So what makes a perfect dog daycare? Below are my ideas. I’d love to hear yours.
At a perfect dog daycare, the dogs hang out in small groups of no more than five. This makes the pack manageable for the person supervising.
The majority of the time is spent outdoors, and a long walk or run is always first on the agenda to help relieve any stress and excitement the dogs are feeling about the new environment. The walk is at least an hour long and helps the dogs get used to functioning as a pack.
After their walk, the dogs have time to play with toys, lounge around in the shade or get inside to warm up, depending on the weather. In the summer, they have the option of cooling off in a pool.
The dogs go on at least two more long walks throughout the day, always to different places so they can experience different environments. They visit local parks, and they go for runs out in the country. The more energetic dogs might go for bike rides and rollerblading sessions once they are trained.
All dogs are encouraged to have good leash manners. Dogs are rewarded for walking on a loose leash at the human’s side. No dog is rewarded for showing too much excitement. Dogs are not given any attention for barking, crying or jumping.
At the perfect dog daycare, there is time to work on tricks, obedience and agility, and the dogs love their mental workouts. Owners specify what their dogs need work on or what they would like their dogs to learn.
The owners also fill out extensive forms about what their expectations are for the daycare. They provide information about what their dogs like and don’t like, their energy levels and what manners their dogs need help with. The owners are always encouraged to offer suggestions, and they are always given detailed feedback on what the dogs did during the day.
Dogs are kenneled for short periods of no more than 45 minutes throughout the day, and kennel time is seen as a positive time for relaxing, chewing on bones and interactive toys or taking a nap. The dogs look forward to their down time because it gives them time to recharge. Dogs are in a calm state of mind when they walk into their kennels for a treat. The owners are very aware that their dogs might spend some time in kennels, and they are OK with this. If a dog isn’t kennel trained, the daycare will help the dog associate positive experiences with the kennel.
Before the dogs go home, they are encouraged to be calm. This is the perfect time to work on some obedience like long down-stays. Although the dogs are naturally excited to see “Mom” or “Dad,” they are tired from a long day of structure and fun. They are not frustrated, stressed, or bouncing off the walls.
The dogs can’t wait to return to daycare to see their friends and get out for more adventures.
So what makes the perfect dog daycare for your dog?
What worries me is that humans might have a different answer to this question than the dogs. Unfortunately, too many dog daycares cater to the humans’ emotions – lots of excitement, decorations, movies playing (for the dogs), snack times, lots and lots of toys. Even the very word “daycare” humanizes the dogs.
Dog daycare is only going to get more popular, and many are really great. There are also too many dog daycares crammed with large groups of out-of-control dogs. The atmosphere is pure chaos, and the dogs pace around indoors feeling anxious. Fights do happen, but the stress the dogs deal with day after day is also unhealthy.
Leaving your dog home during the day is a better option than leaving your dog at certain daycares.
I’ve toured most of the dog daycares in Fargo, and I worked at a boarding kennel/daycare in Minneapolis. Today I offer dog walking and dog running myself so dogs can stay in the comfort of their own homes. This is a much better situation for most dogs. I also take small groups of dogs for daycare from time to time, and we spend as much time outdoors as possible.
I’ve seen some very, very average dog daycares, and I just want to make sure dog owners think about what kind of daycare situation is right. Below are some questions you definitely want to ask before leaving your dog at a daycare facility. You may also be interested in my posts on questions to ask before boarding your dog and questions to ask a pet sitter.
Questions to ask a dog daycare provider
1. How often do the dogs go outside?
You’d be surprised how many dog daycares keep the dogs inside all day except for a few five-minute potty breaks.
2. If the daycare offers “dog walking,” how long are the walks?
The “walks” might really be two-minute potty walks.
3. What activities will my dog participate in?
Does the daycare have agility equipment for the dogs to train on? Will the dogs go on any outdoor adventures? Will there be time for training indoors? Basically, will there be any structured activities or is it just a bunch of craziness all day long?
4. How many dogs will be playing/interacting with my dog?
Ideally the dogs should be playing in small groups to prevent fights and too much excitement. If there are larger groups, then there should be several people supervising.
5. Will my dog be left in a kennel? For how long?
I don’t see anything wrong with minimal kennel time. It gives the dogs a much-needed break. Just make sure to ask how much time the dogs will spend in their kennels.
