The Teacher's Pet

awe cheryl. i cant thank u enough for such a sweet uplifting message. the kids that work here work very hard and really appreciate your kind words. we work tirelessly to create a perfect and safe environment for all. nice to be recognized for all the efforts and really love our weekly visits with valentine. happy new year

thx zane we love lil ollie and mae

thanks deb for taking the time to post about us. we love the laughs frik and frak give us on their visits ( my nicknames). those firey characters are always into something… just zoom around and we giggle at all the antics.

As the owner of the company, if a customer has an issue, I prefer to discuss face to face or by phone as there are always 2 sides to a story and context is important. In this case, I was not contacted prior to this review, but I did immediately phone the dog owner & subsequently we had a very decent discussion. We pride ourselves on maintaining an immaculate facility and thus terrific care of our boarders as we work on referral only (for those reading this review pls see our IG or FB posts). That being said, I am not discounting the upsetting feelings of the owners. I would have felt similarly if I had gone to pick up a dog and it had poo stain on legs and then got home and the pup drank a ton of water then puked and later had diarrhea… I would assume the worst too… however, there is context to this story that is missing… some things are in our control like a bath that should have happened and didn’t & other things out of our control like a dog that is super stressed and how their body deals with that stress. The following is the context of the situation. Maggie was a referral from a colleague due to the holidays. We did not have a typical established relationship prior to this stay by having had trained the dog. It’s my belief that had that been the relationship, we wouldn’t be having this discussion on social media… sadly, gone are the days we speak to someone before writing a review. The owners did come to ck our facility before the stay. That went decently though Maggie seemed a lil shy. Maggie then came back to us for the 3 day stay at xmas. The environment at holidays is a bit overwhelming for some dogs & that was the case with Maggie… her people are gone and all these dogs (28) and a staff of 4 whom she didn’t know. That is a lot for a lil dog & with only 3 days to adjust? Yes that can be difficult, but not totally uncommon. So we set Maggie up in a quieter area with just lil dogs and a separate play area just for those dogs. That area we use has open access to the outside play area should she want to venture outside safely. We held her and carried her around to try & make her feel at home but she never relaxed. She was eating and drinking well; so other than being unsure of her surroundings, there didn’t seem to be any significant issue. To address the owners concerns noted above… yes at pickup I said this may not be the place for her because she didn’t warm up to the environment. It is too overwhelming for her (perhaps her other boarding place is smaller). She was stressed the whole time; exhibited by her nipping if we tried to reach in the crate to get her out. So again her anxiety. Treats don’t always work if a dog is fearful as they already don’t trust you; so we also tried leaving the door open. That sometimes worked. If she needed to be out for her potty break and the other 2 things didn’t work, we would tip the crate creating a downhill slope to encourage her to come out. It worked and she would walk out to the pen. So again we are trying to work with her stress & not add to it. Regarding the poo stains… we had thunderstorms the 2 nights of her stay. Likely that plus her away from home stress mentioned earlier led to a poo accident the night before she was going home. At that midnight shift, we found she had pottied a small amt in her crate so we cleaned the kennel and wipe her up planning on a bath in the AM when there was more light. My staff dropped the ball and forgot to bathe her that morning as requested. So when I went to get her out for the owners at 9 am I spotted the poo stains & we immediately bathed her legs (yes this is on us… we dropped that ball). In 14 yrs of business this has not happened where a dog was presented unclean …so again all I can do is say I’m sorry. We made a mistake. We dropped the ball. We tried to correct it immediately. Other than that the rest of the symptoms (drinking vomit diarrhea) are all consistent with stress diarrhea. we will followup with owners

awe thx for taking the time to post