From doggy day spas and daycare centers to canine massages and manicures, today there are more ways than ever to pamper a pooch.

This year, Buffalo dog owners can add personal trainer to the list.

Local running star Chris Muldoon started Dash Dog Running Service, a one-man dog running business that may be the first of its kind in the Buffalo area.

While dog walkers have been around for a while, services that run dogs are a relatively recent phenomenon.

"In general, we have noticed a larger number of dog running businesses in states with warmer climates, where the services can be provided year-round, or large metropolitan areas," Candance Labane-Godfrey, former president of the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters, wrote in an e-mail. "Pet parents wishing to hire a professional dog runner typically have a high-energy breed, and find that this specialized service ensures the dog maintains his or her intense exercise regime."

The dogs running with Muldoon, though, may think "intense" is an understatement. Since moving to Buffalo, Muldoon has become a bit of a local running celebrity after winning the JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge four years in a row for Crowley Webb and Associates, where he has been a copywriter since January 2007.

But Muldoon is taking a break from competitive running to try his hand at starting a business as a dog runner.

"I think it's an up and coming idea," Muldoon said. "There's not tons of them."

Muldoon came up with the concept on his own while home with his parents in eastern Pennsylvania over Christmas while recovering from a stress fracture. The former captain of the track-and-field and cross-country teams at Syracuse University and four-time Big East Academic All-Star saw that no dog running service existed in Buffalo, at least on the Internet. He started small, posting ads on Craigslist and handing out flyers around the neighborhood in March. It gave him a chance to apply his advertising skills to his own business.

"Working in an advertising agency, it felt like a good opportunity to put things that work for other clients to use for myself," Muldoon said. "I was already combining running, which I love, and dogs, which I love, and it seemed like a fun project for myself as far as marketing, too."

By June, he registered his own brand, Dash Dog Running, and business started to pick up. Today he runs about five to six dogs anywhere between once to three times a week. Rates start at $15 for a 20-minute run and go up to $30 for 45 minutes.

"It takes a time or two [for the dogs] to get used to me and realizing that they can go out for a run for 20 minutes," he said.

Most owners have their dogs start at 20 minutes and try to work them up from there. Canine exercise works much the same way it does for humans: For each session, Muldoon walks with the dog for a few minutes as a warm-up before running, and will gradually try to build up the dog's pace as its endurance increases.

Dogs, it seems, need the exercise. The Association of Pet Obesity Prevention estimates that 45 percent of dogs are overweight.

Though it's a side project, Muldoon is taking his business seriously -- he is insured and certified in pet first aid. While he currently runs the business by himself, he hopes to have a few other runners join his business as he finds more clients. Even a runner as good as Muldoon can only run dogs part time.

"I think the difference between running as opposed to walking dogs is that you can only run so much in a day," he said. "So even if, hypothetically, it was a full-time thing, I couldn't run from 8 in the morning until 8 at night."

Muldoon said that most of his canine clients so far have adjusted well to the running regime, and that he has had few problems with them. The hardest one for him to run is his own dog, Noki.

"I have a Husky and her natural tendency is to pull," he said. "It's good training. When I go to a client and they're like 'Oh, my dog likes to pull a lot' and it's absolutely nothing compared to my dog."

dgrandoni@buffnews.comnull