I have been coming to Camp Canine Downriver since September of 2014. I brought my dog 2-3 times per week and purchased several of the punch card packages for repeated visits. I've also referred at least 25 families to Camp Canine Downriver. Up until yesterday, I was a very happy customer.
On February 26th, there was an incident involving my dog and another dog, a puppy. At the time of the incident, when pressed for information, Carey (the owner) stated that she did not witness the incident. The day after the incident, Carey left me a lengthy voicemail about how much they loved my dog, and how much they wanted us to come back, and how her staff believed it was an isolated incident. At Carey's request, I did not bring my dog back to camp for one week.
I brought my dog back to camp on Monday, March 9th. When I picked him up at the end of the day, Carey told me that Bolt had been 'grumpy' with some of the other dogs, and they had put him in a 'time out' for a while. I explained that my dog might be out of sorts due to my fiancé being out of town for an extended amount of time (my dog and my fiancé are very close). We worked out a plan on how we would handle further visits to reduce the possibility of other incidents occurring. As we left, my dog jumped up on a woman that had come to pick up her dog. My dog did not injure the woman, but did unfortunately rip her pants from butt to ankle. I apologized and removed my dog from the building immediately. I do not believe that this incident was "aggressive" in nature, and just that my dog got very excited and accidentally ripped the woman's pants.
Upon returning home, I emailed Carey and apologized profusely. Her response was very sympathetic and at no time did she mention needing to take another break, or anything about the incident in the lobby being aggressive in nature.
The next morning, she sent me an email saying that she felt my dog was aggressive and that I would need to take a few more weeks away from camp. While it is her business and she has the right to ask anyone to not come, this made me angry, as she had seemingly changed her mind over night.
I emailed her and asked her to answer the following questions regarding the biting incident: Why was my adult dog with puppies? Who/how many people were monitoring the dogs at the time of the incident? Were they distracted in any way (by cell phones, by posting to the Camp Canine Facebook page)? Given my dogs inclination to use a 'warning system' with dogs that were bothering him, your staff should have observed that the two dogs were not getting along. Why were the dogs not separated before the incident occurred? Why was another dog allowed to harass my dog to the point that he felt like biting this other dog was the only way to get him to stop bothering him? How did you determine that my dog needed to 'take a break?' Was it your long term observation of his behavior, or was is solely based on this incident (which you did not observe)? Was the other dog asked to 'take a break' for behavior reasons? I also asked her to provide me with more information like... what time did the incident occur, and were there any other incidents that she did not discuss with me?
Her response was extremely vague and non-satisfactory. She did not answer any of my questions, and instead told me that she has '600 registered dogs' and she has never had any incidents with any other dogs. I pressed, once again, for a response. She refused to give me a detailed account of the incident, and asked me to stop contacting her because I was harassing her.
All I want to know is how the incident occurred, how closely the employees were monitoring the room at the time, and what time the incident occurred. It concerns me that she will not honestly answer these questions and makes me concerned for the welfare of other dogs at camp. If anyone would like to read the entire string of emails between us to verify my version of the accounts, please contact me! I'm happy to share an uncensored version. read more