Camp Bow Wow

My pup loves going here, however he has only been for a couple of play dates. I love that they have cameras so I can watch for a bit and check in to see how he's doing! I will definitely have to try out the boarding service and update this review!

Disappointed. This place is very rigid, supposedly due to corporate policies. If you need something special, their policies won't allow them to accommodate you. More importantly, my dog has picked up infections the last two times we boarded him there. They also charged us for a nail trim and dint do it. I'm really sad I have to look for another place. I was hoping this place would work out.

I've been boarding my dog with Camp Bow Wow for a year, and my experiences until now have been overwhelmingly good, but after picking my dog up today, I'm incredibly displeased.

I boarded my schnauzer two days ago so I could go camping. I asked if he could get a bath before I picked him up. The girl at the front desk asked what time I would be picking him up (I said 1:00pm today), and she said that they'd definitely be able to get a bath in by then. I didn't see her writing or typing it down, but I had no reason to believe there would be a problem, since they'd always given him the baths that I'd requested during prior stays.

My camping trip got cut short due to weather conditions, and I made it back in time to pick him up yesterday afternoon, but I knew he'd be stinky and gross from playing with the other dogs, so I decided to wait and schedule my day today around his pickup time so he'd be clean and ready to go.

I showed up a little after 1:00, and my dog came out looking pretty gross. I asked if they had given him a bath, and they hadn't. Then my next questions was, "...is he wet???" They said that yes, he'd been playing in the pool. So you didn't bathe him, and you can't even be bothered to towel him off before giving him back to me? They said that if I wanted him to get a bath, I could come pick him up later, but again, I scheduled my day around his pickup.

After putting my gross, wet dog in the car that I had just cleaned from my camping trip, I had to immediately give him a bath when we got home. I should probably mention that my dog is 13 years old and he has arthritis in all of his joints and back, so giving him a bath in my tub is hard for both of us with his stability issues.

I don't usually do google or yelp reviews. I've worked at jobs where your performance is heavily scrutinized because of bad reviews, and it sucks, but this ruined my day. I live on the north side of town, but I've been taking my dog to stay at Camp Bow Wow for the past year because I typically like the care they give him, but this was just lazy, incompetent, and left a really bad taste in my mouth. Being that I could have saved a day's boarding fee by just picking him up yesterday or have taken him somewhere on my side of town, I'm going to consider either finding another place or a friend for him to stay with next time I go out of town.

My dog loves going to Camp Bow Wow and always has a great time. He was at camp on Tuesday, Sept. 25. In the early morning of Wednesday, Oct. 3 he woke us up hacking and acting very listless. I took him to the vet as soon as they opened and was told my dog had a strain of Kennel Cough that's not covered by the vaccine. My vet said it's a 4-7 day incubation period and he'd seen a number of dogs in the last few weeks with it from kennels all around Fort Collins. The only exposure my dog had to any other dogs in that 7-day period was at Camp Bow Wow.

I know you guys require vaccinations which is great. But it seems that you would also be concerned enough with something like this, which my vet said he's seen many cases of including in his own kennel in the past month or so, that you would notify the people there on the same day that their dog might have been exposed and might be contagious.

I wrote the Fort Collins location and let them know and got no response back. Same for the national franchise office. This seems rather irresponsible. I would much rather hear from you that there *might* be an issue (that would make me think you're really looking out for me and my dog and make me more likely to recommend you) than hear nothing and wind up with a sick dog that might infect others.

FOLLOWUP:

My dog eventually had to have chest x-rays and antibiotics and was pretty miserable for about 10 days. This was not in any way Camp Bow Wow's fault, but their lack of response to my questions about notifying pet parents when their animals have been exposed to a widespread local illness that may be serious for compromised dogs makes it clear the welfare of their guests is not nearly as important as they claim. We won't be going back to Camp Bow Wow.

The staff here couldn't be nicer! I take my dog almost every Friday, and he practically drag me out of the house to get him here! Highly recommend the training classes as well... Though I probably could use a little more!

