What Do You See As Reasonable

[OSoSwift]

Okay, today has been a tad frustrating for me.

I have set opening hours, I tell people what they are, they are on every email and my website and I think reasonably easy to find. After hours drop offs and pick up are available by prior arrangment for good reasons, but not just because you would like to leave for your holiday at 6am for example.

I have set hours for a number of reasons, it helps dogs to settle and reduces issues such as GDV in prone breeds as I know when we shut and then settle the dogs then feed. If people rock up an old time I might have just fed dogs and then they get stirred up run around and we have a high risk situation. Also I have young children, the hours work aorund getting kids upa nd ready for schoola dn the school bus and also picking them up off the school bus.

Sunday mornings we are not open for routine drop offs etc.

We do open out of hours in case of emergency or in cases of a local fishing tour operator goes out at 8.30am so they have to drop dogs off by 8am so we have no issues with the. My evening opening ours finish at 5.30. I am down there later as I do all the settling and feeding after then so I am flexiable when required.

My husband gets called in some times on short notice and works shift work so I cannot rely on him being able to get kids to the school bus/pick them up.

Today I had one person want to drop their dog off at 2.30 just becasue they hit town earlier than they thought, another failed to estimate how much time travelling with dogs would take and wanted to drop them off at 7pm, then when I said no sorry wanted to drop them off tomorrow morning when we are not open.

I work 7 days a week and have young kids. They need to have their tea before 8pm+ at night. I have these hours to try and achieve a home work life balance and if I stick reasonably to those hours it works well. Due to the kennels being on my property many think I shoudl eb available when they think I should be, they fail to understand that you do have a life and that you do need to shop and got to appointments. Sometimes if I am lucky I get to go to my kids school stuff.

I know their will be people on here that think I should be available from 6am to 7pm as I have had it said before on my posts while researchign kennels and peoples expectations. I know for that person they see it as you going out of your way once. Just today I would have gone out of my way 3 times, and not for emergencies. I have no issues with opening up the kennels at 10.30 at night should I have a situation as I did not long ago where a family member was dying and the people needed to leave asap to drive 7hours to get there.

I do not think I am being unreasonable when I expect people to try and work to opening hours when possible. I don't rock up to the supermarket at 8pm when its not late night shopping and expect someone to serve me.

Edited June 6, 2015 by OSoSwift

[Simply Grand]

You are absolutely not being unreasonable! Having a reliable place where your dogs will be safe and cared for is a privilege, not a right and you absolutely don't have to be available at your clients' whim. As long as you look after the dogs well I'd go to great lengths to work with your hours.

My dogs have been kennelled a couple of times, most recently was when I had to kennel Quinn for various reasons while I was house hunting. The whole planning of the moving in day revolved around getting to the kennel during their stipulated pick up hours and that was fine with me, despite it being a hell of a stressful day.

[OSoSwift]

I get many referrals from our local vet hospital as I have the knowledge (Vet nurse for 15 years) to be able to look for potential medical issues, can medicate as required including injecting Diabetic dogs, one of which is a regular. I look after the dogs as though they were my own and clients leave them with me knowing that.

I have taken dogs to vet hospitals as/when required if I am not happy with how they are going, or if in the case of a DCM dog they had a small amount of fluid on their abdomen, to a dog that fitted - no previous known history - moments after I had brought her inside. I have stayed with dogs at vet hospitals well into the night and on one occassion stayed with a dog that had to be euthed due to ongoing medical issues that we could just not control to allow her owners to get back.

I take dogs that have previously shown to be difficult to manage in a kennel environment - generally due to aggression - and so far all cases have either decided I am actually quite okay or we have an understanding and all goes smoothly.

I do not charge anything for these things as I believe they are part of my service. If there is every anythign I do not believe I can handle I will tell the owner so.

I guess that is why I am frustrated, I do give so much of myself for "my" dogs and share their highs and lows with their owners and cry my eyes out if one passes. I do still need some time for my family and my life and animals.

[Jemmy]

I don't think you're unreasonable at all.

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

One of the kennels I used to use, had hours that I found difficult because in order to arrive in their one hour window morning or evening - I'd have to travel through rush hour traffic... or travel before and arrive about 30 minutes early - which I sort of solved by hanging out at a nearby town oval, which was about 3 mins drive instead of an hour or so from home. Ie travelling in rush hour makes for time warps - which means that the one hour I might allow to get there can warp to 2 hours and I miss the window. Not happy.

