Construction could begin later this year on a 12,400 square foot facility that will house a combined dog day care and boarding facility on the east side of Lafayette.
What is being called Jasper’s Splash Zone will be a one-story house-like structure with a front covered porch to be built on a 3.4-acre site at 1720 Majestic Drive.
An existing Jasper’s Splash Zone dog facility is located in Colorado Springs.
The project, which will also feature nearly 3,700 square feet of office space, has now won the approval of Lafayette’s Planning Commission, but still has to be reviewed and signed off on by the Lafayette City Council.
According to city documents, the facility will also include multiple kennels, an outdoor sports pool, agility field, and training areas adjacent to the main structure, with a small barn hunt to be built on the northeast corner of the site.
That barn hunt entails dogs sniffing through a large pile of hay for rats, which are contained inside circular plastic tubes.
The canines never come into actual contact with the rats, but by searching for the tubes hidden in various places in the hay, they are able to exercise their natural desires to hunt.
The barn hunt is regarded as good training for dogs about to live on farms who will soon enough hunting and catching the real thing.
By Garry Boulard