Our Story
For thirty-five years, our lives in the California tech world—from Palo Alto to San Francisco—were measured by the timeline of the next big launch. But if you looked at our actual map of the world, it wasn’t defined by office buildings. It was defined by our dogs.
Every house we ever bought was picked for them. We looked for the yards with room to sprint, the quietest dead-end streets, and the quickest routes to the water. From raising unruly puppies to navigating the quiet, heartbreaking goodbyes to old friends like Jagger and Ruby, our dogs have always been at the center of our lives.
Through it all, we kept looking for a specific kind of care when we traveled—a place that actually understood behavior, skipped the chaotic kennel yards, and felt like a calm home. We could never quite find it.
So in 2025, we made our biggest move yet. We traded the city noise for 14 quiet, wooded acres here in Fennville. We didn’t move here to build a commercial facility; we moved here to open our home and create the exact environment we always wanted for our own pups.
Science Meets Hospitality
We divide the day-to-day work based on what we love doing most:
Colleen is our resident dog nerd and a certified professional dog trainer. She holds a degree in behavioral psychology, trained through Karen Pryor Academy, and has spent years studying leaders like Jean Donaldson and Trish King. She's obsessed with how dogs think, learn, and communicate. Every interaction is fun, force-free, choice-based, and grounded in modern science. More importantly, she reads the subtle stuff: the slight lip lick, the tight brow, the small shift in stance. She catches stress before it builds.
Elizabeth is the heart of the house. She possesses a rare, natural empathy for dogs and an innate understanding of what they need to feel secure—an intuition built over a lifetime of raising and training her own many dogs. While Colleen handles the formal behavior science, Elizabeth manages the emotional climate of the home. She is the one reading the room, quietly tracking the schedules, and making sure the physical space feels settled, structured, and entirely safe. She ensures that every guest, whether they’re staying for a long weekend or a full month, finds their rhythm, sheds their anxiety, and feels like they truly belong.
Why We Keep It So Small
Traditional boarding can easily become an exhausting, high-adrenaline pressure cooker. We actively avoid that by strictly capping our guest count at just five dogs at a time.
Keeping our circle small means we don't have to rely on chaotic group play to tire dogs out. Instead, we focus on what actually fills a dog's cup: structured "Sniffaris" through our private woods, tailored enrichment puzzles, custom learning, and plenty of designated, quiet downtime to prevent overarousal.
Because we only take five guests, we actually get to know your dog as an individual. We learn their favorite scratching spots, their specific "I need a nap" cues, how they learn best, and exactly how they like to be tucked in at night.
We built Saugapaws because we know the knot in your stomach when you drive away from your best friend. We wanted to build the one place where that knot completely disappears.
We can’t wait to meet you and your dog.
— Colleen & Elizabeth
P.S. Everything we learn here also shapes Whitney, the AI coaching app we're building to help dog owners train with the same calm, science-based approach at home. Coming soon.