Doggy Daycare question

Do you notice a low in business during Summer?

I was just in the other day talking to Auggie's breeder's husband and he said business is down right now because the weather is so nice, so people are out walking their dogs themselves and playing with them, so they decide against taking the dog to daycare. He thinks once it gets really hot again it will pick back up again though, when people aren't as inclined to be outside with their dogs and would rather them be in an air conditioned facility playing with other dogs.

The place I take Lucy to for agility is a daycare/boarding facility. They are PACKED during the summer, because people are constantly on vacation and leave their dog boarded there (and they are in daycare during the day when they're boarded).

If they have boarding, they tend to be busier, but If it's just daycare, yah, it tends to slow down as people go away

I know at the doggy daycare where I worked the number of adult/well behaved dogs decreased, but ahole/adolescent dogs increased. Most of the clientele were also teachers (no clue how they afforded it!), and I feel like they didn't want to spend time with their insano dogs while they were home!

The daycare also didn't do boarding and wasn't open on weekends, which I think would have probably skewed the numbers a little more.

This. We are slammed.

Yeah, we offer training and daycare which isn't the conventional playroom style care but we don't board and dont do weekends. Two weeks ago I was getting slammed with 10-12 dogs a day (even had to call in relief twice for 15 dog days) and now I've been averaging 4-6 dog days. Just curious if this is a regular thing of just us.

We cater to wealthier clientele with lots of stay at home moms and I know lots are vacationing now with the kids out of school. I think though when we hit our consistent 102-110 degrees people will start returning for the ac'd exercise.

Thanks for answering.

Yeah for sure, daycare is down and boarding is way up. We're consistently filling up on weekends.

I don't mean to poke fun, but only fifteen dogs in daycare? That'd be a cakewalk! How are you guys setup though, that could change how everything is run.

Typically we have about 80 dogs in the building, we call for extra hands if numbers break 90 though.

The daycare I worked at usually had like...10 dogs
But then again we only had 2 people working most of the time, sometimes just one person, so we had to be super careful about who we were putting with who, etc.

We don't run as a daycare per say, it's actually day training or "doggie bootcamp" so we don't do massive packs of playing dogs. We have runs an xpens that the dogs stay in and then we rotate them in and out for obed, agility, behavioral training as well as socialization. When dogs are dog friendly we do offer play sessions through the day and also several walks, treadmill sessions, core training, and so on.

It costs more but it's also here for a different purpose.

It's more of sending your dog to school than sending your dog to play group. So we can't take more than 10-12 a day and fairly dole out enough training attention versus facilities that have 1 human monitoring 20-40 dogs at free play throughout the day.

Does that make more sense?

For example:

The dog daycare I used to work at wasn't really low in numbers in the summer.

The daycare I worked at was often packed during the summer. We had a lot of regulars that came every day, year round. Also had regulars that came 1-4x a week. And in the summer we often had them plus extras. I think some depends on the reason the majority of the clients are bringing their dogs. With the place I worked, most were either bringing their dogs to "spoil them" (often because they worked super long hours and felt bad for not having a lot of time for the dogs) or because the owners were mostly interested in having a good, quiet, tired dog (and didn't have or wouldn't make time to train/exercise the dog themselves). So in those cases, weather doesn't have much to do with daycare attendance. We did have some more active owners or owners who didn't work during the summer who would bring their dog less or not at all but they were not the majority where I worked.

I think that is awesome! It's how I would run a daycare if I had one.

Your daycare is super cool, Adrianne. I'd totally send my dog there (if I wanted daycare).

ETA: We've been debating offering a "Summer Camp" where clients' dogs can get a mix of training/play. I'll have to run your set up by my boss.

That does make a ton more sense. I'd love to have a setup like that for sure!

I work at a dog daycare in Northern Virginia. We are always packed full. My boss used to just keep accepting more dogs since she isn't good at turning people away but its gotten to the point where we have had to cut numbers allowed and have a waiting list most days.

We definitely have a strong pull from it. We have a few competitive clients but mostly we have overwhelmed pet owners who need help taking the edge off the basics and love knowing their dogs are learning agility foundations as well as some basic tricks and a big one is leash manners. We offer it 3 ways, full day, half day (4 hrs or less), and then just play/exercise sans training.

The location I took Bailey to today only takes 18 dogs. They're kind of awesome in a lot of ways and that's a seriously great one. Pre-registration only.

You all that do the daycare thing...do you guys actively supervise the dogs out playing?

I went to the only daycare that's really an option (location) and couldn't believe when I was told that they let the dogs out in the yard to play without supervision. They 'keep an ear out'. Not to mention dog arguments, Skye is a digger and it was a normal fenced yard-not concrete or anything. She also wouldn't let me in the kennels because it was 'nap time'...I had dropped by unannounced. Bah, I wish there was a good daycare nearby.