With the holiday season marked by travel, many people find themselves needing to make arrangements for a pet — and that's been good news for a St. Louis Park business.

Pampered Pooch Playground, a "doggy daycare" center that opened its doors back in April 2008, has seen a spike in customers since Thanksgiving, leaving the service booked through the holidays with a waiting list of at least 10 to 15 dogs. 

"Until November, we typically had around 85 dogs per day," owner Keith Miller said. "Then all of a sudden we had 95 dogs per day and saw some of our first customers on the waiting list."

Erin Evenson, a manager at Pampered Pooch for the past two and a half years, works each weekend and has noticed things picking up.

"We've gotten calls every day for two months checking to see if we have openings for the holidays, or any space at all," Evenson said. 

This holiday rush is exactly what Pampered Pooch has been looking for. When the business opened two years ago, Miller said he was worried that the economic climate might kill his new venture.

"We opened right when the recession started," he said. "I remember thinking, 'there goes the business' as I'd drive to work each day. But I think on account of that time, a lot of our customers started working longer hours and needed a place for their dog to stay."

By the looks of it, many people have been looking for places for their dogs to stay. Though doggy daycare is still a new concept, other similar businesses have popped up and are squeezing 150 dogs into spaces similar in size to Pampered Pooch. Though Miller and his staff don't foresee getting that big, they did recently rearrange their setup to accommodate more customers, creating three rooms where dogs are placed based on their size and personality.

"We had been looking for a while at ways to expand without putting too much stress on the dogs or our staff," Miller said. "We don't want to be this big, monstrous place, but rather a fun environment for your dog to hang out and play."

Evenson said she couldn't be happier about not only seeing Pampered Pooch expand its space, but also the surge in holiday customers.

"It's been really cool to see from when I started working here how many dogs we get," she said, " and how many of those have become our regulars."