About Fido Fitness Club®
Ellen Adler and Evelyn Franklin – Owners
Ellen Adler opened The Barrie Inn, a dog grooming and overnight cage-less boarding facility, in 2002. The Barrie Inn started out in her home, and eventually grew to the present 8000 square foot business location in Woodmere, Long Island. The Barrie Inn continues to serve the local community with a variety of dog-care services, organic dog food products, and retail items and partners with Fido Fitness Club.
After learning of the availability of additional 4000 sq feet of open space adjacent to The Barrie Inn®, the idea of an Indoor Dog Park and Daycare Center emerged where dogs can safely run and play off-leash, meeting their need for exercise and socialization. Ellen and best friend, Evelyn Franklin, entered into a partnership and established Fido Fitness Club®, providing a neighborhood-based solution to help address the challenges of working dog-owners whose dogs are left alone all day, with no place to run off-lease when they get home. With the launch of Fido Fitness Club, a solution for daycare and exercise was introduced. Ellen and Evelyn, both dog owners themselves, are NYS certified dog trainers and decided to expand further to include the Dog Training Center Annex offering several programs to meet client needs.
Meet Our Staff
Ellen and Evelyn
Owner / Operators and friends for life
David
Manager and Certified Dog Trainer
David is our Master Trainer who runs our Dog Training program and has trained dozens of our clients' dogs ranging from puppies to adults, private one on one training, daycare-n-train and board-n-train. He is the proud human for Buddy, Izzy, Shea and Sammy (yes 4!!) He is also a certified groomer, but training does not leave him much time for that!
Ruth
Supervisor and Assistant Trainer
Ruth is one of our key employees who opens up and closes our facility, supervises our staff, handles our dogs, and assists in training. Ruth has an adorable little girl, Summer, who she dotes on and a Doggo named Chops, whom she rescued.
Desiree
Supervisor and Assistant Trainer
Desiree joined us in 2018 coming from her own dog-sitting business and is a trained nurse. She has become one of our key employees. She supervises our staff, assists in training our dogs and is an excellent dog handler. Desiree paints and draws in her spare time and has a lovely dog named Apples who tags along most days.
Cassidy
Lead Dog Handler and Park Ranger
Cassidy started working part time with us right after high school and has become a leader on our team. She works full time as Park Ranger and Lead Dog Handler. She preps, feeds and beds down the dogs boarding with us, supervises the daycare dogs, and closes up our facility at night.
Maryanne
Park Attendant
Maryanne gives lots of love and attention to all the dogs as if they were her own. She has such a calming affect on the dogs. They immediately relax when she is in the Park.
Olivia
Park Ranger
Olivia joined us in 2019 and is great with dogs. She's attending her last year in high school and is making her college plans.
Carol
Park Ranger and Facility Maintenance
Carol joined us with experience running her own animal transport business. She keeps our facility in top condition and supervises dogs in the park and takes them on walks.
Maria
Lead Groomer
Maria has been grooming for us since 2004. She is very talented and has such a great way with the dogs.
Brian
Grooming assistant
Brian joined us in 2020 with training in dog care and grooming. He works primarily in our grooming department but can be found occasionally in our dog parks helping to manage our daycare and boarding pups. He has a wonderful way with dogs and has 3 family dogs.
