Verified Company
Our 1 year old husky had his first boarding experience here for one week. He's a very happy, social, affectionate dog with a lot of puppy energy. I know that boarding is stressful for dogs no matter how well cared for they are, as it's just not their usual home or routine with their people, and I expected Maxi would need some time to decompress. When we picked him up, I knew immediately that he was very stressed...no eye contact, a lot of tension in his body, frantically sniffing around instead of the usual joy and playfulness in every greeting he gives to people and especially his own family.
His right eye had a pale yellow discharge running down about 3cm of his face--he has never had so much as watery eyes and zero discharge in his life--which I noted immediately to the person who brought him out. I wiped it off, flushed it with water once we were in the car and again at home, applied a warm compress, and he fortunately didn't have additional issues. He was very dehydrated and took the longest drink of water I've ever seen once in the car. This excessive thirst continued for about 12 hours. After we got him home, I did a thorough check for ticks, and found an open sore on his left hind leg, about 1cm in diameter. It wasn't seeping, but looked to be very recently scabbed (within 24 hours) and very pink and raw around the edges. This ended up requiring a vet visit and a topical cream. It's a minor injury that didn't affect his mobility, but it's something that absolutely should have been noticed at the facility and reported to us on pick up, as it could have easily led to a more serious infection given the state of it. It took about 30 hours for Maxi to return to his usual self. He had been freshly bathed when we picked him up, which was appreciated. We received one email over the boarding period that said Maxi was doing well, the day before we picked him up.
All in all, we're very disappointed. The website and a phone conversation with a person at reception had given us the impression that Maxi would have plenty of social time, when in fact he didn't get any play time with other dogs. His physical state gave me concerns about the cleanliness of the conditions he was boarded in, despite paying for the top tier suite. There are no pictures of the suites, the interiors, and as there aren't live feed cameras like there are in many doggy daycare and boarding facilities, we really have no way of knowing. I trusted this facility because we adopted Maxi from them as a puppy. We will not be boarding with them again.
