K9 Team Training

K9 did a great job with our pet, Cleo, over the Christmas holiday; it was our first experience, for 8 days total, and we're already booking our next visit. Cleo came home happy and beautifully bathed and clean. I also really appreciated the careful communication on all booking details and the phone calls to confirm our appointment and to make sure we knew all the requirements for drop-off and pick-up. One small suggestion: It would be great if K9 offered photos of pets upon request; we were away for more than a week and it would have made me happier if we could see Cleo from time to time. Overall, great job. And 5 stars says it all!

The staff at K9 Team Training took care of my pup through day care for 5 weeks over the summer. I found the staff friendly, but I found their communication with me and with each other to be lacking. When dropping my dog off the first day I noticed the bark collars for sale and made sure to state that I did not train my dog that way and asked that they not use that type of training for my dog. I politely, and straightforwardly made sure that I would be contacted if she ever became such a nuisance that such a collar was required—as I would rather leave work to pick her up than have one used. I also made it clear that if they found her to need training to be there I was happy to pay for it. I was assured that a training collar would not be used without my consent. Over the course of the next five weeks I checked in repeatedly with different staff members at pickup and drop off to ask how my dog was doing and whether they thought training would be worthwhile. Repeatedly I was told no—but offered agility classes. They also mentioned she often sized up the fence and was a flight risk—but nothing about her barking. On the second to last day of our scheduled stay I came to pick up my dog and found her to have a bark collar on. On asking the staff member on pick up (the original staff member who assured me I would be notified if they felt such a collar would need to be used) what was going on with that, he said the order came from the owner. I asked why I had not been notified and was referred to speak with the owner. On speaking with the owner it became clear that my request had never been recorded or discussed. She stated that had I told her my feelings, that I would have been notified. She also minimized the concern by saying the collar was set to a lower level. Regardless of all this, it is not the customer’s job to notify every member of the staff of their beliefs regarding dog training. Notifying one staff member of strong beliefs should be enough to have those beliefs shared and respected with other staff. If that is not possible, it is on that staff member or the owner to communicate that to the customer. When you are placing your trust in a group of people to take care of your pup, that seems a reasonable expectation. All this said, I am not certain whether I was misled over the 5 weeks, and whether the collar had been used prior without my knowledge, but it does seem unlikely that my dog, out of the blue, only had barking issues 20 something days into her stay. That being said, I’d like to give the staff the benefit of the doubt that the issue lies in poor communication and not purposeful duplicity. I also hope they have taken the opportunity since this happened to make changes and improve the way they record customer requests and concerns.