To the apparently “not in our league” doggie daycare and boarding place where I can get a 15% discount through my employer:
I was willing to endure your online application that was as long as my arm, but why the fuck should I have to fill the entire thing out twice, one for each dog, when 90% of the information doesn’t change?
You “require” at least a day and a half of daycare before you will consider accepting a dog for boarding. Smells a bit like a racket, but fine. I’m willing for the 15% discount to be a wash on the first visit.
You won’t do the day and a half of evaluation on a weekend, aye? Well that’s a problem with our work schedules, since we get to work at 6:30am and you don’t open until 7:00am, and pets aren’t exactly allowed in our offices, even for just a half hour.
Oh. I see. And there’s a waiting list just to get evaluated…that extends into mid-late November. Right. Well fuck you very much. I hope some overpaid lawyer sues you for giving her poor widdle poodle fleas.
Just out of curiousity - what’s the waiting list in your area for the daycare your employer has an “in” with?
ETA: I don’t know which would be worse - that the daycare suggested by your employer has a more convoluted application process and longer wait, or if this kennel is more difficult to get into.
I wonder if it’s related to the kennel who advertises on craigslist for “canine facilitators.” :rolleyes:
[We boarded our Golden Retriever at one of those hoitsy toitsy places, as a last resort and when we got back, they complained bitterly that every day when they hosed down his run, he kept trying to play with the water. Really? You don’t say!]
We had a fantastic experience with another “cage free” kennel in Montana (nocagesmontana.com) while traveling around the country with the dogs last summer. Though it was understood that we would have to find somewhere else to board them if their behavior did not pass muster during their (much more reasonable) 15 minute on-site evaluation, they had no problem taking the application over the phone and making a conditional reservation for us (we were living in Georgia at the time).
The dogs seemed to have a great time there too, and I like the concept a lot, but not so much that I’m willing to endure such bullshit to support it. They’ll be just fine in the same kennel we had them in the last time we traveled, with wire cages, a daily few moments of daylight, and a cranky old man who goes out to give them food and water and yells at them to shut their yappers.
Something in this area kinda in between those extremes sure would be nice though.
Try a dog sitter. We have three dogs and have a person come stay at our house when we go away. She checks in on them during the day and spends the night at our house. She charges $50 per night. Sounds expensive but our local kennel wanted $30 each for the three dogs. Works out great.
It’s complicated, but a sitter isn’t really an option. We live up in the remote Santa Cruz mountians, so finding someone willing to come up here is tricky. Then there’s our landlords and their two kids who live in the house right next-door to us. They have dogs too, so you’d think that they’d be the natural choice for sitting, but just trust me that they’re not an option. We’re not really keen on telling them that to their faces though, so explaining why someone else is coming to stay in our house while we’re gone is a conversation we’re trying to avoid.
Qualifications: I ran a day board and train operation last year. I’ve also taught obedience and other dog classes for about 15 years.
Filling the info out twice is important, because those one or two small items that might be different can be crucial. In an emergency, when they grab the paperwork for your dog to figure out why it is dying, do you want them to miss that THIS dog is allergic to X medicine? Or that THAT dog may bite if you grab it by the back leg when it is hurt? It is on-line, try to cut and paste where you can.
The day care requirement - an amazing amount of dogs are totally different in a boarding environment than at home. The dog may display behaviors that the owner has never seen or suspected. It may be something that would make boarding dangerous or way too difficult to make it worthwhile for the kennel.
For instance - I had a dog who had supposedly been totally quiet at home, but would bark non-stop all day while boarded. I had another who decided that if I reached in the kennel to put a leash on him, he would try to bite. (Turns out the owners had never tried to do that.) Another was so stressed by the whole experience that it wasn’t healthy for her.
If I was boarding them for an extended period of time, each of those situations could have turned dangerous for either me or the dog. Better to tell the owners that it wasn’t going to work out.
There are different levels of knowledge in the dog world, and their general kennel help may not be good at evaluating behavioral or health issues. Chances are that the behaviorist is not on staff on weekends, and only pre-approved dogs are there on weekends. Would you want your dog there on a day when an aggressive new dog is admitted to a play group by an inexperienced evaluator?
Actually, it sounds like this would be a GOOD organization, if you can stand to jump through their hoops. It might be a good idea to get on that waiting list for future use.
Most of the form was name, address, vet’s phone number, etc etc. When my encounter with these folks started, it was a minor annoyance to have to fill the whole thing out twice. It includes things like “has your dog ever bitten anyone?” “does your dog not like being touched on particular parts of his/her body?”
It sounds like these folks need to either increase their staff or open another facility to handle the apparent demand. The only reason that I was even looking at them was because of the discount and they’re located close to the office (our alternate kennel is not close to either our home or our work). I’m also not interested in doggie daycare. We certainly don’t make enough money to spend $60 a day to be able to watch our dogs on a webcam. We want someone to feed and water and house them while we spend 4 days in Yosemite.
The mandatory day and a half of daycare if you want your dog to be accepted for boarding (NOT daycare) is just completely over the top, especially if they won’t allow for work schedules such as our’s, or do evaluations on the weekends.
I’m thrilled for them that they have the volume of customers that they can insist on such standards. But it is simply not worth it to me, at pretty much any level, to jump through their hoops.
They don’t necessarily have a lot of repeat customers keeping them busy. They may all be in the promotional limbo you are, and having the evaluation shit going on. The business could very well find after the initial influx, they have no repeats coming in.
Nope, around here at least the good daycares and boarding places are booked months in advance. In fact, it can be a sign of a good facility. Kind of like daycare for kids…
Just wanna point out that every August I had to fill out the same form three times for each of my three kids–and they went to the same magnet school, so it wasn’t that District 61 needed one copy for each school.
I assumed it was a “paperwork and filing happiness” thing.