About Fido Fitness Club®
Ellen Adler and Evelyn Franklin – Owners
Ellen Adler has worked in the International Trade industry for the last 30 years. She has always had such passion for animals (always had 5 at her feet). In 2002, with the encouragement of her late husband, she opened The Barrie Inn, a dog grooming and overnight cage-less boarding facility. 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.
Evelyn Franklin has worked in the financial services and health care industries for many years and has a varied managerial and business background. She is a long-time dog lover who spends as much free time as she can with her golden retriever, Jack, taking long dog walks after returning home from work. From Jack’s need for off-leash playtime after being home alone all day, emerged the concept of establishing an indoor facility where dogs can safely run and play off-leash, meeting their need for exercise and socialization. Discussions about an indoor facility began in the spring of 2010 with best friend, Ellen.
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 further evolved. Together these two talented working women decided to enter into a partnership and create Fido Fitness Club®, providing a neighborhood-based solution to help address the challenges of working dog-owners whose dogs are left alone all day, and then have no place to run them off-lease when they get home. With the launch of FFC, a solution for daycare and exercise was introduced, with training services and structured play time also available. Ellen and Evelyn are both certified dog trainers and decided to expand futher to include a 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 trainer. Ruth has an adorable little girl, Summer, who she dotes on and a little pupper named Chops, whom she rescued.
Desiree
Supervisor and Asst 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 colors in her spare time and has a lovely dog named Apples who tags along most days.
Cassidy
Park Ranger and Dog Handler
Cassidy started working part time with us right after high school and now works full time as Park Ranger and Dog Handler. She preps, feeds and beds down the dogs boarding with us, supervises the daycare dogs, and closes up our facility at night.
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.
Maryann
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.
Nick
Park Ranger
Nick is a part time Park Ranger who joined us in 2019. He completed the Boces Animal Science program while in high school. He learned to care for dogs and groom them too. He's currently attending college at Nassau Community in the Marine Science Program.
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.
Maria
Lead Groomer
Maria has been grooming for us since 2004. She is very talented and has such a great way with the dogs.
Carlos
Groomer
Carlos joined the grooming team in 2019 with experience in grooming and general dog care.
Tevon
Jr Groomer and Bather
Tevon was an intern with us from the ABC school where he learned to groom, and was then hired to work here.
