It's been a couple of weeks since we gave you an update on our new place, not because we haven't been making any progress, but because we have been too busy making progress to give updates! ( not to mention participating in the St Patrick's day parade, having a full house with spring break boarders, and all our regular classes and private lessons!)
We are SO excited about the things that have been going on over at 710 SW Gage and we hope you will be too! We are confident (we hope!) in scheduling an official Open House next Friday April 5th! It will be a come and go event that will allow current clients and potential customers to see our new location, check out some of the new merchandise we will be carrying, enjoy some refreshments, and sign up for a chance to win some prizes!

This event is open to the public and will be from 3 p.m.-8 p.m. so please stop by and see us, it would mean a lot to us to see your support of our new venture!

Well, we FINALLY got all the painting done except for little touch up pieces once we get everything else done. We really hope you enjoy the colors we have picked out, some of our clients who have already stopped by have used the words calm and relaxing to describe them. We hope the dogs think so too! We also finally decided what to do with those mirrors that a previous tenant glued to the wall. We painted them with chalkboard paint and made new wood frames for them (frames are not on them yet in this picture) and we think they will turn out great and will be a perfect place to let you know about current deals on our merchandise! Gone also are the faded blue curtains replaced by the orange curtains you see pictured (Spice is the color they are described as by Bed Bath and Beyond).

The front reception desk is nearly finished, lacking only a clear coat finish on it's new paint. We also acquired a very cool old chalkboard that will hang behind the desk detailing upcoming classes and seminars that are available! Also better seen in this picture is the new carpet for the front room!

In additon to merchandise, we will have a lending library of books and dvd's we have available on many different dog training topics. Topics range from general obedience and puppy training to scent work, agility, and reactive dogs materials and a few dog magazines featuring great articles. We even have older dog training books that may even qualify as antiques and are interesting to read!  This service will be free to anyone who is currently enrolled in lessons or classes! If you have any dog training books that you are no longer using and would like to donate them to the lending library we would gladly take them!

We are also very excited to offer Topeka high quality pet food brands and treats that are not currently available in our area! We have met with a distributor and "Tru" did a grueling taste test and selection process (it was hard work but somebody had to do it!) and we have come up with a line of products that we think your dog will love! All the foods we will be carrying are 4-5 star foods in terms of quality. Here are some of the brands we will be offering a small selection of:

Nutrisource
Acana
Primal Pet Foods Freeze Dried
Petcurean NOW!

We will also be carrying a selection of treats, leashes, and other pet products as well as partnering with Furever Friends Pet Supply who will also be offering some merchandise in our store!

The training room still needs some work in the next week including putting in the rubber flooring that will be comfortable on your dogs feet and give them great traction in class (and give YOU traction too!). The training room will also have tethers that will allow you to have your hands free of the leash while working with your dog in class which will help with the juggling of treats, leash and clicker! We hope to have those in by the open house but may not have them completed just yet.

If you are planning to attend our Open House, please let us know you are coming so we know how many refreshments to plan for! We can't wait to show you our new place!

Is it time for another update already?! This weeks has gone by so FAST (well technically speaking, it has only been 5 days since our last blog post and we are going to use that to explain the lack of progress on our new place this week!) Slow and steady wins the race right? I sure hope so!

Clayton and I have been hard at work today cleaning up the walls and prepping them for paint. This includes scraping the concrete walls with a wire brush, scraping off any previous paint that is loose, and wiping the walls down with a wet sponge to get them as clean as possible. My lovely husband has agreed to patch all the holes left from the previous tenant.

So we haven't gotten the walls painted yet, but we have picked out the colors and bought the paint! The colors will be another surprise left for our Open house but I will tell you one of the colors we opted for is appropriately named "Camo Beige" ;). Clayton went to Sutherlands with me to purchase the paint and his first choice can be seen to the left. Needless to say, I had to explain to him that John Deere Yellow spray paint is best saved for tractor projects! In other exciting news, we have a friend who has so graciously offered up his paint sprayer to paint the walls, saving us many man hours once we finally get to painting!

We inherited this front desk from the previous tenant and let us just say, it has seen better days. So my latest project is trying to breathe new life into it. The picture to the left is the before ( I am pretty sure I found someone's gum while I was sanding it!) and the picture to the right is the work in progress. I have primed it and applied the initial layer of paint to the top. I plan to paint the bottom part a flat brown, I hope to be able to show you finished pictures next week!

I took our German Shepherd "Ziva" along today to hang out while I worked. As I sat at the front window to take a short break, I realized Ziva was staring pretty intently out the front door. I followed her gaze across the street and realized we have an amazing view of the Elephant enclosure at the zoo! They were loving the weather this afternoon and we even got to see one pick up one of the big tires and play with it! After the sun went down, I had the front door propped open to help with the paint fumes when all of a sudden the quiet night air was disrupted by the lonely roar of a lion. I am not sure I will ever get used to hearing that noise!

As I mentioned last week, March is going to be jam-packed for us! Not only are we remodeling our new location, but we are also teaching more classes and private lessons than ever before, preparing for our appearance in the St. Patrick's Day Parade, and starting our Agility classes back up! Because my days are so full, the best I can give you for blog entries for a few weeks are updates on the new building. I hope you enjoy!

We have finalized the decision on signage and have the order in place for a perforated window wrap for our big front windows! For those of you who are familiar with the windows on our Tahoe and Suburban, it is the same process. The Sign House in Salina produced both signs for our Tahoe and Suburban and will be doing the front window signage for us as well. Check out the sneak peak at art work to the right!

We originally planned to move the existing wall forward, making the classroom a bit larger. After contemplating on the space a bit longer, we opted to build an additional dividing wall, giving us some more storage space as well as a door that is accessible during classes to help practice door greetings and threshold work!

The restroom received some much needed attention this week as well. I won't subject you to a picture of the before but let's just say it had been overlooked for awhile...
The contractors installed a new toilet and sink and laid a new tile floor.

We hope to complete these things this week:
Filling holes in the sheetrock
Cleaning and preparing the walls to be painted
Priming and Painting ALL the walls (I better pick out some paint, eh?)
Painting the front desk
Hooking up the phone lines and alarm system
Possibly lay the flooring in the training room (this might be a bit optomistic, it may not get done this week!)