Benny the dog stepped onto a yellow school bus dressed head-to-paw as Mary Poppins, fully homemade, and the driver could barely get the words out before the laughter took over. That moment, repeated in various forms every Halloween morning at a doggy daycare built around an actual repurposed school bus, captures exactly what this operation has become: a small, joyful institution that nobody planned and everybody loves. It started with one person watching a video online and asking a single reckless question.
A yellow van, a wild idea, and a bus full of dogs
The founder grew up with dogs. His parents ran a dog rescue, so animals were always part of the furniture. When he came across a video of a dog walker who had a yellow van and joked that people compared it to a little dog school bus, something clicked. ‘What if I got an actual school bus?’ he thought. He did. He built something around it. Photos and footage of dogs riding to daycare on a real school bus started spreading across social media, the business got busier, and eventually he had to leave his other job entirely to keep up. Now driving a school bus full of dogs is, in his words, simply his job.
The dogs have made the bus their own. Many of them can hear it coming from inside their homes and are already waiting in the windows before it arrives. When the door opens, they run out and board without hesitation, hunting for their regular friends in the group. Certain dogs have certain friends, the founder noted, and watching those bonds play out on the bus each morning is a big part of what keeps the whole thing going.
Vegas showgirls, bananas, and a Dolly Parton tribute
The Halloween costume contest started simply enough. Someone had the idea to let owners dress their dogs up and take pictures on the bus. The response from parents was immediate and borderline competitive. One of the drivers arrived at a family’s home for pickup and found the mom surrounded by arts and crafts supplies, building a costume from scratch at the kitchen table. That level of dedication became the norm rather than the exception.
This year’s lineup included a Dolly Parton, multiple bananas, and at least one Vegas showgirl, a callback to last year’s winner, Isla, who took the title in that exact costume. The contest now runs through social media, where the daycare’s large following votes on their favorites. As the founder put it about the whole operation: ‘It’s happiness, right? It’s just stuff that makes you smile.’
The daycare dresses the dogs up for other holidays too, Christmas and whatever else falls on the calendar, but Halloween, with its full costume contest and the chaotic morning boarding ritual, has taken on a life of its own.
Blue, who needed a moment
Blue boarded the bus and received both praise and a burst of enthusiastic screaming from the gathered crowd before finally settling in for the ride.
Benny the Mary Poppins dog had already claimed the front spot by then, fully homemade costume and all, which may or may not have been a coincidence.
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