Animal care in the spotlight in the UAE

The Life: Dubai Kennels & Cattery struggled to keep up with demand during the boom, but it is now focusing on stabilising its business after a difficult couple of years.

Rana Marok, an animal handler at Dubai Kennels & Cattery, which specialises in pet relocation. Razan Alzayani / The National

Todd Carson needed a job, any job, after being unemployed for a year and a half.

So he walked into Dubai Kennels & Cattery in Dubai and offered to work for free.

"I thought, like many people, animals were going to be [my] salvation," he says.

"I said, 'Can I help out for a while until I can find a 'real' job? And I haven't left," adds Mr Carson, who is now a managing partner at the business.

That was back in 2002, when the boom in Dubai was just beginning. Over several years, the business profited from the rapid expansion of the emirate and grew by about 30 per cent a year.

In June 2006, Kennels & Cattery was getting so busy Mr Carson decided not to take any more animal shipping inquiries - a decision that cost the business an estimated Dh500,000 (US$136,124) in net profit that summer.

"If I had taken in that business I would have killed my staff," says Mr Carson. "They wouldn't have been able to cope."

But he is the first to acknowledge it did not have to be that way. "We take the care of animals very seriously," he says.

"It is extremely hard to find people who are interested in working with animals who are not thinking like Paris Hilton," adds Mr Carson. By that, he means it is not that people who adore their pets are doing the wrong thing but caring for animals is a lot more than whether or not they have their own plasma televisions to watch or jewel-studded collars to wear.

Animal handlers are not allowed to work independently at Dubai Kennels & Cattery until they have been trained for at least three months. And it takes more than a year to fully finish training. "I have people here who have so much experience and are trained so highly that we - before others - are able to identify health problems with animals," says Mr Carson.

Health problems are just as possible with a big cat transiting through the airport as they are with a small one boarding in Kennels & Cattery's premises near Festival City in Dubai.

"Just a couple of days ago we oversaw a shipment of two adult lions from Africa going to Prague and one of them ... had injured himself in the cage so we were involved in determining whether or not they should get care or fly on," says Mr Carson.

Animal handlers from the business decided along with wildlife experts that the injuries were not life-threatening and it was better for the lion to continue on his way. In the end, he arrived safely.

The shipment of the lions was not organised through Dubai Kennels & Cattery, but the business recently oversaw the import of penguins, which are now at the Mall of the Emirates. It imports a lot more domesticated animals, although there have been fewer of them in recent years.

In 2009, the business experienced a dip of about 35 per cent in animal imports and an increase of about 20 per cent in exports. Both numbers have remained at the same level since then. "We had a couple of bad years," says Mr Carson.

"The last couple of years have been profitable again. But … we're not dripping in cash."