Dog daycare is gaining traction in many French towns with more entrepreneurs and companies opening across Paris, Lyon, Nice, Strasbourg, Bordeaux, Mulhouse, Angers and Reims.
Companies including Patchguard, Crèche Waggy, The Dogry, Truffe Social Club and Snout are building on a sector already mature in the United States and Great Britain, where the biggest cities already have more than a dozen daycare centres.
“Our clientele is Parisians with a nine-to-five job or who want their dog to socialise, and tourists because dogs are forbidden in museums and bars,” said Sara Chater, co-founder of Crèche Waggy, which opened in January 2025 in the 14th district of Paris.
Crèche Waggy hosts up to nine dogs – the legal limit – over 54m² arranged around three spaces: an entry-hall, a playroom and a rest area.
Patchguard founder and president Laetitia LacotePatchguard
Prices vary according to dog sizes and clients’ needs, with prices set per hour or via monthly subscriptions. Crèche Waggy charges from seven to €10/hour and is open Monday to Friday, from 8:30 to 22:30.
When she launched Patchguard in Strasbourg late 2022, founder and president Laetitia Lacote thought tourists would be the target clientele.
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“It flopped completely,” she said, overestimating the number of tourists. “It was not sustainable year-round for a stable source of income,” she added.
She was completing an MBA at ICN business school in Nancy, a degree course she was offered after she pitched Patchguard for a competition, and had opened the first dog daycare in France.
She changed the targeted audience to focus on workers and matched the town’s pricing, jobs schedule and needs.
“I got from six to eight dogs per day almost overnight,” she said.
Three years later, she wants Patchguard to become a franchise company. Several Patchguard daycare centres have since opened in Angers and Reims and she set up crowdfunding for another one in Mulhouse.
The Dogry, a 400m² site in the 17th district of Paris, took the concept to another level.
Branded as a ‘canine social club’, it features a 200m² daycare and a playground but with many other activities centred on dogs, such as training and pilates courses, spa, grooming and a cafe. Prices start at €40/day for members, double for non-members.
A third of all French households own a dog, representing 7.3 million of dogs out of the 10 million registered in France. Many figures also show that the country is very dog-friendly.
A Patchguard doggy daycare guest having funPatchguard
Ms Lacote, who lived for a year in Kansas City in the US, travelled to Philadelphia as well as Manchester in England to pick up ideas.
“In Philadelphia alone, you have two daycares from 10 different companies all over the city,” she said.
In the United States, hotels, a newspaper and a travel business have been dedicated to dogs. K9 Resorts, one of the country’s most profitable dog daycare franchises dubbed the ‘the Ritz-Carlton for Dogs’, opened a new hotel in Pompano Beach, Florida, and many others across the country extended their offers to include spas or staff dedicated to pets.
US magazine Vogue launched Dogue, the ‘world’s first dog fashion and lifestyle magazine’. A few months ago, Hope Mehlberg, a former federal government employee who lives in Oconto, Wisconsin, created internet buzz over videos she filmed advertising her new company. Ms Mehlberg opened K9 Konvoy, Wisconsin’s first dog bus, where she picks up dogs early in the morning and takes them to the park.
Crèche Waggy and Patchguard said that part of the growth for the sector lies in a legislative change. As of today, only nine dogs are allowed in dog daycares in towns and cities and the businesses need to be 100m away from any houses.
To participate in Patchguard’s crowdfunding campaign, click here.
