DogVacay Connects Pet Owners With Pet Sitters And The Startup's Santa Monica Office Looks Like Puppy Heaven

A few years ago, Aaron Hirschhorn and his wife Karine went to visit their family on the east coast. They left their two dogs, Rocky and Rainbow, in a kennel. It cost them $1,400 - more than their trip - and Rocky hid under Hirschhorn's desk for the next two days.

"It was clearly a bad experience," Hirschhorn told Business Insider last week in Santa Monica.

He and his wife started brainstorming better solutions and then spent 2011 turning their home into a dog-sitting hotspot. Over the course of the year, they took in 100 dogs when friends went out of town. The result was DogVacay, a network of local dog-sitters which has raised $22 million from investors such as First Round Capital, Benchmark and Andreessen Horowitz.

Any animal lover can become a dog-sitter on DogVacay with a little bit of training. Hirschhorn says common sitters include busy professionals who want to spend a few weekends a year taking dogs to the park, or retirees who don't want to commit to a new pet full-time. Hosts set their own prices, but the average comes out to $28 per night. A kennel can cost $50 on up to $80 per night.

There have been situations where animals have gotten injured - or worse, died - while being dog-sat by DogVacay users. Hirschhorn says hosts are given up to $3 million in insurance and dogs are covered up to $25,000. He also says his team has 24/7 customer service and owners can receive photo updates of their pets on the app while they're away.

For the most part, the app is a life-saver. "There are 78 million dogs in the US, which is more than there are kids, so a lot of people have dogs and our service helps them with a real need," says Hirschhorn.

He let us tour his puppy-filled headquarters. Here's where the dog-lovers congregate.