KHARY K. MCGHEE,STAFF WRITER

The chorus of barks and howls are music to Denise Cross’s ears.

When she opened The Barking Lot in White Lake over two years ago, Cross was simply expanding her homegrown dog grooming business.

These days, its so much more than that. First came the addition of a doggie day care. Then came kennel facilities for dog owners needing to board their animals.

The Barking Lot’s newest expansion will allow it to board more dogs with greater comfort for Fido.

How comfortable? Do theme suites for your pet, complete with a television for its entertainment, sound comfortable?

But Cross and her staff at The Barking Lot wouldn’t have it any other way. As the business has grown from her garage into a 3,000 square-foot facility on five acres off of Turtle Cove Drive.

The Barking Lot recently wrapped up installation of several new dog pens which will allow the facility to house about 60 dogs for boarding. The new pens were completed last week. They’re made of anodized steel to resist rusting and contain features that can keep dogs from injuring themselves.

“Right now we’re licensed to house 44 dogs, but this will give us the ability to expand that number,” Cross said.

Three luxury-suite pens, with bright, decorative interiors, dog toys and a television showing movies featuring, of course, dogs, are also part of the addition.

“You would have to drive 50 miles to find a facility as nice as this one,” said John McGough, kennel manager at The Barking Lot.

Its convenience for Bladen County dog owners is a big reason for The Barking Lot’s rapid growth since it opened in April of 2004.

Its doggie daycare service, for instance, came about by accident when Cross offered to take care of clients’ dogs for a few hours here and there. Now the daycare handles about 20 dogs from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. four days during the week and half days on Saturdays.

“They’re out and interacting with one another, and we have one or two people with them all day,” Cross said. “We believe a tired dog is a happy dog, so we have all kinds of things they can do.”

As for the luxury suites, Cross said it’s all about giving her customers a choice for boarding their pets.

“It’s kind of like a vacation for your dog when you’re on vacation,” she said.

Steve Davis of Snyder Manufacturing, which made and installed The Barking Lot’s new kennels, pointed out that nice accommodations for pets isn’t farfetched for some animal owners.

“I’ve been all over installing dog runs, and you see, especially in big cities, people who don’t have children who don’t mind the extra expense for their dogs,” Davis said.