Canal Bark To Temporarily Close, Cites Business Struggles

Canal Bark in Duluth is closing from January 4th to the 31st as the business struggles to stay afloat.

DULUTH, Minn. – Canal Bark in Duluth is closing from January 4th to the 31st as the business struggles to stay afloat.

Before COVID, Canal Bark had about 30 staff members, some being full time and a lot being part-time. However, management had to lay off everybody in April.

Then the business got federal funding and was able to get most of the staff back.

Management has been trying to keep the staff on in full force since then.

But now, with the struggles of just breaking even financially and staff members making more money on unemployment than working at the facility, they decided to lay all employees off for the month of January to try to regroup.

Canal Bark’s location is close to the airport, but its customer base has been drained because of the lack of travelers during the pandemic.

“We’re pretty tied to the airline industry and travel so we’ve seen some months that are okay and then some months where we have almost no dogs,” said Andrea Schokker, the owner of Canal Bark. “So we’ve tried to do other things during this time, but really, our model is based on boarding and overnight care.”

The business hopes to get federal funding from this recent stimulus package by the month of February. Management says they are grateful for both staff members and their patrons, especially during this uncertain time.

“The staff and clients have been great, and we’re really thankful for that,” said Schokker. “And we just hope we can come back in February and continue taking care of everybody’s dogs. We just have such a great staff, we’re very thankful.”

Canal Bark’s downtown location is closed as the business doesn’t have enough clients to keep it open and can no longer support it.