A Fun, Fur-filled Day at Barkin' Blends, Katipunan

Scientific studies agree with pet owners and pet lovers that owning a pet or being around them can relieve stress and anxiety. However, it can be challenging to keep a pet around when your days are always busy and you can't bring them to work. Luckily, some pet lovers came up with the idea of bringing dogs and humans together to have fun with each other.

Lots of furry friends at Barkin' Blends.

Barkin' Blends is a dog cafe that allows stressed out humans to chill out for a while and have fun with all sorts of furry dog friends, in all sorts of sizes. We visited the place just to be with some furry friends and we couldn't get enough of the dogs. You know what's coming next, right?

Lots of pictures of our furry friends, of course! But let met take you thru the process first. We paid Php180 each which served as our ticket to the dog cafe and also the price of one drink. If you want fancier drinks, you can add extra to the amount.

The large signage at the cafe.

The cafe itself, where we went to pay and get our drinks and tickets, is in a separate area right across the dog cafe. Once we had our drinks in hand and our ticket stubs, we headed to the dog cafe.

At the entrance, we were each provided a key and asked to put our things in separate lockers as well as to change into slippers which were also provided. We also got our hands sanitised with alcohol before going in to the dog area.

The moment you step into the dog cafe, your nose will be shocked by the sudden change of smell. The place of course smelled very strongly of dogs and my friend even got a headache because of the smell. I had been with dogs for most of my childhood so I guess I was immune to the smell. I smelled it too of course but got no headache. After awhile we all got used to the smell and didn't notice it anymore.

The entrance area was small and made even smaller by people sitting on the floor and milling around some of the sleeping dogs. Some of them held small dogs on their laps. This connected to a bigger room with benches near the walls and water bottles for the dogs to drink from. There was also a space on the walls to put your drinks where the dogs can't reach them.

Dogs and humans at the entrance.

So we saw big dogs and small dogs, sleeping dogs and sleepy dogs; there were some grumpy dogs (mostly the small ones) and some fun-loving dogs (the big ones, which was scary at times) and the human staff who looked after the dogs when the call of nature came upon them.

A Sharpei drinking some water.

A Golden Retriever also getting some drink.

Drink done, maybe time for some nap.

2 Golden Retrievers getting some zzzzs under the benches.

Another Golden Retriever napping under another bench.

One of the rules of the dog cafe is to not disturb the dogs if they are sleeping. Thankfully, most of the humans let these fellas be when they were napping. But it was not so great for the smaller dogs. Since people could just scoop them up, they ended up taking naps on human laps.

The dogs take schedules so you don't see all of the dogs in one visit. Still, there were plenty around, almost 20 when we visited, but we weren't really counting.

Some of the smaller dogs were easier to take pictures of. Just look at this bunch.

Mr. Hot Dog looks snobby here.

Cute and intense, this stare is.

This girl's got some gorgeous hair.

This is not a floor mop with legs but an ewok, maybe?

This little darling looks adorable.

There were also groups of dogs who can't seem to get enough of each other.

Butt-sniffing in a line.

Chilling for a bit after some barking.

Resting a bit after all the running around into each other.

Speaking of sleeping dogs, there was a husky named Skye who slept most of the time we were there but he was the silliest of the bunch and even howled as soon as he woke up.

Skye asleep when we went thru the first room.

Still asleep when we checked in on her again an hour later.

Even in sleep she still looks adorable and reminds me of a polar bear.

We forgot our stress as we interacted with these dogs. They were all pure breeds though so I wished there were some askals (street dogs) who could be adopted among the bunch.

Although the place was small, the staff kept it clean and the dogs were well behaved. I just wished more people actually respected the sleeping dogs and stopped trying to pick them up or stroking them as they tried to get some snooze.

Still, the 2 hours we spent with the dogs was worth it and for Php180, that is a cheap way to take off some stress.

For more information, and for more and better dog pictures to adore, you can visit their Instagram or Facebook page or their website.