New Colorado Springs dog day care provides Montessori-style environment | Pets

New Colorado Springs dog day care provides Montessori-style environment | Pets

Montessori education isn’t just for kids.

The five furry students at Pinecone Pups have a full schedule ahead of them on a gloomy June day. There’s time to run around with their buddies, human and canine, work on manners, sits, stays, touch and recall, nap, sniff and just plain be a dog.

Newt, an 8-month-old golden retriever, works on a few commands with his mom, Lynde Nanson, who’s also a Pinecone trainer, before getting to roughhouse with his other puppy friend, a doodle named Bella, who’s been in puppy classes for a month. Bella’s brother, a Chesapeake bay retriever named Emmett, shows anxiety with his pinned-back ears. It’s his first day at Pinecone, and his stress in an unfamiliar environment is normal. But by the afternoon he’ll be a whole new dog, happily rolling on his back in the sand in the yard, as Pinecone founder and owner Elissa Ferguson takes video to show his mom.


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“Dogs want to learn, work, be fulfilled,” Ferguson said. “They want to do dog things. They want to dig, chase, smell, and if you have a stale environment, which means your typical doggy day care, with plastic play equipment and fake grass, that’s not my thing.”







Pinecone Pups

Lynde Nanson watches as Yuka and Newt cool off in a puppy pool at Pinecone Pups on Wednesday, June 26, 2024. (Parker Seibold, The Gazette)

Lynde Nanson watches as Yuka and Newt cool off in a puppy pool at Pinecone Pups on Wednesday, June 26, 2024. (Parker Seibold, The Gazette)



photos by Parker Seibold, The Gazette




Ferguson, a dog trainer and previous dog day care owner, relocated from Chicago to Colorado Springs specifically for the natural environment and to find a yard as big as possible for Pinecone Pups, her Montessori-inspired dog day care, puppy development and enrichment center on the west side. It opened in January.

The definition of Montessori, for Ferguson, is a focus on self-exploration, choice and learning. The pillar being that this is an individual and you need to be able to tailor to them. She’s taken that approach and made it dog-friendly.

“A lot of it comes down to choice,” Ferguson said. “We’re not saying it’s a free-for-all. But they don’t have a lot of control in their life. We feed them when we want to feed them, walk them when we want to walk them, or they get put in a big group of dogs without getting a say who they’re next to. Space and choice give them some control over their life.”

There will never be more than 10 dogs per trainer, Ferguson says. And right now it’s her and trainer Nanson at the helm.

“The idea is this stays two to three trainers and we want to do it with the least amount of dogs possible,” Ferguson said. “If that could be 18 a day, that would be ideal. It’s really individualized stuff.”

And dogs need to be vetted before they can join the ranks at Pinecone.







Pinecone Pups

Pinecone Pups founder Elissa Ferguson, left, and trainer Lynde Nanson pose for a portrait with a group of dogs on Wednesday, June 26, 2024.