Daycare
The temperament assessment
A free appointment, about forty-five minutes, before a first daycare day and before a first boarding stay for any dog that will join a group.
The four steps, in order
You arrive and stay
For the first fifteen minutes you are in the room. We want to see the dog with you, because that is the dog you know.
You leave the room
Then you go and sit in the lobby, because the dog we need to see is the one that is here without you. Most of what matters happens in this part.
One dog, then two
A handler, then a steady dog we keep for exactly this, then a second dog if the first went well.
We tell you what we saw
Plainly, before you leave, including the parts you may not want to hear.
The four honest outcomes
Every assessment ends in one of these, and we tell you which before you leave.
Groups, straight away
The common one.
Groups, but small ones, and we will watch
Also common, and often the right answer for a young dog.
Yard turns alone, no group
Not a failure and not a refusal. Your dog can board here for years this way.
Not daycare, and here is why
A dog that is frightened rather than rude is a dog that should not spend eight hours in a play group, and we would rather say so on a free appointment than three weeks in.
What forty-five minutes cannot tell anybody. An assessment is three quarters of an hour on one morning in a building your animal has never been in. It tells us how to start. It does not predict what your dog will do in six months, it does not mean nothing will ever go wrong, and anybody who tells you their assessment guarantees that is selling you a feeling.
Book the assessment
Free, and the first thing on the calendar for a dog that has never been here.