6. Do you offer any training? What rules will my dog be expected to follow?
Some dog daycares have experienced trainers on staff who will help teach the dog good manners. Ask them what kinds of training techniques they will use. Other daycares hire inexperienced “dog lovers” to play with the dogs. The average dog lover knows very little about dog behavior.
7. What is your screening process like? What if my dog doesn’t get along with another dog?
There’s a chance your dog won’t get along with every dog. You want to know how this situation will be handled. Will both dogs be sent to a “time-out”? Will your dog be punished in any way? How does the daycare evaluate each dog’s temperament before allowing it to interact with the others?
8. How are the dogs disciplined?
You want to make sure the daycare staff uses training methods you are OK with. Do they use strictly positive reinforcement? Do they verbally scold the dogs? Do they ignore unwanted behavior? Do they do “alpha rolls”? Do they squirt the dogs in the face with water? Find a daycare that uses a training method you are comfortable with.
9. Most importantly, tour the facility before you leave your dog anywhere.
If the daycare will not offer you a tour, then it has something to hide. Don’t fall for the bullshit statement that they can’t let you back to see the dogs due to insurance policies. This is just an excuse. Trust me. I’ve worked at a kennel that did not allow tours because the facility was awful. If they won’t let you back there, you don’t want to leave your dog there.
10. Observe the dogs currently staying at the daycare.
Do the dogs look happy and relaxed or do they look stressed? A stressed out dog will pant very heavily and pace around, unable to relax. He may also run around frantically, spin in circles or bark nonstop. If his mouth is closed, his lips will actually form what looks like a frown. He might also be drooling heavily or “foaming.” His tail might be wagging wildly, or it might be tucked between his legs.
A relaxed, happy dog will be gently wiggling his whole body and tail, calmly exploring and sniffing his environment. He will calmly interact with other dogs, and his body and tail will not be tense.
Does your dog go to daycare? Let me know your thoughts on the perfect dog daycare.
Three of my adorable customers are pictured – Bailey and Colt (top) and Lucky.
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My dogs are pretty snobby. They wouldn’t fit well in day care because they are like a clique of their own. I always use a dog sitter on the rare occasions they will let me leave them.
Ace doesn’t like going to a standard kennel. He gets shy and overwhelmed from all the noise and smells. I’ve left him at a kennel maybe two nights in his whole life. He has also stayed at a daycare which he seemed to enjoy because they threw a ball for him and it was quieter there. His favorite places to stay are at any of my relative’s houses because they spoil him worse than I do.
There is a certain daycare in town that a lot of people take their dogs to. I hate the facility, when I was there to check it out I saw a German Shepherd that was being forced to sit on a table and they had his muzzle banded shut. They claim it was a pressure wrap, they didnt realize that I know how pressure wraps look and work and that they were not using it correctly. The second thing they did was spray a dog in the face with a bottle. When I asked them what it was they said that it was water and citrus spray. They would spray it in the dogs face and the spray would get in the eyes, etc. and cause pain. They did this to quite a dog any time it would bark. They also used a kennel for punishment.
Here is the deal, a kennel should never be used for punishment. If a dog is getting to worked up it is not an issue to remove the dog from the situation to calm down but to spray it in the face wtih citrus and put it in a kennel in the middle of the situation is irresponsible and will solve nothing. Besides, barking is a natural behavior and dogs should not be punished for natural behaviors. They can instead be taught when it is acceptable to demonstrate that behavior and when it is not. Also if they are going to use a pressure wrap they should probably learn to use it correctly.
Okay, I’m off my soap box now, sorry for the rant Lindsay
P.S. The dog in your picture above is beautiful, compliment the owners for me!
I know, such a cute dog.
See … that’s what worries me about some daycares. Dog owners just need to know what really goes on.
A kennel should never be used as punishment, agreed. It can be used in a positive way to help the dog calm down, but not to punish him for something he did. For one thing, the dog won’t understand the punishment. And two, this will just create a negative association with the kennel so it won’t be a useful place to help a dog relax anymore.
The really unfortunate thing is the average dog owner, I like to call them “do gooders”, may know what is going on but doesnt understand that it’s not appropriate behavior. They think that because the kennel is doing those things it must be okay, afterall they MUST be experts. As you’ve stated above the average perosn working in a kennel has no clue about dog behavior/psychology. It’s just a vicious circle of one uneducated person listening to another uneducated person because they assume the other person knows what they are doing. Very frustrating…
Oh gosh, I worked at a kennel for 7 years and you should’ve seen some of the staff they hired there! Yikes!
I’d say dog owners in general are pretty trusting and uninformed
I see a lot of misinformation going around, too.
