Doggy Day Care?

[FD26]

Well, I'm thinking I may have found a solution to my dilemma about returning to work after we get a puppy. There is a local doggy day care I've been in contact with, and while he won't be able to go until he's a few months old, it may just be ideal.

Has anyone used them before? Have you had good or bad experiences? Thanks!

[thornliegirl]

It would depend on if your pup is vaccinated or not when he goes. Just got our pup last week, and i'm going back to work Monday. For me it would be a no, I wouldn't want to take the risk until I know his vaccinations are ok.

[D & D]

Well, I'm thinking I may have found a solution to my dilemma about returning to work after we get a puppy. There is a local doggy day care I've been in contact with, and while he won't be able to go until he's a few months old, it may just be ideal.

Has anyone used them before? Have you had good or bad experiences? Thanks!

I see you're in the NT, are you in Darwin?

If you're talking about the one near the airport, I've used it

I have only used it once. I have two dogs, the older was going to the vet for the day, the younger one hadn't spent an entire day on his own. As I have an elderly neighbour who has been unwell, I didn't want to find out the hard way that the dog has been a pest. So, my boy went to daycare and had a ball. They match personalities/size for playing, I was worried as my boy is fairly big and boofy.

The dog does need to be fully vaccinated to go.

I'm planning on using it more often for both dogs. Hope this helps.

Meg

[FD26]

Thanks meg, that helps heaps! I am in Darwin, so that's the one I'm talking about. The prices seem quite reasonable, as well...less than my son's afterschool care will be costing! lol

Now just to figure out what we'll do with him until he's vaccinated.

I wish I could stay home for longer but I've pushed it as it is lol. I'm just hoping I get a job nearby and I can come home at lunch time. The plan at the moment is to bring him home when we have a whole weekend with him, and go from there. We're hoping to build a dog run, but it comes down to finances and whether my OH can really build one, as he says he can lol.

[macka]

Doggy day care might be fun for a treat, but your pup will need to be alone at some point, and it's important that you teach him how to be happy alone, from the beginning!

Have a read of this article for ideas on how to teach this: http://www.dogstardaily.com/training/home-alone

If you are anxious about leaving your dog alone, your dog will sense this and you will create an anxious dog. Treat leaving him alone as it is - no big deal - and he will learn that it's no big deal.

[Serket]

Doggy day care sounds like a good idea, especially to break up 5 long days of being home alone (rather than going every day). I'd love to use our local one but they won't take undesexed dogs of either sex over the age of 6 months

[Dogsfevr]

Dont under estimate pups on there own,what you do now sets them up for life & not learning to be independent can be extremely hard to train out later on.

[FD26]

My main concern isn't the pup spending time alone, just spending SO MUCH time alone, know what I mean? Especially when he's younger and won't have the run of the yard.

I won't be anxious when I leave him so long as we have a plan in place, which is what we're working on doing now.

[luffy4688]

We do send Bailey to Daycare once a week. Mainly so he could play and socialize with other dogs as we don't know many friends with dogs.

The daycare we go to is great. They keep us updated on what's going on with Bailey. And yes, dogs are given a temperament assessment during their 1st time and are divided into play groups based on their temperaments.

[Dfa Dog]

How much would you expect to pay for a day of doggy day care?? What does it include??

[WreckitWhippet]

I would be VERY careful about sending a Stafford pup to a doggie day care, unless they are very experienced with the breed. Socialisation for a SBT ( or any puppy ) should not be a free for all, it should be controlled and with known puppies and dogs.

It only takes one incident where he feels the need to defend himself and you could have a lot of hard work ahead of you undoing any damage done at day care.

[corvus]

Kivi used to go to daycare two days a week. It was partly to give him something to do while he was in his super active teenage phase and partly to give our old dog a break. Not that they spent much time together anyway. We found twice a week was plenty. He'd need a day afterwards to recover!

He had loads of fun and we thought it was great. He's a very social dog, though. We thought about putting Erik in to round out his socialisation a bit as he is royally obnoxious with Kivi, but the cost has gone up considerably since we used to put Kivi in and so we decided against it. Turns out Erik is only obnoxious to Kivi, anyway.

[Cosmolo]

I like daycare and recommend it to many clients.

HOWEVER, i think you are wise to heed SBT 123's warning with the breed you have. Ask lots of questions about the level of supervision, how often dogs are separated, what kind of assessments the dogs undergo, when the busy days are and how many dogs are there, the staff to dog ratio etc etc!

