City's Pampered Pooches Hit Adogo 'Grand' Opening

Adogo Pet Hotel bears about as much resemblance to a standard dog kennel as a standard AKC-registered purebred does to a wolf.

Maybe that’s because Adogo is the pet project of former hotel executive John Sturgess. He’s taken his 23-year pedigree in what he calls “the human hotel business,” which included an eight-year stint as top dog in the Americas at Carlson Hotels Worldwide, and used it to create a full-service canine experience.

Adogo has the opulence of a yuppie hotel, but is designed—from the urine-proof epoxy floors to the 7,000 square foot outdoor play space—for puppies. The canines here are treated to aromatherapy as they sleep, and light jazz and rock-and-roll while they play. 

Not luxurious enough for your pooch?

Book the Adogo Master Suite, a $69-a-night fenestrated second-floor room that features a lofted bed and a flat-panel television for dinnertime screenings of either of two films, 2001’s Jeff Goldblum vehicle “Cats and Dogs” or the aptly-titled 2009 picture “Hotel for Dogs.”

“We keep a very tight ship,” Adogo manager Mary Ann McCullough said. “It’s dinner and a movie, then they go potty, then they go to bed.”

Adogo also offers overnight kennel service from $29 a night, supervised daycare, on-site grooming and training contracted out to Canine Coach. Owners are similarly pampered with shuttle service within a 10-mile radius of Adogo’s south Minnetonka location.

A Canine Carnival

The pet hotel’s grand opening Sunday afternoon, which was billed as a “Canine Carnival,” drew hundreds to the Adogo grounds.

“Ilga the Great” gave complimentary 15-minute sessions in “animal communication.” Children queued up to enter the bouncy abdomen of a giant inflatable dog. And staff prepared for a “Doggie Disco” and a wine-and-beer “Yappy Hour.” (And how the latter differed from a traditional happy hour was anyone's guess.)

Minnetonka dogs of all kinds (stripes and spots that is) turned out to gobble down organic treats, sniff new friends and pose for a professional pet photographer.

Local Cary Johnson came with his son, Jack, his nephews, Rowan and Noah, and his two mixed breeds, Bella (small and white and one quarter toy poodle) and Boo (tall and black and one quarter standard poodle).

 Johnson said he had taken Bella and Boo to other dog kennels but that Adogo was bigger and better.

“We’re really impressed with the staff,” he said. “They seem really interested in the dogs’ comfort and happiness.”

Mark and Laurie Churchill sat on a curb in the Adogo parking lot as Kota, their lab mix, lay prostrate at their feet, tuckered out from the day’s festivities.

“He’s going for the first time over the Fourth of July,” Laurie Churchill said. “This is a much fancier kennel than the one he’s been in.”

The Barking Business

John Sturgess, the company's CEO and founder, is a Chicago native who has lived in Eden Prairie for 11 years with his wife, Stacey. 

Sturgess said he’s wanted to jump into the dog hotel business for almost a decade—since he was at the University of Minnesota working on his MBA.

He said he modeled Adogo less after the Four Seasons, the hospitality industry's gold standard for sybaritic over-indulgence, and more on the W line of boutique hotels. While he wanted Adogo to be luxurious, he said, he didn’t want prices to be stratospheric.

“I just didn’t think people did that great of a job taking care of dogs from the service side,” he said, “and then I started looking at it from the financial side.”

He said he chose to open Adogo in Minnetonka because of its central location in the Western suburbs. The pet hotel has 17 employees and sees an average of 50 to 100 dogs a day pass through its doors. Sturgess said about 2,000 dogs have visited Adogo since it opened in February.

While Sturgess declined to disclose financial figures to Minnetonka Patch, in March he told the Star Tribune he projected $800,000 in revenue in 2011 and $1.5 million by the end of his third year.

Sturgess did confirm that he has national ambitions for Adogo.

"I’m looking to put another location in the Twin Cities by February,” he said, “and expand throughout the Midwest and then beyond.”