While you love relaxing at home with your dog, you may not be able to take your dog with you everywhere. If you’re traveling a long way from home, it may be better to leave your dog behind versus dragging them to an unfamiliar setting for a short period of time. That’s when you need to start considering local dog boarding services. With about 38% of all American households currently owning dogs, it’s clear that there is a huge demand for pet boarding services. But that doesn’t mean that every boarding service is going to be right for you and your dog.
Every dog is going to want a bit of something different out of a boarding experience, and the same goes for you as the owner, of course. The main issue for most owners is trust. It takes a lot for you to know that you can trust someone with your dog, which is why you should begin scouting a local dog boarding service well ahead of your actual vacation. Let’s look into what you should do when searching for a boarding service for your dog.
1. Try It Out In Advance
There are a lot of reasons why you should give a dog boarding service a bit of a trial run before you actually go on vacation. If you leave your dog with a boarding service for the day, you need to know that your dog enjoys that particular boarding space, and is comfortable with both the space itself and the people who work there. If you try a boarding service for a day, within a short distance of your dog, you and the dog will feel a lot better when it’s time for a longer stay.
This is why local dog boarding services that also offer pet daycare are so beneficial. You can drop your dog off before you go to work, allowing them to basically enjoy a day to themselves. If anything goes wrong, you can pick your dog up immediately. But ideally, nothing will go wrong and you’ll be able to rest assured knowing that your dog had a positive experience, and therefore will be less likely to get stressed out when you leave them for a longer period of time.
2. Understand Their Emergency Procedures
The goal is that nothing bad will happen and your dog will have a great time. But you never know what will happen to your dog; they could have a health emergency that has nothing to do with the boarding service. You need to not only make sure that your boarding service is aware of what vet you use but also understand their emergency procedures.
The fact is that a lot of boarding services have working relationships with their own vets, and they should at the very least understand how to most easily to get to an emergency vet nearby. Boarding services should have staff on hand that can perform first aid for dogs. The more that you know about what they do in case of an emergency, the easier it will be for you to relax.
3. Understand Their Standards
A local dog boarding service shouldn’t be the type of business that takes on every type of client. They need to have standards that must be met before they board a dog. That’s because every dog they board could, directly or indirectly, interact with your dog. You need to go to a boarder that requires flea and tick prevention, as well as basic vaccinations against diseases like rabies and distemper. Furthermore, you need to make sure that they won’t let your dog interact with aggressive dogs, or any dogs unsupervised.
Choosing a dog boarding service is obviously intimidating, and it’s easy to let anxiety get the best of you. But there is a great service for your dog out there. You just need to be careful when searching for one.
Revenues generated by the Eastern Shore Pet Resort help support the Brandywine Valley SPCA Animal Rescue Center’s (ARC) primary mission of animal rescue and rehabilitation services.