Brittany Lee first took her dog, Griffin, to Bruce Baber's Mydogspace in May 2009.
Over the course of the year, Baber regularly saw that Griffin and other dogs enlisted in his care were fed, walked two to three times per day and were free to roam.
On June 23, Griffin and the 63-year-old Baber will likely see each other for the last time.
Due to a city code violation, the dog-sitting service, based out of Baber's home at 1713 NW 7th Ave., will be forced to close down.
Baber, who started the business in 2006, said he was extremely disappointed by the news.
"It's like having your legs knocked out from under you," he said. "It's been very hard on me. But I'm keeping a positive attitude as best I can. I'm gonna focus all my energy on resolving it as long as I can, even after the dogs are gone."
Baber was first approached by a code enforcement officer in April. He was told that running a business out of his home violates Gainesville city code. He was also told he would have to apply for a permit to continue running his service.
He applied for a permit the next day. One month later, city officials denied him a permit due to another code violation: Baber was keeping animals in his home for non-pet purposes.
Section 5.3 of the Gainesville city code states, "No person shall harbor any animal for use other than as a pet within any residential district."
Though he will be forced to close on June 23, Baber does not plan on letting his business die. Instead, he and his lawyer, Sondra Randon, plan to challenge the city.
First they will request that the city commission reinterpret the code for Baber's case. If that fails, an alternative would be to appeal to the city to revise the code.
"It's gonna be an uphill battle," Randon said. "We're really gonna need local support, because I think we're gonna need to have the code amended."
However, even if Baber is able to overcome the code barring animals from being in a residential area for non-pet purposes, Randon said he still has yet another obstacle to overcome.
While the city of Gainesville requires that home-based businesses not spill outside the boundaries of the house itself, one of Mydogspace's attractions is the dogs' ability to move freely from the house to the backyard.
Randon said she is not entirely optimistic that the business will be able to find a way around the regulations placed on home businesses by the city. Baber said he doesn't want to think about what he will do if the business must close down.
