Archive: Around Town

It might be unusual for a dog to actually want to go to the kennel, but that has always been normal at The Boarding Barn.  The North Lansing facility has been a fixture for years where you can safely leave your pet while you travel.  The business recently passed a milestone when it was sold along with the accompanying veterinary practice and rental apartments.  "The customers were wonderful," says Joyce Rendano, who ran the business for 23 years.  "I think that's the part I'm going to miss the most."


Rendano and her husband Victor, a veterinary radiologist, moved to Lansing in 1976 when Victor accepted a job at the Veterinary School at Cornell.  After their daughters began school Joyce worked for H&R Block for a season, but made very little money at it.  "I think I earned $600 gross," she recalls.  "Vic said, 'That was gross and you will never do that again!'.  The following year we had the opportunity to buy the property, and we rolled."

Long time animal lovers, it was a natural choice to open a kennel.  "We always had an interest in dogs," Rendano  says.  "At home we had had chickens.  We had sheep so that we could have lambs.  We had a couple of cows, one of which we called Miss Sirloin so we remembered her purpose.  We babysat some ponies for a couple of summers.  We had pigs one year, they were really fun.  We took in a couple orphaned fawns, one that had a severely broken leg.  Dr. Doolan at the vet college plated his leg and then we kept it for awhile.  So we are very animal oriented."

The building was originally the cow barn on the Keeney dairy farm.  It was built in the 1950s partly from lumber logged on the premises after the original barn burned down.  After the Keeneys were killed in a car crash, the farm was sold to Miles and Deb Munson, who wanted the land for growing crops.  They sold the barn and an apartment building to the Rendanos, and by November of 1983 the Boarding Barn opened.

"We started out by mucking out the six year old cow manure when we bought the building," she recalls.  "The whole family did that together.  There was six year old hay and straw and manure throughout the whole floor.  So we mucked that all out and converted the south end of the building into the kennel."  Her first clients were referred by another local kennel, and the business began to grow by word of mouth.

At first Rendano ran the kennel all by herself.  With Victor maintaining an office in their home and the kennel phone also connected in their home, she says the phone rang constantly.  She maintained the business seven days a week, going in to take care of the animals and to check them in or out.  Eventually she hired her first employee, Candy Allen, to help take care of the animals.

Soon the business expanded.  In 1986 Vic went into partnership with Eve Brown to start Meadowridge Veterinary Clinic.  Brown had been his student at Cornell and she and her husband Dan wanted to stay in the area.  Victor didn't actually practice there, having his own business, Veterinary Multi Imaging, near the corner of Triphammer and Peruville Roads.

The Grooming Gallery was added to the mix when Carrie Manzell began her grooming business there.  "So we continued to operate that way as a very small operation, very much a women's building," Rendano says.  "We would say that Vic was our token man to do repairs once in a while.  We had all female staff except for the occasional boy teenager that I would hire for the kennel."

Children were part of the atmosphere as well.  Around the time the veterinary office opened Dr. Brown became pregnant with her second child.  "Then Donna, our technician, announced she was pregnant with her third child.  Then our relief veterinarian announced that she was pregnant with her first child.  Then Eve announced she was pregnant with her third child.  So we had all of these children, four children born in the building in a space of three years, and they all came into the building and nursed and I had to push the cradle while the veterinarians were in surgery.  It was wonderful.  It was a very compatible, warm and fuzzy staff, a really great environment."

After a while Rendano began hiring local teens to help take care of the animals.  To this day it is one of the most coveted jobs for teens in Lansing.  "Our daughters were probably 14 or 15 years old and they were active in the 4H Troop called Fern Feathers," she says.  "I decided to hire teenagers and there was a whole batch of these young women in the Fern Feathers group and they came on board all at once.  It was an extension of my motherhood.  I loved it.  That's how it all started."

While most of the boarders were dogs and cats, other animals stayed at the 'Motel For Your Pets' as well.  It was a frequent stop for pet rabbits and ferrets, gerbils and guinea pigs, and a chinchilla.  Sometimes animals would stay for weeks as their college student owners went home on vacation.  Rendano didn't accept birds, fearing they were too delicate, and wouldn't take snakes.  After Manzell left she tried a few more groomers, then decided to drop that part of the business except for baths and toenail clipping.

Some animals presented unexpected challenges.  "We had one dog named Nosey," she recalls.  "He was a climber, a German Shepard who could climb our chain link fence.  Nosey's owners, the Orcutts, weren't out of the driveway before Nosey would get out of the run.  So we had to put covers on some of the runs so that if we had dogs that could climb or if we had a female in heat, we would put her in the run where no one could get to her."


Rendano says one of her favorite things about the business was when animals arrived happy to see her.  Over the years she had favorite animals that she would look forward to seeing again and again.  "It was a great delight when an animal would pull its owner in the front door," she says.  "I really enjoy the people I met, and getting to know them and there families.  I enjoy finding out about people.  It helps me to remember who they are and I like to know about their kids, what their kids are doing."

Last year her husband bought out Dr. Brown's share of the veterinary clinic, and the Rendanos began looking for a buyer for the entire business.  Their veterinary technician Sharon Garland mentioned that Dr. Linda Garrett had always wanted to own her own practice, so they contacted her.  Negotiations spanned six months, and on December 11 Animal Services of North Lansing closed after 23 years.  Garrett continues to use the 'Boarding Barn' name and has renamed the practice Meadowridge Veterinary Hospital.  Rendano stops by a few times a week to drop off mail or answer questions as the facility begins a new era.  

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