When you lead a busy life and have a beloved furry friend, you can often be left with no choice but to place them into day care services while you’re hard at work earning enough money to buy them treats. Getting a dog sitter can be a good idea, but it involves trusting a person to come to your home and take care of your pooch – which is something a lot of people simply find too intrusive. Dog walkers are a similar solution, but again, they have to go into your home. Plus your dog will get one or two visits maximum, which leaves a lot of hours for him to while away on his own – not great conditions for a sociable animal. If your dog loves the company of other dogs and people, then a day care facility may well be the ideal choice for you. Now you just have to find the perfect place.
Here are Some Tips to Help You:
Check Out The Day Care Facilities In Detail
Unfortunately, no matter how glamorous the marketing is, or how well-meaning the staff might be, not all day care centres are places you would want your dog to spend time in. They should be clean, and smell like dogs, but not give you an overpowering hit of poop and wee the moment you walk in. You also don’t want it to smell too clean. If it smells like strong disinfectant or chemicals, that’s a bad sign too, as it means the dogs inside are breathing in nasty chemical fumes and walking their delicate paws on chemicals all day.
You should also expect the daycare to have various different areas for the dogs. Expect an area for the toilet (regularly cleaned), an area for play and excitement and an area for sleeping. Your dog should be stimulated throughout the day, but not the point where they get stressed and feel like they have no escape. You should also look for bowls full of fresh water and a mention from the staff that the animals do get plenty of opportunity to go to the toilet throughout the day.
Check What Interaction Your Dog Has With Other Dogs
The day care should be completely aware of how dogs interact with each other and how to manage any potential issues. A large breed could well trample a miniature breed during an excitable play session. Dogs that play together should be compatible, with chasing breeds together and laid back breeds together. Certain breeds just don’t mix and your day care centre should know that. And even the friendliest pooches can fall out, in which case your day care centre should be able to tell you how they deal with that situation.
Are You Asked For Enough Information?
When you get your admission form to fill in, you may learn a lot from the questions they ask you. You should expect to giggle a little bit at the detailed information you are being asked to supply. Although you might think the kennels are being anal in their questioning, wouldn’t you rather your dog was safe and protected because the centre asked in depth questions? And if the daycare centre does not ask you for proof of your dog’s vaccinations and medical history – go elsewhere.
Look For Staff That Genuinely Care
The dogs will be supervised for most of the time, so the people supervising should genuinely care about the dogs they are looking after. It actually matters that the staff like dogs. No matter how well-trained, they are, if they don’t care about animals you cannot trust them around your beloved pooch. Expect staff to have a good level of training, a passion for dogs and an understanding of doggy body language. Those supervising play time must be able to recognise signs of stress and aggression in dogs so they can act accordingly before things get nasty. The staff should also be able to recognise signs that your dog is unwell and should have basic first aid training so they can do the basics on site while they wait for the vet to arrive, or to keep the dog well while it is transported to your vets.
What Else?
The dog day care London will be providing your dog with medication, special food, additional exercise (if boisterous) and potentially even basic physiotherapy. The dog may also be groomed and taken to and from your home.
If you’re still not convinced, it might be worth sourcing a day care centre that has web cam facilities – this is commonplace now – plus it’s pretty entertaining too!