Photo: QueensPost
Dec. 17, 2011 By Christian Murray
The Dog Guru, a dog rehabilitation business owned by Raja Shah, closed last week.
Shah’s non-profit business took in abandoned dogs from the New York Animal Care Control, trained them and then found homes for them. The business received some support from city agencies for saving the dogs lives.
However, Shah said he had difficulty finding owners for the dogs once they had been trained. He said most people who adopted the dogs came from outside the Sunnyside/Woodside area. Furthermore, he felt the community was not as supportive of his operation as he might have liked.
Shah, who operated out of a 5,500 sqf. warehouse located at 47-42 43rd Street (behind then Orchard Farmers Market), opened his business in Sept, 2010. He kept about 40 dogs on the premises.
He was subject to criticism for allowing his trainers to walk the dogs, many of which were pit bull mixes, near Thomas P. Noonan Park. However, he explained that they were with trained dog handlers, and then decided to stop walking them in that area anyway.
Featured Events
11 Comments
(This next comment is meant to be funny) You know what would be great in a place like that? a dollar general or something? Yea, That would be awesome.
That really stinks. I wish something could be done to help these guys.
Admirable work, certainly.
But finding homes for larger dogs in NYC is alwasy a problem. Small dogs are generally what NYers look for due to our obvious space limitations.
I wish him the best of luck and thank him for bringing his work to our neighborhood!!!
Sorry to hear this. Once again, lack of community support.
Admirable attempt indeed. All I can say is I am not surprised. Sunnyside is turning into a cesspool concerned with parking, parking, restaurants, eateries, restaurants, and oh yeah, 99 cent stores. Then there’s the parking situation. All the luck to you, Mr. Shah.
Admirable work indeed, and a shame that he did not feel he had community support. Of course, Sunnyside is riddled with people who don’t pick up after their dogs so I can’t say I’m surprised.
This was once a theatre, so perhaps it could be converted back again. It would make a great new home for the Thalia Spanish Theatre, now further down on Greenpoint Avenue, which has been using converted retail space.
Reesie.. I agree with your comment.. it is a shame that to advertise your business is so expensive… some how we need to make it less expensive to advetrsie in our town… but our local papers need to make money too.. any ideas out there!!!!
It is a shame. He was doing such an admirable thing. I wish businesses like these would be supported.
It’s a dog eat dog business climate.
It is a shame that this type of buisnes would not do well in our town.. I do not think that aot of or town even knew that he was there.. I never saw an ad for his business and I do not think that the bid nor the sunnyside chanber of commerce does a good job promoting businessin this town… I may be wrong but then something is wrong and maybe somone wants to correct me…