The afternoon pick up requires me to leave home about 3:30pm which puts me through the parents school pickup as I have to go past a school or three no matter which way I go. And again - right through rush hour window as well.

I'm ok with having designated times but they seem to have chosen for maximum inconvenience for city dwellers. But I'm not likely to use them again as the vet bill to deal with the infection she picked up from living in her own poop for a week - exceeded the boarding kennel bill.

[OSoSwift]

In cases such as yours I will and have worked out a convientient time to suit. I am not an ogre but I do have to stick to my hours when possible or I would never be able to do anything else.

I would be less annoyed about the hours than living in poop for a week Surely no kennel would do that, that is terrible

I am in a regional area not a city so the longest it would take even from the oteehr side of town is half an hour. There are farms that are further out of course.

I am pleased to say most of my clients are wonderful but some days I shake my head. There are otehr thinsg that happen like people calling at 5 in the morning or 10 at night and expecting an answer or sounding suprised you are not actually sitting at the kennel computer to check for booking dates.

I now switch my phone to silent and check messages

Edited June 6, 2015 by OSoSwift

[Diva]

I respect and work with the scheduled opening hours, but if I am a long term customer I expect some fexibilty occassionally to deal with a delayed flight or such. If I am not a long term customer I would never even ask, but when a kennel I had spent thousands of dollars with over many years refused to let me pick up 15 minutes late with prior warning, I dumped them and took my business elsewhere.

[VizslaMomma]

I think your approach is fine.

People are dip shits.

[VizslaMomma]

Another point is bending over backwards, being on call 24/7 leads to burn out and then resentment. Again, people are the issue.

[OSoSwift]

I respect and work with the scheduled opening hours, but if I am a long term customer I expect some fexibilty occassionally to deal with a delayed flight or such. If I am not a long term customer I would never even ask, but when a kennel I had spent thousands of dollars with over many years refused to let me pick up 15 minutes late with prior warning, I dumped them and took my business elsewhere.

I do think that is being unreasonable.

[OSoSwift]

We live 750kms from our nearest major centre. Many of the dogs I board are because people need to go there. I know that in a trip like that you can have issues or run a little over time. I have no issues with this. I am reasonable and will work with people as much as is possible.

I have an insulin dependaent diabetic dog who comes in. She has booked her in over the last two weeks of the school year. There are many things on after school hours. I told her that I cannot guarentee I could give her dog her insulin at 8am and 8pm during that time as some nights I would be at school stuff. She spoke to her vet to see what we could do, we have arrived at a plan that will work for both of us.

I am not unbending but I have to draw a bit of a line or I would get burned out and unhappy.

Edited June 6, 2015 by OSoSwift

[suziwong66]

I don't know whether you're being unreasonable or not but to give you another perspective we were a military family for over two decades with many many interstate moves during a time when relocating your pets was not well funded so to keep the costs down we chose to drive to new postings and take our dog with us.

It can be difficult to keep on a schedule when travelling long distances with kids and dogs and a car full of luggage to last everyone for however long we could possibly be in a motel or temporary accommodation while waiting for a suitable home or furniture & effects to be delivered...it's not necessarily that time management was poor or disregarded if we got to our new location later or earlier than expected. Fitting into the small window of time that some kennels had for drop-off and pick-up was sometimes really difficult and some kennel staff/owners/management were not very accommodating. This was rather stressful for us; a posting/relocation was always a time of high stress...starting a new life in a new location is much easier when we deal with flexible services (again, i'm not saying you're inflexible). Added to that relocation was, more often than not, during the Christmas school holidays (usually just before or just after Christmas) so we were trying to make the move an adventure to make up for not having the stability of Christmas in your own home etc and would be stopping at various points during the day to break up the drive etc

One particular kennel in Wagga Wagga, many years ago, were really accommodating and understood our desire to take our dog out every day for exercise and some normality as we were living in a one room city hotel for 6 weeks while waiting for a house. They didn't hassle us by enforcing a rule of no contact with our dog because the dog may suffer from distress when we dropped off each evening - other kennels were much less accommodating. Most of the many kennels we used across the country over the years wanted us to drop our dog off and never see us again until the final day we picked up - while i understand they have a life to lead outside their business, they fundamentally run a business and I believe a level of flexibility for customers (and some level of connecting with customers) will do more for their business than not.

