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The Work We Do: Maria Romond, Hydrant Hotel

My name is Maria Romond.

I am the manager here at the Hydrant Hotel in Riverhead. We’ve been here for about three years now.

We’re a dog hotel and cat hotel. We do daycare and grooming as well, and specialty services, like a dead sea bath for dogs with dry skin.

I typically answer the phones, answer emails help customers on a day-to-day basis scheduling their daycare, scheduling their boardings and also answering any questions they might have regarding what we do here.

Our main goal is to make sure everyone is 100 percent comfortable leaving their pets with us, because we know that they are their babies. We totally understand that and want to make sure that everyone is really having a good time when they’re here with us.

We split our daycare groups between large and small dogs. They just romp around on their own. We make sure everyone is playing nicely with each other, getting along.

We also do practice making them sit, making them stay. Little things like that.

I was actually working with children for years before that, and just wanted something different.

Believe it or not, it is actually very similar. It’s a similar play style…a lot of it transferred right over for me. The best thing about dogs is they don’t talk back.

The best part of this job is that I get to be with all the dogs, and having communication with all of the customers here, and really being able to be open with them and let them know on a daily basis what’s going on with their dogs in daycare, how they’re enjoying it, who their friends are. It’s really fun to tell the stories.

We have grown immensely, a lot of that is thanks to our customers helping us out by telling friends, neighbors and relatives about us.

Our staff here is just amazing. Everyone is really in tune with all of the animals. We treat them as our own animals. They’re not just a customer, it’s not just another dog.

They really become our own, and we all know them so personally.

I have three dogs of my own. I’ve enjoyed working with them. They really are great creatures.

The Hydrant Hotel is located at 845 Raynor Ave, Riverhead.

“The Work We Do” is a News-Review multimedia project profiling workers around Riverhead Town. It is made possible by Peconic Landing in Greenport. See more photos on Instagram @riverheadnewsreview