This is review number two. My dog has been attending Camp Bow Wow over the last two years.

Reasons I love it: video camera options to be able to check in, the staff always knows me and my dog's name when we arrive, great customer service, great experience with personalized dog training.

I [still] highly recommend it!

I'm a big fan of Camp Bow Wow. $26 for a full day of day care isn't bad, it's comparable to surrounding day cares. I LOVE that I can watch my dog on my computer while I'm at work. I also thought it was a cute touch that for her first visit, she got a little report card. Everyone who works there is always really nice and Lucky always comes home tired but happy. They have a great website and store front too. I enjoyed taking Lucky for her consultation, to see if her personality was a good fit for day care. It made me more comfortable with the whole experience.

We have never been one to use doggie daycare too much with our previous pets. We adopted a young pup and felt it was important for him to engage with other dogs, especially to give our older dog a break. So we went into this with caution. Unfortunately, our dude got hurt as an innocent bystander from other dogs rough playing. I have to say that we have been genuinely appreciative of how much the regional manager worked with us to feel good about bringing our pup back once he heeled from his wound. Accidents happen, how the team responds to them is what matters, and they were responsive and exceptional. Our guy was so happy to see his camp bow wow friends again...the two-leggers and the four-leggers.

When we used to live in FoCo we would take our pups there every now and again. They weren't our first choice but usually they'd do in a pinch.

We put the dogs up there last night and carefully reviewed the medication procedures with the supervisor. We were assured that our epileptic dog would be given her medicine in due course and medicine times were included in the overnight fees.

So we got there this morning and there was one-half pill in the medicine bottle. We specifically gave them two-half pills and these pill pockets for our seizure-prone pup. Their employees claimed to have given her the pill and no one would say otherwise. I won't get in an argument as to who gave the pill and who didn't but suffice it to say the pill was not given as instructed.

To their credit, they refunded us the cost of the overnight but if our dog has a seizure then it is all for naught.

We won't be taking the pups back to Camp Bow Wow in FoCo. Ever.

I've boarded my dogs here a couple of times. On the surface, they seem great -- the facility is clean and pleasant enough, the staff is nice enough, the boarding kennels spacious enough. A bit expensive, but the opportunity to play with daycare dogs is bundled into their boarding package and they have webcams so you can check-in on your dogs if you are so inclined ... the question is, are these things worth it?

Unfortunately, I have to say no, they're not. The thing is, when I picked-up my dogs, they were frantic. Layla leaped over the barrier into my arms (which is weird -- she's an independent dog and not really prone to separation anxiety). Pip tried to follow but couldn't clear the barrier ... when they opened the barrier he was on me like I was flypaper. Okay, so I'm sure its normal for them to have missed me but really they are better behaved than all this.

I don't think that they were abused at all, but have concluded that they were somewhat neglected -- standard poodles are people dogs more than dog dogs, so apparently they were horrified at being left with a bunch of other dogs with little or no human interaction (this I observed on their webcams -- my dogs were always at the fences, following the people outside the enclosures back and forth, but I never saw the staff interact with them, other than to squirt dogs that were playing too rough with water). So much for that bundled daycare being worth it ... but I guess I have to say I did get something out of the webcam (though surely not what they wanted me to get ...)

I was also a bit miffed that they didn't seem to follow my feeding instructions -- I packed an extra couple days worth of food for them in case I somehow was delayed, but when I picked them up all of their food was gone. This might seem like a minor thing to complain about, but one of my dogs tends to put on too much weight and the other has a hard time maintaining weight so it's something I'm a little freaky about.

Would I take my dogs here again? Well ... I suppose I would if I were really, really, really desperate, e.g. some emergency situation where I couldn't get a petsitter, all the other kennels in town were full, and I couldn't arm-twist a friend/neighbor/acquaintance/anyone I vaguely know with an inkling of experience with dogs to check-in on my dogs.