum has invested heavily in building Kelevland, which includes the kennels – er, bedrooms – pool, grass area and training facilities. Sidman works full-time at the facility, except on Shabbat, and there are several other trained staff members who work depending on the number of dogs.
It doesn’t come cheap. The basic price is NIS 150 per night, which is double and in some cases, triple the price of a “normal” kennel, although Sidman says they feel they are actually underpricing a Kelevland stay. Then there are extras such as a walk not just in the desert but the nearby Ein Prat River, grooming, extra-long sessions of fetch, “20-minute belly rubs,” and even special food. “If an owner wants his or her dog to have filet mignon cooked medium rare, we’ll do that, as long as it’s not harmful to the dog,” Sidman says, although when pressed, he admits no one has yet asked for such a thing. Nor has the “dog acupuncture” option been requested.
Ultimately, Edelblum and Sidman hope to build a full-service facility for dogs in the desert, including working with a doggie dietician to develop custom menus based on raw meat. “It’s much healthier than store-bought dog food. The dogs coats are shinier, their teeth are whiter,” Sidman explains.
Sidman, the dog trainer, started his canine adventures in the IDF, where he was accepted into the Oketz dog unit after making aliya in 1999. He and his dogs went into active duty, sniffing out bombs that were booby trapping homes in Gaza. The Oketz unit is now high in-demand. “If there is no dog scheduled to be in an operation,” he says, “one is definitely requested.” Sidman continues to do reserve duty today, although sadly not with dogs.
After his army service, Sidman returned to the US, where he built a thriving dog training and obedience school business. He also received official certification in training residential animals. It wasn’t so easy at first. “I had learned how to work with military dogs in the army,” he says. “But I didn’t know how to train poodles not to pee on the rug.”
Sidman spent four years in the US before deciding to return in 2007 with his Israeli-born wife and young daughter. He picked up clients immediately, training dogs in Jerusalem; Edelblum fortuitously turned out to be one of his first customers.
Sidman is now trying to import the latest in dogtraining techniques to Israel: water rescue. Invented and used primarily in Italy, a rescue tube connected to a vest is attached to a dog, which swims out to someone who’s in danger of drowning. The victim grabs on to the tube and the dog pulls him or her into safety. Sidman is also trained in water tracking, which he teaches dogs in the river near Kelevland. He continues offering “house calls” and training before and after his long days with Edelblum.
Which do potential Kelevland customers think more about before signing up their dogs – the training or the pet spa aspect of the place? Sidman says it’s mostly the latter. “They like the fact that it looks like their dog will have fun,” he says. But while the dogs are at Kelevland, Sidman and Edelblum communicate with the owners regularly, explaining how the dogs are growing and developing. Pictures are sent by email.
“You can compare it with an Outward Bound type of seminar for people,” he says, only half in jest. “The dog comes back with a different outlook. You might not see it immediately – they’re not going to be jumping through hula hoops at home – but they’ve been exposed to things. We’ve expanded the dog’s horizons.”
The average stay at Kelevland is upwards of two weeks and most customers send their dogs from the Center (Kelevland offers pick-up and drop-off as part of its service). “We get a lot of young couples in the Tel Aviv area,” Sidman says, “as well as foreign diplomats.
Our marketing has been only in English so far.”
Is Kelevland’s location “in the middle of nowhere” a problem? Sidman sees it more as an advantage.
“People like the idea of their dog being out in the countryside, away from the noise and pollution. We couldn’t take them for a river hike in the Kishon,” he says, referring to the notoriously polluted waterway that flows into Haifa Bay.
Monty the Maltese returned to his owners after his Kelevland weekend without much complaint. If anything, he was reluctant to leave the new pack of pups he’d joined (there were three other “guests,” plus a half-dozen Aussiedoodles who live next door), and it took him several days before he deigned to eat anything but the raw chicken Edelblum fed him.
Was he a better dog than before he went, as Kelevland claims? “Unfortunately, the dogs can’t tell you what a great time they had,” Sidman sighs. “I wish they could!” ■