People ask what dogs actually do all day, and the honest answer at most places is "we are not entirely sure, it is busy." Here is ours, hour by hour, because it is a small enough operation that we can tell you.
Drop-off, 7:00 to 9:00
Most dogs arrive between seven and nine. Drop-off is deliberately quick. A long emotional goodbye at the door makes dogs worse, not better, because it tells them something significant is happening.
Hand over, hand us anything we need for the day, go. Your dog will be fine roughly forty seconds after you leave, which is a thing most owners find both reassuring and mildly insulting.
Morning, 9:00 to about 11:30
The busiest stretch. Everyone is fresh, the grass is still cool, and this is when most of the real running happens.
The yard is half an acre, fully fenced, with a slope, mature trees, a koi pond and a mulched path round the edge. The slope matters more than people expect. Dogs running uphill tire out considerably faster than dogs running on flat turf, which is why a morning here does what an hour on a flat field does not.
Groups are small. We are not moving forty dogs through rotations, we are watching a group we know.
Midday, 11:30 to 2:00
Quieter on purpose. Water, shade, and a lot of dogs choosing to lie down.
This is the part that separates a good day from an exhausting one. Dogs in a group will keep going past the point where they should stop, and play that started friendly turns snappy when everyone is over-tired. So the middle of the day is deliberately slow, and we break things up before they need breaking up rather than after.
Dogs who need feeding midday get fed, separately, with their own food.
Afternoon, 2:00 to pickup
A second, gentler run at it. Pools in summer, snow in winter, and by four most dogs are visibly done.
Pickup, until 6:00
Weekdays we are open until six, Saturdays until four. Sundays are boarding only.
You will get a tired dog. Not a wired one, which is the difference between a day of real exercise and a day of stimulation. A good daycare day should mean a quiet evening at home.
What we are actually doing while they play
Watching. That is the job.
Dog groups change constantly. Two dogs who played well all morning get tired and stop being tolerant. A new dog arrives and the whole shape of the group shifts. A dog who has been fine all week is off today because something is wrong at home or their stomach is upset.
The reason we keep numbers small is that you cannot see any of that in a crowd. You can see it in a group you know, in a yard you can see all of.
The bit that is different here
There is no building. This is a house with a big garden on College Hill, and the dogs are in both.
That has real advantages: dogs are in a home environment, the group is small, and the same two people are there all day, every day, with no shift change. Boarding dogs sleep inside the house on dog beds.
It also has real limits, and we would rather say so. We cannot take a dog at an hour's notice on a busy Tuesday, because there is one yard. We cannot run separate rooms for small and large dogs. A large facility can do both of those things and sometimes that is what a dog needs.
Come and see it
Reading about a yard is not the same as standing in it, and you will know within about ten minutes whether your dog likes it.
The tour is free, takes half an hour, and your dog comes too. Daycare is $40 a day, boarding is $50 a night.
(484) 714-6624 or the contact page.