Wyatt Cunningham poses in front of the mural he designed and painted for local kennel Crate Escape. Courtesy photo.

A new striking addition to the exterior of a Richmond dog kennel makes it abundantly clear that it is all about dogs.

The six-foot-tall faces of six playful canines were recently added in the form of a spray-painted mural to the wooden fence in front of the Crate Escape on U.S Route 2.

The mural is the work of Waterbury college student and artist Wyatt Cunningham who also works at the kennel.

“It was my idea to bring in the Crate Escape dogs, making it really personal. I wanted it to be a surprise for everyone,” Cunningham said.

The business is located on busy West Main Street in Richmond and it provides daycare and boarding services for dogs. During a normal summer, it could see up to 50 dogs a day.

When his responsibilities recently shifted at work, Cunningham said he decided to ask his bosses about redoing some of the murals on the property. After two meetings with the owners, he went to work.

The mural itself spans across both the front and side fences in front of the building. The fence itself is six feet tall, with the front section 15 feet long and the side section 19 feet.

Kennel owner Tammy Schey said samples of Cunningham’s previous spray-painted projects sold his idea to get creative with a design for the kennel.

“He showed me something he had done for his mother, a spray-paint mural. And he said I could do something like that here. We talked about where we would want to do it and what we wanted, and he just brought that idea,” Schey said.

The inspiration behind the mural? Photos taken of real-life dogs on site. “I used photos taken at work of the dogs, except for the dog in the center in the front-facing mural. That is the border collie that our logo has. I wanted to keep that as that centerpiece of it because it represents the Crate Escape,” Cunningham explained.

During the school year, Cunningham majors in film production at Emerson College in Boston where he will be a sophomore this fall. He’s worked at the Crate Escape in the animal care department since last year when he has been home in Vermont. His role is working behind the scenes and directly with the dogs, he said.

For Cunningham, painting the mural was part of a new hobby. “I’ve never done a mural for anything. But recently I have picked up spray painting and I’ve just been doing my own thing with that. I’ve been wanting to do murals, and this is an opportunity I saw to get myself out there in a way,” Cunningham said.

He worked on the mural over eight days. Cunningham estimated that it took him about 24 hours to complete.

The timing of this project was especially good as the kennel works to ride out the economic crunch of the past few months. The COVID-19 pandemic hit the operation with changing work patterns and routines in the community. The business had to shut down in March as clients working from home didn’t need daycare for their pets, Schey said.

“We had to close. Nobody was coming to the business. We waited it out a couple months but opened back up in May. We started projects and things to promote and improve to give us a better chance of surviving this,” she said.

Sprucing up the exterior with the new artwork gave the facade and the people passing by a boost. “Everybody loves it. It’s really incredible. It’s an eye-catching, beautiful mural. I’m thrilled beyond belief on how it came out,” said Schey.

Cunningham’s attention now turns to a new assignment at work that doesn’t involve painting. He will be one of the staffers to spend more one-on-one time with the daily guests. They call it All Out Dog, described as a new canine enrichment program to give dogs more individual attention. “We are not certified trainers, but we are trained in dog behavior. It is just working more closely with the dogs, one on one time,” Wyatt said.

Schey said it’s one way for the operation to get creative as they try to be hopeful for the future. “Tell people enrollment starts Monday,” she said.