I had mixed feelings about the kennel-free boarding facility where Kip stayed during my trip to Korea. First, I was glad they were able to take me on short notice, but I thought it strange that I wasn’t able to drop by the week before to take a tour of the facility. Something to do with students having their Spring break. I have no idea why student’s being on spring break had anything to do with me being able to tour the facility. I guess it was either that there were a lot of dogs being boarded during that period, or that her employees were students, or that her employees were on vacation.
Luckily Kip was Giardia-free by the time I had to leave but it was a bit stressful getting his labs done and waiting for the results. If they weren’t negative I would have had to leave him in a different facility, but I was set on leaving him in kennel-free boarding as I was going to be gone for two weeks.
There was a lot of paperwork but some of them were a bit intimidating as they had to do with legal issues which the owner later told me were standard. When I asked her about the treats and that I wanted to know the ingredients in the treats she left a voice mail saying that they had so many different types of treats that she wasn’t going to sit there and list all of them for me as she hadn’t the time. Now, this was perfectly understandable and I hadn’t realized that they had so many different types of treats as the daycare that I had left Kip before only had two types of treats. What put me off was that in her voicemail she told me I must be very picky about what Kip eats and that I should just bring his own treats. When I asked about the legal rights of the photos she was going to take and if I would be notified if any of them went on press, she basically said that she didn’t have the time to do that because of the amount of pictures she took and they were going to be uploaded on the website. She then said that if I didn’t want pictures taken of Kip he couldn’t board there.
I was fine with all the rules and liked how she had a time schedule for the dogs on the website, but the way in which she replied to my questions was a bit rude. When I was dropping Kip off, one of her assistants was nice and friendly but the owner didn’t even acknowledge me or say hello when she first saw me. It wasn’t until halfway through my talk with the assistant manager that she came to say hello. I understand that she might have been busy caring for the dogs, but it’s not as if we didn’t have eye contact, and a quick nod or hi really isn’t that hard… is it?
Other than that, I was happy with the fact that Kip was going to be socializing with the other dogs off leash and was not going to be kept in a kennel. I checked in with them twice during my 2 weeks away and was happy that they sent prompt replies regarding how Kip was doing. It really does make a difference when they tell you how your dog is doing and puts your mind at ease. She seemed a bit friendlier in her emails on how Kip was doing, so I guess is that either she isn’t exactly a people-person or that she was having a bad day when I was dropping Kip off.
In any case, I would send Kip there again because it’s a kennel free facility and Kip came home healthy and energetic.
