Ideal cottage home for furry pals
CAVES A craftsman’s love of pets turns into budding business
National Post (Latest Edition) 19 May 2007 BY DONNA TILLOTSON
He’s not just the president, he’s one of their biggest clients. Or as Richard Miklenic, 50, the craftsman behind the business says, he has a paw in everything going on.
Scottie, a feisty cream-coloured terrier, may not have the entrepreneurial inspiration his partner has when it comes to designing and building luxury, fine-art caves, but it’s easy to say the canine companion is the motivation behind the business.
Retailing for more than $5,500, each handcrafted piece is a month-long construction project. But Mr. Miklenic says the real reason for making the caves superlative is his desire to provide only the best for animals like his own.
“Scottie is my best friend and I treat him like a person. He even wears a sterling silver-and-gold badge of honour,” says Mr. Miklenic about the animal that he not only named the business after and deemed president — Scottie’s Fine Art Caves — but which has also been the muse for many of his own poems and short stories. “Some people say ‘for a dog?’ and I say ‘why not for a dog?’ ”
Mr. Miklenic says understanding his customers’ love for their pets is the reason his business has been successful. “People are having children later, or not at all,” says Mr. Miklenic who lives alone with his 10-year-old Maltese Yorkshire terrier and two-tone cat, IMac. “Pets are being treated like family members, and owners are spending more of their disposable income on their pets’ happiness.”
Based in the wave-watching West Coast town of Tofino, B.C., Mr. Miklenic points out that most of his customers have been from south of the border where bank accounts are known to hit higher digits. Mr. Miklenic says the small-town business is reaching an international market because his product is aesthetically pleasing to his highend customers, but also viable for the pet populace.
“I’m not the first to create luxury dog homes. There are plenty coming out of Europe, but I can’t see how an animal would feel comfortable in them,” says Mr. Miklenic about creations that seem to value appearance rather than an animal’s comfort.
“There is one, I think from Italy, that is a Plexiglas box with a big red velvet pillow in the centre, but it’s designed so the dog can’t even lie down in it.”
Mr. Miklenic incorporates natural elements from the Tofino shoreline into his designs. Each pet home is centred around a wooden arch doorway, from wood scavenged on boating trips to nearby islands and trekking through the surrounding dense rain forest. The shell of the home is made with layers of chicken wire, papier mâché, and finally a coat of Ralph Lauren Home Collection paint. Each project is different and has cave paintings inside. In the case of the five-and-a-half-foot tall “cat mountain,” steamed rib bones are added to entice the feline sabre tooth tiger instinct.
The reason behind the cave concept, Mr. Miklenic points out, is the need for animals to hide in small spaces — he calls it “denning.”
“During one thunderstorm [of which the area gets many], Scottie kept running and hiding in a closet. I ended up spending the night with him in there. I though ‘hey, this is pretty neat; I get why animals do this.’ ”
Both Scottie and IMac use caves specifically created for them.
“I built a taller home for IMac because he likes climbing. I’ve also incorporated a scratching post so he doesn’t need a carpet to scratch,” Mr. Miklenic says. “But that’s what it’s all about, making sure the animals get exactly what they want.”