I also have quite a bit of experience working with dogs and working at dog daycare’s. However, I feel that most of what you are suggesting is “fluff” and does little for the dog. Let’s generalize for a second; in my opinion, most dogs need about 5 hours of mental and physical exercise during the day. To include walks or personalized play time for most dogs is just excessive. Dogs don’t need to “walk in a pack” everyday to fell part of a group, they just need time to observe the group. 99% of dogs will become part of the group and have a solid comfort level within a day or so. Most dogs can really benefit from some “cabin” time. Solitary time is indeed good for calming, relaxing, feeding, and giving them time to play with their own toy. Most dogs are good with 1-1.5 hour breaks in their cabin. And yes, positive association’s happen EVERY DAY when you put them in their cabin for their breakfast/lunch or dinner. Stating that they need special consideration for this is just a bit overboard.
Now let’s get specific, some small dogs (Shitzu’s, Yorkie’s, Shiba Inus, etc) are people-centric. Their world revolves around humans. They certainly don’t NEED 2-3xday walks to be healthy, they just need contact with humans. Some dogs are crazy social (young labs, Pit bulls, Staff Terriers, etc) and need to wrestle and run and jump around on jungle gyms for LONG periods of time. Some of the massive/overweight dogs don’t need more than a walk a day to be happy. Many are happy playing for a 1/2 hour, following humans around and dog-watching the rest of the day. Ok so some little dogs like to wrestle too, and that is great and that should be a significant part of their routine. I know of more than one JRT that needs daily exercise so they don’t drive their owner bat sheet crazy. I know a few scottie’s that get so jacked up at home that their “pawrents” bring them to camp EVERY WEEKDAY! I also know of a few Min-Pin’s that just want to prance around and watch other dogs all day and that is perfect for them. They don’t need walks, don’t like walks and don’t benefit from walks. 70% of the dogs that come to daycare could care less about a walk in addition to their daycare exercise.
There are several important things that you fail to mention/emphasize in your “perfect daycare” analysis. First and foremost you gotta mention ROUTINE. The single most important thing in a dogs life. Why? Because the dogs needs to find his/her role in your life, and his/her role around others. Most anxiety can be eliminated when you remove a majority of the questions your dog might have. Such as: What is my owner doing, shouldn’t I be with him? Why can’t I be in the kitchen with my mommy? Why are you playing with the kids? Why are we going for a walk with a human I don’t know? What am I supposed to do all day? Is it time to play yet? Are we outside for a walk or to pee or to go to the beach? Does my owner/household need protecting? WHAT’S GOING ON? etc…… The point is this, whether or not its walks or daycare, your dog will thrive the most given a steady routine and daily “tasks” he/she can work on. They need to perform the requests you give them (given that they clearly understand what you ask)and they need to have time away from they owner at an early age so they can focus energy on becoming social. I don’t know why you don’t talk about behavioral issues the dog might have or develop before/during daycare or walking. You say “the perfect daycare” and yet don’t mention how behavior exactly relates to the given stimuli. We all know that behavior can be learned or genetic, so we could also say that daycare can be a learned normal behavior. As such, many puppies (6 months) come to camp and learn to socialize and become well adjusted adults. As a nice side effect, they have exposure to 10-15 different daycare people that they come to love.
Bottom-line: start your dog early if you can, bring em to daycare on regular basis (based on needs) and give them a VERY CONSISTENT routine at home and everyone will be happy. Routine is much more important than some of the fluff you mention…
All good points. Thanks for describing what you believe is the perfect dog daycare.
Obviously through a blog we cannot have an effective conversation about daycare, etc. If you break down the different breeds they each have different needs, sporting dogs, working dogs, terriers, and hearding dogs are happiest when they have a job to do and for most of them wrestling around with no structure is not satisfactory. I am not surprised at all that a JRT is energetic, terriers were bread to hunt and kill vermin, I would be concerned if a Scottie or a JRT did not have an excessive amount of energy.(If you feel differently you seriously need to research the different breeds) You can’t take a comment such as “a kennel should be a safe place” and call it fluff. If I had you infront of me in person and you had an hour or so I would love to talk to you more in depth about my comments. You are just seeing the surface of the comment and running with it.
