Dog daycare/boarding/groomers/trainers

I know there are a decent amount of us here on this forum, and I thought this would be a good place to swap tips and tricks of the trade. Whether it is a policy your current place has or one you WISH they had, let's hear it.

I am currently the general manager/trainer at a dog boarding/daycare/grooming and training facility. We are expanding right now and will be offering a play and train, board and train and classes come December. I think we have a pretty solid training curriculum to work with, but I am always open to hearing what other people offer, too.

People love money saving packages and second dog discounts.

One thing that seemed small but made a huge difference was when we got a dog treadmill. Most people LOVED when we asked if we could try their dogs on it, and it really helped some of our hyperactive and/or anxious dogs.

I worked at two daycares before my last one, and one thing that I loved was that the last one did a 2 hour nap time in the middle of the day. It seemed to make a huge difference for the dogs. At the daycare before that, by afternoon the dogs were overstimulated, snappy, etc. Nap time at the last daycare basically eliminated all of the mid-to-late-day grumbling. I would imagine this might not be as much of an issue at a smaller scale daycare, but we averaged 80-115 dogs during the week, so overstimulation was a big concern.

I'm not in the daycare/boarding industry any more and am quite frankly burned out on it for a while, but I still am attached to it and am looking forward to reading this thread It's always fascinating to hear about how differently some things are done.

Having an option to have your dog separated from the other dogs, not loose with everyone, is good. There are times I've wanted to just drop Gavroche off somewhere for the day if I was going to be out with Logan all day, but he cannot be with other dogs in a daycare setting. So he just stayed home crated all day.

Also, offering either NO "house food" and require people bring their own dog's food, or having a decent quality house food - so NOT Hills or Purina or the like (even if that means you have to charge extra when people don't bring their own food). I won't leave my dog somewhere if I know they're probably going to get crap food. And I know it happens even when people bring their own food from home - I can't count how many times while I was working at the clinic people brought AMAZING foods, just to have someone slop W/D all over it and wonder why the dog doesn't eat. :wall: One person even brought freeze-dried raw, and then someone goes and covers it with canned W/D. I would be SO PISSED if that was my dog you're feeding crap to when I brought healthy food specifically so they don't have to eat your crap.

Don't staff it with dog-stupid people. Yelling at a dog to "STOP." ALL. DAY. LONG. is not going to help, and it's a real turn-off. This is why I will NOT leave my dogs at the clinic I used to work at. I know they'd be mishandled, because I really don't trust anyone that currently works there, INCLUDING the vet (he mishandled Tango right after his amputation and seriously pissed me off. I changed vets after I quit).

Ask people if their dog can have bedding. We had a lot of dogs eat towels while boarding.