Darla, Chelsea and Coco Puff share a quaint Victorian-style home.
Their dwelling has a cedar-shake roof, vaulted ceilings and hardwood floors, heating and air conditioning, moldings and casement windows, drapery with valances and fanciful wallpapers.
At this time of year, Christmas music from the RCA Victor radio carries outside to a grassy yard surrounded by a white picket fence.
A sign on the porch reads: "Three spoiled dogs live here."
For Yorkshire terriers Chelsea and Coco Puff and Pomeranian Darla, Mom is Tammy Kassis, 45, a former insurance agent who lives in the Riverside County community of Winchester, east of Los Angeles. To call her an animal lover is an understatement.
"I'm beyond that," she says, later adding with conviction, "My dogs are my life."
Surfing the Internet, she happened upon Alan Mowrer's La Petite Maison, a builder of deluxe custom doghouses.
"I can do any style," says Mowrer, whose repertoire includes French châteaux, Tudor mansions, Swiss chalets and brick Colonial dog houses.
Kassis requested a replica of her own Victorian home. 8 foot by 11 foot.
Kassis guesstimates she has invested nearly $20,000 in construction, transport and equipment if she includes the painting, landscaping, screened doors and windows, mini-blinds and ceiling fans, as well as a yard with artificial turf.
For the holidays, Kassis plans to string white lights around the house and install an artificial tree. Large faux lollipops are staked in the flower bed around the doghouse.
Also, she confides, Santa is planning a big surprise for "the kids."
She has her eye on a small plasma-screen TV.
"They love to watch Animal Planet," Kassis says. "It's their favorite."
From the Los Angeles Times
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Anonymous
December 13, 2008, 12:14 am
Wow! I'm amazed! Very lucky dogs! Speaking of holidays, I found this amazing site today, http://www.petcentric.com/crittercarols/?DCMP=RAC-PETC-DogTm-Carol08&HQS=Blog, and used it to send holiday greeting cards to my friends. Mind you, it's not your ordinary greeting cards, you will get to see your dog singing Christmas carols! LOL!
Anonymous
December 24, 2008, 2:10 pm
OK, I don't mean to be the 5 pound Grinch here, but that is so wacky - spenind all that money on a silly house. We're pack animals and love to be with our 2 legged guardians - why the heck would we want to live out in the yard alonee - with out our human pack. That makes no sense to me. Why have a dog if you're not hanging around together. It's great to have money, but doesn't mean ya gotta go spend it on silly stuff. Take the money and give it to animal shelters who desperately need it with all the abandoned pets because of foreclosures on REAL houses.
Yappy Holidays!
Arf-Arf,
Schmitty, The Real New Yorkie
www.schmittysays.com