I have a B.S. degree from NDSU in psychology with an emphasis in animal behavior, I have been a trainer for about 10 years, and I compete semi professionally with my dogs in obedience and agility competitions in addition to earning many titles. I’m glad you have an opinion on the matter and the truth is dog training is like religion and politics for most people, but in my professional opinion your assertion that a majority of dogs do not need structured activities (“70% of the dogs that come to daycare could care less about a walk in addition to their daycare exercise”)
and a job to remain happy and content is skewed.
Basically what it comes down to is every breed has different needs and every individual dog has different needs. But all dogs love a good walk. All dogs love a routine. All dogs need some structure and fun as well as some down time. All dogs would like to play with other dogs and with humans.
I certainly take care of plenty of toy breeds. These lap dogs don’t get walked much when they are at home but boy do they love to hang out with me because I take them for walks!
I know a JRT that runs for 10 miles every single day. He also competes in agility.
So I was in the middle of reading this and my friend texted me and said “Do you know any good doggie daycares?” Crazy.
My dog never goes to the day cares because of his problem with strangers, and we don’t have a problem with him staying home. From what I’ve heard happens at doggie daycares I don’t think there are any I would trust. If I had to I’d prefer to have someone I know and trust take care of my dog then bring him to a daycare where he would be just another dog.
Yeah it really has to be the right dog daycare. I do think it makes a big difference if there are small groups of dogs versus tons of dogs interacting together with only one or two people.
I’ve been thinking of doggy daycare once a week for our two dogs. My fiance is a contractor so they normally are with him all the time. As a way for him not to have them with him all the time, I’ve been looking into it.
I’ve been doing some research and I kind of like PetSmart’s Day Care option. Your dog gets a private room and bed, a play time in the morning and afternoon, potty breaks and you can add a kong if you want.
The reason I like it is that I think its a good routine that helps to keep them calm and quiet. They aren’t in with a bunch of dogs all the time but they do get some socialization with other people. And some play time.
We don’t kennel our two, though I know the benefits of doing so in an emergency situation. And since we’ve moved we haven’t put a dog door into the garage like we have been talking about. Hence the search for a good doggy day care.
Well the PetSmart in your area might be a good option. The PetSmart in my area does not offer daycare that I know of, but it offers obedience classes. Let’s just say their classes are not very impressive. The people teaching the classes are not very knowledgeable. They are doing what they can, I guess, but there are better options in my opinion.
Maybe your PetSmart has some better programs in place, better staff, etc. The daycare option you describe sounds like it might be a good fit for your dogs. Have you gone over and observed the dogs currently staying at the daycare?
This is a really informative post with a useful list. I don’t know if I would ever use a day care facility, because of the many unknowns. But then again, I never even used day care for my kids! I didn’t trust other people enough. An individual that I knew well, that would be better. Then I would know it was a small group setting and I could feel like there was more likelihood for individual attention, activities, down time and just general care. Everybody has different needs though, and there is always the cost and location to consider. Just like with everything, know what you’re getting into.
I thought about leaving Ace at a daycare when I used to work such long shifts at The Forum. He probably would’ve liked it. It was just too expensive for me at the time.
Just a month after we got our GSD pup, my husband, who normally works from home, was called for jury duty. We found a daycare that would be able to take Suki, once she had all her shots (which fortunately worked out, timing wise). She ended up going there at least 1x week for the next 18 months, until we moved earlier this year. Suki loved it! It was in a converted warehouse with special matting on the floors, plenty of “nannies” who would toss the ball, etc. They had kennels for chilling.
When we moved we looked at two possibilities – the first one we visited was awful! We had to schedule and pay for an evaluation in advance. When we went to pay we observed crated dogs, a slick floor, and no real space for play. It even smelled “doggie”. We paid for the eval. and went to the second place. Right away we felt “at home”. The owner has strict rules (dog has to sit and does not go through door first; no jumping on people, etc.). There was the play area at the back with special matting, the balls for throwing. Every day at 1 p.m. they have quiet time – classical music is played, the lights are turned down, toys are put away, dog beds are put out, and all dogs take a nap. Best of all: you can watch them on web cam!
Needless to say, we never did get the evaluation done at that first place.
Suki gets super excited when we pull into the parking lot and literally quivers with anticipation as she waits in the lobby for her turn to be taken to the back. She gets lots of play time, which is really nice this time of year when it is too cold to spend a lot of time outdoors with her.
Sounds like you found the perfect place for her! That’s so great to hear!
This is great advice! I used to work at a dog daycare. I heard a number of horror stories about daycare facilities. Taking a tour asking all the right questions is extremely important.
Yep, there are good dog daycare, and bad ones, just like with child daycares.