I often got the impression that the kennels were not interested in connecting with us because they viewed us a casual customers...what they failed to understand is that we we would be in the new location, usually, for a few years and they could have had us as regular customers if they had bothered to be a little more flexible and welcoming.

Again, I'm not suggesting you're anything like what I've described; I just wanted to give you another customer perspective.

[OSoSwift]

Yes I fully understand that.

In the case of this afternoon they had a 2 hour drive with no small children etc. When I said I had another appointment they were happy with that. The other people have been interesting from the start when they told me they would drop their dog off at such and such time and pick it up at such and such time. One time was within my hours, the other 2.5hours earlier than my opening hours. I gave them the earliest time they could pick the dog up and they did say okay. The booking came through my webpage which has my opening hours on it and they are not hard to find.

I often get people say well we want to leave for the city by 6am at the latest or we have a flight at 7.30am can we drop them off prior to that? Um no, drop them in the evening before.

I have no issues with people taking their dogs out. I often have people pick them up at say 8.30 and dropping them back at 10, or taking them out for the day. I have had some who drop them in each evening and picking them up first thing. I have people that visit dogs and walk them on our property. I have built a large yard and one of the reasons so people could visit their dogs if they couldn't take them out and play with them and the dogs could have a good run around.

I do not hold dogs to ransom, you own them and they are yours. If a dog was very upset I would discuss this with the owner. I haven't had an issue with a dog being upset by allowing them to either be visited or go out so don't see me stopping that any time soon.

Other than this particular person saying they hadn't estimated how much time travelling with the dogs would take their was no other explanation. If they said for example, we have had a breakdown/flat tire/sick child/dog etc then fine. The impression I got (which may be incorrect) was that they had planned to drop the dogs off as late as possible withing my hours and then had chosen to or needed to stop more often than they thought and therefore were going to be outside my hours by 1.5hours minimum. Of course people are under no obligation to tell you why they will be late.

I try to be accomodating and mostly I am, but three seperate occassions on one day got me wondering if I was being too unreasonable.

Edited June 6, 2015 by OSoSwift

[tdierikx]

The last time I boarded any of my dogs was due to me needing to have surgery. Dropped the dogs off the afternoon before... no biggie...

After working in kennels that did both rescue and transit boarding for a dog transport company, I'm much more aware of the ups and downs of those who run them. Routine is a huge part of having animals settle into the new arrangement, so people deciding that they want special treatment with no good excuse are just rude!

T.

[Dame Aussie]

Your hours are your hours and I don't think they're unreasonable. If they don't suit people they can go elsewhere.

[Stressmagnet]

I agree with you. As VM said 'people are dipshits'. You will always find idiots who want to push you. Choose your exceptions and the others will have to accept that you have operating hours like everyone else. I suck it up if I need to buy a bottle of vodka at 10pm - same thing. I cope by gently banging my head against a wall - try telling your rude customers to try that next time you feel put upon.

[Canisbellum]

I don't think you are being difficult there is nothing worse than inconsiderate idiots pestering you at all hours. In my case my job makes it hard to impossible to make the kennel opening hours,so I use a lady who does pet sitting to drop off the dogs or pickup as required. Simple and easy and much less stress for me.

[trinabean]

I don't think you are being unreasonable at all OSoSwift. My dog's breeder runs kennels and her arrangements are very similar. She has set hours for drop off and pick-up, a.m and p.m. If we wish to make an earlier start on leaving home, we drop him off the night before we leave. Simple.

I've never run late, or had to ask for a different time, but I'm sure if there were extenuating circumstances, she would try to accommodate (as you did in a couple of examples you gave). But I certainly wouldn't expect it. People who run kennels have busy enough lives!

[_PL_]

No way unreasonable.

It's on your property but it's still a business. Every business gets to set it's hours. If you didn't, you would have no life whatsoever and your kids would miss out too.

I find with animals there is greater pressure to bend rules .... I can't quite describe what I mean maybe someone else will do better. Like; when pounds have to close up for the day and people crack a wobbler because "if you really cared" then you would let them in.

[Stressmagnet]

See? I don't get that.

Daycare centres are draconian in their rules - anyone with kids knows that.

Just because it's animals? What? People have no homes to get to because they have the care of dogs and cats??

If I'm not sure if I can get Ernie out of his regular kennel within hours - I book him for an extra day. Sucks but um, dem's the rules. I've dropped him off the night before as well.

People are incredible. No wonder I was so lousy at customer service.