A NEW dog daycare centre has tongues as well as tails wagging over the huge murals painted inside.

Featuring eight-foot high pooches at play, the bare walls of The Barking Lot in Stockton have been transformed by artist Suzie Devey who is hoping to turn her creative passion into a career.

Juggling a part-time job, two daughters and a college course in art and design, the large-scale pieces took her 70 hours to complete in just one week.

Using pictures she’d found as well as images of friends’ pets, she pencilled outline of her paintings before clambering up onto scaffolding to bring them to life with her palette.

“I’ve been painting since I was knee-high to a grasshopper and I’ve always dreamed of being an artist but life comes along,” said Miss Devey, a council business administrator who was made redundant from her European Social Project Fund project manager post which helped young people into work.

To brush up on her technical skills she has enrolled on a one-year access course in art and design at Cleveland College of Art and Design where she pitched for its brief to create work for the new dog daycare centre which officially opened on Friday.

Located on Ross Road, just off Portrack Lane, The Barking Lot also provides grooming services as well as offering an indoor playroom and outside playground.

“I’m really pleased with the reaction my mural has had and I have now been commissioned by two other companies to do pieces,” added Ms Devey, 47, from Stokesley.

“This has really boosted my confidence and I’m determined to turn my art into a profession.”