We went on a weekend trip for a family anniversary. We decided to board our 80-pound sheepadoodle, Zen, for the first time. We c a r e f u l l y chose Dogs Around Austin (DAA) as it came highly recommended. We went for a visit a week before our trip. I am admittedly an anxious, loving dog owner. I let DAA know of my anxiety about leaving Zen for the first time. They assured me he was in good hands, they understood, and said I could call and text to check in on him as often as I like.
We dropped Zen off at noon on Thursday. He was a bit unsure and uncomfortable. The staff was very sweet with him. I called and texted to check on him regularly. DAA let me know that Zen was having trouble settling in and was not eating and said they'd keep a close eye on him. I didn't receive a reply to my check in on Friday evening. I placed another text on Saturday morning. There is a picture of the text exchange. Scheduling seemed to be a bigger concern than Zen's wellbeing which was never mentioned.
At 1:58 on Saturday afternoon I received an emergency call that Zen had a problem and needed to go to the vet, and that our vet closed 2 minutes and it would have to be an emergency vet visit. Then they sent me the photos of his raw, red, engorged testicles. I was panic stricken.
I immediately contacted a friend in Austin and booked myself on the next flight home. My friend found an emergency vet and met DAA with Zen. DAA dropped Zen off and left. We were concerned that Zen might need emergency surgery. Luckily the vet let us know that this is a common problem for intact male dogs being boarded for the first time. Zen had licked his testicles until the skin was all but gone leaving his scrotum red and raw. He would need oral antibiotics, topical spray, and to be in a cone until he was all healed.
Adding insult to injury, while I was on the flight home, I received an invoice from DAA that included a drop off charge at the emergency vet! I contacted DAA to ask if the invoice was automatically generated and sent in error. I received a text back saying that the charges were correct and that there was a drop off charge for taking Zen to the vet.
So many ways Dogs Around Austin royally screwed up:
1.When I received the call saying that Zen needed to go to the emergency vet, I was told that they had noticed that there was a problem the night before. Why didn't they contact me as soon as they noticed there was a problem? Why didn't they let me know on Saturday morning when they were texting me about scheduling?
2.In 48 hours how much licking himself did Zen do that no one noticed, seemed concerned about, raised a flag about, put a cone on him, or addressed the problem before it was an expensive emergency?
3.The manager let me know that she saw his testicles were red on Friday night, that this sometimes happens from high blood pressure as if that was normal or okay! When I asked why I wasn't alerted sooner, she explained that they had 30 dogs, were busy, they don't have time to check every dog, it's dark at night, and where Zen was located was a pass through point where staff has to walk by to get to the kitchen. Which makes it worse that no one noticed that Zen was licking himself enough to remove skin especially after they were aware there was an issue.
5.When I mentioned the invoice to her, she said that that could have been handled more sensitively and that she would remove the $10 drop off charge.
I am a reasonable human being, albeit an admittedly anxious dog owner. I know things happen, mistakes are made, dogs get hurt. I get all of that. This is 100% dog negligence on the part of Dogs Around Austin. It cost us over $2,000 in avoidable unanticipated expenses. There are about a dozen things Dog Around Austin could have done differently to make this better and have avoided a scathing review. I even gave them extra time to response to try to make things right. They didn't. They made things worse.
Bottom line, I will never bring Zen back to Dogs Around Austin and I don't think any dog loving owner would want to either. read more