What we will not claim
We do not have a banned breed list
What you will see advertised
“For everyone's safety we do not accept pit bulls, rottweilers, German shepherds or wolf hybrids.”
What is actually true
Every breed is welcome here, subject to the assessment every dog does. We have never published a list of breeds we will not take and we are not going to.
A breed list is a way of deciding about an animal you have not met. It excludes hundreds of easy dogs and admits plenty of difficult ones, because the thing that makes a dog manageable in a kennel is its temperament, its training and its history, none of which is visible in its shape.
It is also, in practice, a list assembled from what an insurer once said and what a neighbouring business does. It is not a safety measure. It is a filing system.
What we do instead is meet the dog, for three quarters of an hour, without you in the room for most of it, and then say what we saw.
What we do instead
We do refuse individual animals, and we say why. A dog that has bitten a person, a dog that cannot be handled by a stranger, and a dog that is frightened rather than rude — those are decisions about a dog, made after meeting it, and we will tell you plainly.
The other nine
One argument in ten parts. Each is a sentence you might see advertised, and a plainer thing that is true at this lodge instead.
Are those dates free?
The calendar shows every night, for every suite class, with how many are left and what that night costs. Nothing is paid on this website: you pay when you collect.