Dog Lovers Rejoice: Puppy Parlours Might Soon Be a Thing

Don’t you want to play with Xena?
She’s available for adoption at Sean Casey Animal Rescue.
As one of the first to step foot into Meow Parlour (the inaugural New York iteration of the Japan-borne cat café phenomenon), sipping on Blue Bottle coffee and administering to work emails on my iPhone while kitties rummaged through my bag, butted their heads against my ankles, and batted at feathers affixed to strings, I admit to having one pervasive thought: This would be even better if they did it with dogs.
Because being the inordinately proud and doting mama of an extraordinary North Shore hound mix has made me especially militant about animal rescue, and Pup Parlours would be a brilliant way to encourage adopting from shelters (please, please reconsider those impulse-buy poodle purchases at puppy mill-supporting stores). And honestly, if not for NYC’s increasingly Draconian no-pet policies, my adoring dog would never leave my side—why should screeching toddlers have carte blanche to go anywhere, and not remarkably well-behaved mutts?
Well, amazingly enough, the convergence of café and canine might be more than just a pup-lovers pipe dream. Because no sooner was it announced that an L.A. entrepreneur was crowd-sourcing funds and staging Pup-Up events towards just that, AMNY got wind that two New Yorkers are attempting to do the very same thing on Indiegogo. Which means, our two new favorite people are officially Maggie Chan and Mandy Chow, who are seeking to raise $70,000 for a 2,000-square NYC foot space, which will potentially include a tiny eatery and a glassed-in playground, filled with romping, ready-to-adopt pups that will be brought in daily from local shelters.
So instead of investing in someone’s “breakout” EP or retro-futuristic graphic novel, consider putting your money towards this life-changing cause, which will allow studio apartment-dwelling New Yorkers to engage in a little bit of animal therapy, permit others to hang out (indoors!) with their own canines, while bonding with like-minded locals over cups of good coffee, and provide a medium for loving, devoted dogs to find the forever homes they so deserve. Talk about a win, win, win.
Find out more about this potential Puppy Parlour here, on Indiegogo