Canyon View Ranch for Dogs Is Pooch Paradise

Dec 10th 2009

For Los Angeles-area dogs lucky enough to have a reason to be boarded, going to Canyon View Ranch is like vacationing at the happiest place on earth. "I wanted to create a Disneyland for dogs," explains Randy Neece, who started Canyon View Ranch, a training and boarding facility, eleven years ago with his partner, Jim Timko. "I almost wanted to hear the dogs laughing as they played."

Situated on five acres of land nestled high above the hills overlooking Malibu, Calif., Canyon View Ranch for Dogs -- at least from the exterior -- is easily mistaken for a luxury spa for humans. After turning off Pacific Coast Highway, a winding road delivers you to the gates of the ranch, where you're greeted by towering trees, lush palm plants, and the sound of waterfalls.

"There was nothing but a house, the driveway and acres of scrub brush and poison oak when we bought this place," Neece tells Paw Nation during a tour of the grounds on a sunny December afternoon. It took Neece and Timko several years to transform the rugged landscape into the pooch-centric paradise they had envisioned when they set out to create the kind of place where they'd want to board their own eight Tibetan terriers.