We feature spacious indoor and outdoor runs for every dog.  Dogs love fresh air, so when the weather is good, they can spend plenty of time outdoors in a roomy sixteen foot long individual pen.  Their  indoor run has a raised wooden bench for the dog to sleep on and sloped floors for quick drainage.  Cleanliness is of utmost importance, and each run is cleaned daily, and again anytime that's necessary throughout the day.  Each run is provided with fresh food and water.  We feed top premium foods but if a consistent diet is needed, food may be brought from home. 

Inside runs are 4'x6'.   We use an expensive hospital grade disinfectant that kills all bacteria and a majority of viruses.

Playtime

We provide playtime in a 7 foot high fenced enclosure for those dogs that need extra exercise or like to get out for a romp with friends.  Play time gives dogs a chance to play with other dogs for a half hour for an additional $2 charge.

Looking Into the Mind of a Dog - as it pertains to coming to the kennel. 

Setting inherited temperament and genetics aside for a moment, let's consider the mind of an average dog coming to the kennel.  

First, dogs are social creatures, so if you've 'sheltered' them from contact with other dogs, they will have the impression that other dogs may be dangerous.  That is not their natural inclination.  They naturally would prefer to socialize, and they can be quickly brought to that with proper training.  Treating the dog with kid gloves, cajoling , pleading, petting and other behaviors that you believe is telling the dog that 'everything's all right, don't worry', are understood by the dog to mean, "You're doing the right thing by acting worried."  Instead, take the leader role and act in a manner that says, "No silly behavior will be allowed; just come with me", and walk in a business-like way. The dog will take the cue from you because you know there's nothing to be worried about.  Balanced dogs that have stayed with us in the past, tend to pull their owners to the door of the kennel because they want to see the other dogs.

Second, dogs actually don't need to eat on a precise schedule.  This will make sense if you consider that their wild ancestors, and the genes they've inherited from those ancestors, developed to permit them to survive for long periods of time without food.  They are super efficient at storing fat and taking it out of storage as needed.  Ancestral dining would have been sporadic and based on luck.  They were scavengers and opportunistic hunters - and still are, explaining why they enjoy human garbage so much!  In the wild, eating every 3 or 4 days, they would thrive, though they would definitely be skinnier than they are now - because at the weight most of us keep them at, they could never catch anything or even be the first to the scavenging site!  We recently lost a customer because, by lunchtime, their dog had not had its breakfast yet!  I cannot imagine how the dog managed to live those extra 2.5 hours without sustenance!  Their digestive systems are likely not evolved to eat 3 squares a day plus elevenzies and a midnight snack.  Their systems have about 13,000 years of getting a 2 or 3 day rest in between meals in which the gut recovers, settles down and gets hungry enough to motivate a hunting/searching behavior.  In the last 100 years or so, we've decided they are actually humans and like us, should eat constantly.  It's no wonder that they face so many digestive challenges and eat grass whenever they get the chance!

Thirdly, they do not have the disgust and aversion to urine and feces that we humans have.  Instead, they 'read' those bodily products and look forward to the opportunity to find out about the dog that produced it.  Questions like health, breedability, how long ago the other passed this way, how long since they ate last, and tons of other information is provided in those products.  It would be like saying to you, "No more newspapers or TV news for you!"  So when your dog is busy sniffing or stepping into, or even picking up these products, we are horrified.  They are not, and they seem to be quite immune to the practice.  Mind you, a relatively recent (I'm talking 50 or so years) virus called Parvovirus, can be transmitted by smelling feces, and that's why we give vaccinations.  At the kennel, some of the dogs who are fastidious at home will happily lie in, jump into, smear on walls their own messes with none of the regard that we wished they had.  Dogs with long hair will get it stuck in their hind end hair and not even care!  It's a good practice to keep the hair around that area short for that reason, and the older the dog, the less able they are to be able to keep it clean themselves - especially if you're feeding them the same amount and type of food they got when they were an active 4 year old and bending around is impossible due to stiffness and weight.  On this topic, the WORST weather is the temperature range from -4 to +4, because at this temperature, urine tends to hit the concrete and remain there in a 'slush like' form which is perfect for running back and forth in.  If you have 2 dogs together, they inevitably manage to spread it over each other's coats - remember, they really don't mind.  But WE do.  At colder temps, it freezes solid, and warmer temps, we can hose out the runs.  At that 4 to 4 range, we get blamed for keeping them in unclean conditions.  Of course, if we never let them go outside.......

I think the funniest note we ever got accompanying a dog that came to stay was this one:

     6 AM - Let Fluffy outside for 15 minutes.  6:15 AM - Let Fluffy in and give him a biscuit.  6:30 AM - Give Fluffy his breakfast and stir in some wet cat food (attached).  6:45 AM - Take Fluffy out for a half hour walk.  7:15 AM - Return and give Fluffy a bisucit and let him sleep on his bed for a half hour.  7:45 AM - play with Fluffy (his favorite toy is the stuffed bunny - throw it for him for 10 minutes or so)  8:15 AM - Give Fluffy a biscuit.  9:00 AM Let Fluffy watch Coronation Street with you - it's on channel 35.  If you don't want to watch it, it's OK; he'll watch on his own.  At 12:00 noon, Fluffy gets lunch.  He can have 2 biscuits broken up in with his meal.  12:30 PM - Take Fluffy for his early afternoon walk............and on it went until 9:30 PM whereupon we could "Tuck Fluffy into his bed and it can stay on the floor if he has to, but he prefers to be on the foot of the bed."  

To follow that schedule would have cost the owner $200 per day!  Miracle of miracles; Fluffy (name changed to protect the innocent dog) managed to survive the entire 2 weeks being treated like, well, a real, actual canine.  No surprise to the kennel staff at all!  The point is - and this observation is based on more than 30 years of boarding, training and modifying canine behavior - dogs who are treated like dogs are mentally healthy.  Those who are treated like humans are the most unbalanced dogs you could ever meet.  They simply do not understand what we're doing with them and the result is stress, fear, aggression, and a sense that they have the weight of the world on their shoulders.  We think we're being kind to them; they think we're making them be the leader of the pack - the worst job in the world.

I understand that some of this may not be what you want to hear, or have not considered, but I simply wish to educate by passing on knowledge I've accumulated over 33 years of studying this fascinating species.  Be assured that your dog will be treated like a dog should be treated while they're with us, and for dogs that live with nice Canadians like you and I, that's pretty nice.  I'd come back as a dog next time around if I could live with someone like you or me!