DO NOT BRING YOUR DOG HERE. I brought my dog for daycare almost every Monday for the last 6 weeks…read more I dropped him off 2/12 and he was super energetic and lively, when I pick him up around 5:30pm he was drooling and could barely walk out the door. I rushed him to an emergency vet 12 mins away and they told me he had a 106 fever and a lung infection and was borderline septic. After a few days at the hospital his body was not responding to antibiotics and I had to make the difficult decision to put him to sleep. I asked multiple different veterinarians in this process if I had been notified earlier when his behavior first changed if it would have helped his outcome and all agreed that it absolutely would have. When the manager at rover retreat contacted me after I voiced my frustration upon my dog's initial hospital stay, she only stated the staff gave a note to the front desk and the front desk failed to notify me. That the front desk personnel had been reprimanded and retrained, and then offered a refund for my one day of day care. If any of the staff had voiced a concern they should have followed up and in this case if my dog was this bad off the staff should have demanded I come get him. None of this happened, and now my seemingly healthy 2 year old lab is no longer with us. The lack of accountability and oversight clearly shows the staff at this doggy daycare are not properly trained or have no care for the animals they are put in charge of, my dog was suffering for at minimum the last few hours he was in their care, with no communication to me about it.

I have significant concerns about Rover retreat's business practices and/or staff training…read morefollowing my border collie's daycare evaluation day. In short, the staff told me that my dog, Leader, passed her evaluation and had a great day. Her tracking collar indicated she was inactive for all but two hours of the day. When pressed on this, the staff finally admitted as much but insisted she would be welcome to come back. Clearly, Leader was not a good fit for this daycare, as she was separated for the vast majority of the day (6+ hours). But if I did not have tracking data to spur questions, I never would have gotten past this initial story. A charitable explanation would be that the staff was disorganized. Alternatively, they just lied. Furthermore, it is clear that Rover Retreat lacks basic knowledge of dog behavior. Even though they ultimately told me that my dog had to be separated entirely from the play group due to rough play in the morning and again in the afternoon, resulting in only about 1.5 hours of total play with other dogs all day, they assured me this was going well and that Leader would benefit from more opportunities at this training. That's nuts. Two experiences in a trial day where your dog needs to be separated makes it incredibly clear that this is not a good match for the dog. It is clear that a lot of this mismatch was due to the space's layout, which would put my and other dogs like it into a frenzy. I had informed staff multiple times before and upon check-in that my dog, while great with other dogs, is barrier and leash reactive. If she goes by many other dogs behind a barrier on the way to a play space, obviously she will react and then interact poorly with the dogs she ultimately sees off leash. I manage this at dog parks through use of sausages until we get to the gate as a lure and by assessing her behavior before we go in to ensure this is going to be a good day (if not, we just go home). This is all basic dog training which Rover Retreat staff should understand. The staff assured me they could work with this. But in peeking through the windows while waiting for my dog upon checkout, I saw that the indoor play area requires a dog to walk by a whole line of kennels of dogs. The back yard is similarly crowded. My dog has done very well in facilities with much more thoughtful layout. This one is honestly 10x worse than the shelter at which I got her. For a dog like mine, this was an absolute nightmare. But yet even after coming clean on how badly the day went, the staff had either the shamelessness or the lack of knowledge to tell me that they were confident this went well. They seriously need the help of behavioral professionals. My advice for owners: if you choose to bring your dog here, demand a tour or pictures. And ask hard questions to ensure you are getting a clear story. My advice for Rover Retreat: don't mislead about how days went for dogs that have tracking collars. It's embarrassing. And hire a behaviorist to do an audit of all your practices. You owe the community basic standards of professionalism.