Stay and Play Pet House in Oshkosh completes expansion, remodel

Rich Palzewic

Staff

November 3, 2025

OSHKOSH – Stay and Play Pet House co-owners Cassandra Running and Sherry Slife say they knew, even four years ago, that their pet boarding and grooming facility at 3792 Jackson St. in Oshkosh would need more space to better serve customers.

By summer 2024, Running said every weekend was fully booked, with all kennels filled and customers being turned away for boarding, grooming and other services.

“An expansion was no longer a want but a need,” she said.

The co-owners recently celebrated the completion of that project – which includes 2,670 square feet of new space and a 1,530-square-foot interior update – with an open house and ribbon-cutting.

The business’s expansion journey – which kicked off last fall – was first featured in the Jan. 27 edition of The Business News.

Running said construction – which began last fall – was completed by Keller, Inc.

“By the end of July, we were ready to go,” she said. “Keller was expecting to be completed by the end of June or mid-July, so things went very smoothly. There were very few hiccups.” 

Running said working with Keller was “absolutely fantastic.”

“If we had any questions or concerns, they were right there,” she said. “We had a lot of say in the project, and they wanted to make sure everything was exactly the way we wanted it. We’d highly recommend them to anyone and would work with them again in a heartbeat.”

Running said Stay and Play primarily offers daycare, dog grooming and boarding for dogs and cats.

Call-ahead services, she said, include nail trims and grinding, teeth brushing, anal gland expression, ear cleaning, foot and sanitary trims, as well as self-serve bath and brush/blow-out options.

“On a typical day, we will see about 50 dogs at the daycare facility, but sometimes that number balloons to as high as 80,” she said. “We’ve had a lot of positive comments from the public – they love the extra space and how we upgraded things.”

Over this past summer, Running said there were a few weekends when all the kennels were full.

“That proved to us that the expansion was very needed,” she said. “At our recent open house, we even got a few new customers, because they saw the facility and the upgrades we made.”

More space for the animals

Slife said Stay and Play – which officially opened for business Feb. 1, 2018 – originally had 17 kennels for dogs.

The facility’s recent expansion, she said, increases that number to 42 – more than double the previous amount.

“Our inside daycare is also larger,” she said. “When you more than double the amount of kennels you offer, that’s obviously a significant amount of extra room. There were days [this past summer] where we had to have more staff working when the kennels were full to let the dogs out, etc.”

Other highlights of the expansion/remodel, Slife said, are the addition of a second outdoor play yard and the construction of an overhang with a six-foot cement slab on the current building.
“If dogs need to escape the summer sun, they have a place to go that isn’t lying in pea gravel or them all hogging the dog beds,” she said. “It’s more comfort and luxury for them.”

Slife said the dog grooming area was also expanded.

“We added a grooming table and five drying kennels for dogs that were recently washed,” she said. “It’s just been nice to have more space and room for all of that.”

For more information on Stay and Play Pet House, visit stayandplaypethouse.com or find it on social media.