Puppy Camp

My husband and I spent yesterday afternoon looking at boarding kennels for Savannah. With summer on the way, I know we'll be taking a trip and I didn't want to leave such an important decision for the last minute--- what to do with Savannah when we travel.

Savannah is too young to be left at home alone for days and days, and too big to ask friends to come in three or four times a day to play with her and take her for walks. Little dogs are easy, large dogs are work. I have to admit that Savannah isn't a crazy puppy anymore, but she does have those moments when her inner puppy takes over her common sense and she needs supervision right now, not independence.

Our own vet has a boarding facility but the kennels are very limited, plus they have concrete floors inside, with outside access to grass that is not at all shaded from the sun. Good accommodations but not ideal, so we thought we'd check out the other places in the area.

The first one was a fairly new boarding facility run by a vet on the main highway where we had taken Gracie years ago. At that time, they were undergoing renovations on their building and the staff was trying to work efficiently in an upside-down construction environment. The vet himself was okay but he had no 'gentle bedside manner' with Gracie and at the time she was an older dog who was feeling every bit her age. We left there unhappy, taking Gracie with us, and we found another vet. We knew about their new boarding facilities, so we gave them a look-see. Once again, we left there unhappy.

The facility itself was sparkling clean and just a few years old. However, they had way too many kennels in that dog-room, giving each dog about a three-foot-square kennel... barely enough for a large dog to turn around but adequate for dogs under 30 pounds. The little dogs were in crates stacked one on top of another... not good, in my opinion. The floors were concrete, the noise level was beyond belief, and one look at every dog in that crowded place told you they were stressed out and not 'just barking at strangers,' as the very young attendant suggested. The dogs were brought out into a yard (not a bit of shade) twice a day, and if they had 'an accident' in their kennel, then it would just be hosed down.  Give me a blessed break. In my opinion, the person who designed those boarding kennels had dollar bills in mind, not the comfort of the dogs. As we left, the teeny-bopper girl behind the counter gave me one of their business cards, which I promptly tore in half when we got into our car.

The second place was recommended by our friend C.... a huge veterinary building and boarding facility (for dogs, cats, horses)... up on the main highway but going towards Houston, not Austin. My husband was familiar with the building because he saw it being built last year when he drove that way into the city for work. We had high hopes for this place, mainly because it was our last option that was conveniently near our town.  The puppy gods were smiling down on us yesterday because as soon as we got out of the car we were pleased with everything we saw. Beautiful building, nicely landscaped and maintained, separate facilities for horse-boarding, and everything was just sparkling clean, clean, clean. Not even that medicinal odor one usually gets when you walk up to a vet's office.

The people working at this facility were not students passing the time with a part-time job till they graduated... they were older ladies and men who weren't just working for a paycheck so they could have a party-happy weekend.  Yes, they had dog boarding, and certainly we could come on back and have a look at the accommodations they offered. The little dogs were in little kennels, and the big dogs were in larger kennels. The rooms were huge and clean and the noise level was bearable... a few of the dogs barked at us but most of them were comfortable and happy and they just watched us walking by... not one dog was barking from over-crowding and stress.

As we walked through the room with the big-dog kennels, the woman told us they also offered 'deluxe accommodations' for dogs so we walked further into another room. I could have cried right there on the spot.  Eight lovely large kennels with tile floors and painted walls.... in a tile-floored quiet room, a window in each kennel that overlooked the yard, glass doors instead of the metal enclosures, and this room was on the way out towards the barn with the stalls for the horses... every time the door opened, a nice breeze of fresh air drifted into that air-conditioned 'deluxe' room.  This room was also on the way to the grooming room and the laundry room, so staff members would be walking in and out all day long and the dogs would get to see people during the day, not just the other dogs.

Another great surprise was the outdoor yard for the dogs where they were taken four or five times a day.... huge space for each dog, each area half shaded and half in the sun, with two attendants out there supervising ten dogs in ten separate enclosures. The dogs could see one another but were kept in separate spaces unless they came from the same household.

Happy day. Happy happy happy HAPPY DAY.  Before we left there, we gave the woman all of our information, signed Savannah up with her vet's record of shots, and told the woman we would be reserving one of the deluxe rooms for Savannah before the summer was over. When we got back into the car, it was all I could do not to just cry out of sheer happiness that we had found such a wonderful boarding facility filled with a very caring and efficient staff who clearly were working there because they love animals. I repeat: HAPPY DAY.

When we lived in Clear Lake, we had the most wonderful pet-sitter on the planet who took care of Gracie and our cats as if they were his very own. Gracie was an easy dog to care for because she wasn't a puppy when we first found that pet-sitter and she could stay all day long in the house if need be without having any accidents or issues with the cats or anything in the house.  My friend C has been taking care of our cats for the past couple of years when we've traveled, and she is as loving to our cats as we are. With Savannah still being in the puppy stage, I couldn't have imposed on C to be here so many times a day to accommodate Savannah's puppy-ness, nor could I have allowed Savannah to stay at C's house, as she had suggested. C has her own big dog who stays outside... and our Savannah is very much an inside dog and definitely a puppy princess who is afraid of loud noises and strange places.... way too much of a 'job' to ask of a friend.... and C's own dog is Prince Of His Kingdom and having another dog on 'his' property would have been so unfair.

So now I'm telling Savannah that she will be 'going to camp' at some point during the summer. She looks at me with big puppy eyes and I know she doesn't understand the angst connected with finding a boarding facility that can offer a sense of home for her while we're away. Most important lesson learned from the inspections of the boarding facilities--- don't listen to what the staff is telling you about the accommodations, listen to what the dogs are telling you.