I met my friend Allie for lunch today; (she is the absolute sweetest thing) .  She is one of those women who have it all going on; the looks, the personality,  a great career, just all around successful.  Allie and I attended college together, where we both majored in Communications and the funny thing is, neither one of us currently work in that field.  Allie and I had lost touch with each other and recently connected again via Facebook.  Needless to say, I had anticipated today ever since we set the date.

As always happens when you meet up with someone you haven’t seen in a while, we had to catch each other up.  As we filled each other in on current life events, the topic of dogs came up.  Allie has a little puppy named Tallulah; and of course I mentioned Sampson and Delilah and then I mentioned “Daycare.”  Most people I know roll their eyes or express some form of disbelief that my dogs actually go to daycare, so I was hesitant to bring it up, but Allie mentioned that Tallulah goes to daycare too.  WOW!!

So we started talking about our daycares and it made me want to share a couple of things here about daycare.  Currently Sampson and Delilah have stopped going to daycare.  There are a couple of mitigating factors but the biggest one is that our daycare was purchased by someone who doesn’t know the first thing about running a doggie daycare, I don’t pay money to have my dogs sit in a crate all day long.  I can keep them home, keep the money in my pocket and my dogs aren’t in crates.  Thankfully most doggie daycares aren’t run this way (Allie’s isn’t) but since ours is, I am keeping them home.

People put their dogs in daycare for various reasons, if you choose to put your dog in daycare you should feel very comfortable where you are leaving them.  Check them out the same way you would if you were putting your child in daycare.  Pop in at different times of the day to see what they are doing with the dogs.  Ask for references and call them!  Check with the better business bureau and see if there are any complaints about them, ask your vet if they have heard of them.  Watch them run the daycare and see how they handle the dogs, ask what they do if your dog misbehaves.   How will your dog be disciplined if he “punks” another dog; if you don’t like the answer then that may not be the place for you.

I know that Sampson and Delilah miss going to daycare, but I’m very grateful that I got them out before something bad happens to them and I’m also grateful of the time of year when I can take advantage of the nicer weather and get them outside and walking for their exercise.