[skip]

I think SBT123 has a point.

I have moved recently and have been having hassles getting safe fences put up. A friend was staying for a while but I worried about after they left. I considered doggie day care but my dogs (specially one of them) would consider it their worst nightmare.

If I had an older happy go lucky boofy dog I might think OK but not mine. I know thay would not like it althou they are socialised and like a polite get together and bum-sniff like most dogs.

Hope you work it out. Good luck.

[luffy4688]

How much would you expect to pay for a day of doggy day care?? What does it include??

I pay $45 for a day at the daycare that I use. I don't think food is included there. He normally gets fed brekky before he goes off and dinner after he comes back.

As far as I know, he just plays and goes for a nap when he's tired. And after he recharges his batteries, he's off for round2. He always comes back all tired out and sleeps through the night and is pretty much relaxed the next day as well.

[ESCS]

Our 10 month old Tibbie goes to doggy day care one day/week. We are in Brisbane and we pay $26/day. Food is not included but they are also a grooming salon and they don't charge very much when he needs grooming. He loves it and enjoys the company of other dogs as he is the only dog in our family. Our doggy day care only takes them when they are fully vaccinated. I work 3 half days/week. I send him on the first day of my working week and he happy to relax at home for the next couple of days as he is tired out from all the socialisation at day care!

[FD26]

I think SBT123 has a point.

I have moved recently and have been having hassles getting safe fences put up. A friend was staying for a while but I worried about after they left. I considered doggie day care but my dogs (specially one of them) would consider it their worst nightmare.

If I had an older happy go lucky boofy dog I might think OK but not mine. I know thay would not like it althou they are socialised and like a polite get together and bum-sniff like most dogs.

Hope you work it out. Good luck.

How frustrating are fencing problems?! I think my OH is still working on a solution, so I may just be floundering about over nothing, but I'm really quite concerned at the moment. For anyone who hasn't seen it in one of my other threads, my previous dog was killed in an attack when the dogs next door made enough room for him to get through (what I thought was a secure) part of our fence.

We have dogs on 3 different sides, but that's the side I'm concerned with. On the other we have a pretty laid back bull arab, and then in one other are two basset hounds. When we had our last dog there were other people living there with 2 yellow labs, and we never had any problem there...they would just go up to the fence and sniff each other to say hello.

The other sids of the fence are secure, anyway, as there's concrete around the bottom. But the side with the dogs that are trouble, I'm not sure of the smaller one's breed, but the large one who killed our previous dog is a Mastiffx, is the problematic fence. But then, because we're both renting it really limits what we can do with it. Grrr. I wish they would just move.

But regardless of what we do with the fence, we've become far too paranoid about it now to let him have free run of the yard until we can be more certain things will be alright.

[FD26]

Our 10 month old Tibbie goes to doggy day care one day/week. We are in Brisbane and we pay $26/day. Food is not included but they are also a grooming salon and they don't charge very much when he needs grooming. He loves it and enjoys the company of other dogs as he is the only dog in our family. Our doggy day care only takes them when they are fully vaccinated. I work 3 half days/week. I send him on the first day of my working week and he happy to relax at home for the next couple of days as he is tired out from all the socialisation at day care!

This is good to hear, then. Maybe 2 days will be enough if I'm working 5?

Still awhile off yet, I suppose as he's only 3 weeks old! lol, plenty of time to look into the details with the people who run the day care.

Thanks for everyone's imput.

[Edslaine]

I use doggy daycare when I take Edward to Canberra to visit mum and dad. They have a small yard so he goes to DDC if we're all out for the day. I pay $24 from 9am to 3 - 5pm and that includes a walk.

It's great and he comes home and sleeps for hours

[SmoothieGirl]

I also have a small yard but Bronte gets a lot of exercise so I don't really send her because of that.

I didn't start her until she was older though, about 8 months. I wanted to establish independence at home first and then she suffered and injury and had to be confined for quite a while.

Now Bronte goes one day a week on Wednesdays just to break up the working week for her. I pay for ten days in bulk and it works out to $35 a day. She gets one to two walks, plays with dogs of like nature and size, gets a weekly brush and massage and is encouraged to have a kip. That being said she only rests about every three or four times as she is the life of the party. The handlers use her as a dog to teach some walking manners to other dogs and she is known as the energiser bunny that wears out all of the other dogs. She loves it and ges very 'chatty' when we pull into the carpark.