3 hours into his first day of daycare, I got a call from the staff saying they found a…read morequarter-sized wound on his stomach. No one had seen what happened to him but they confirmed it had not come from a dog scuffle of any kind, it was likely environmental.
I was not immediately concerned. I've taken my dogs and family dogs to daycare for the last 15 years. I understand that when you play hard, sometimes you get hurt. But this was not like any injury I have ever seen on any of my other dogs who have been to daycare--even those who needed a few stitches. I will share a picture below, but after the vet shaved off the fur, it revealed a huge bruise and a round open wound that was about 1.5in. in diameter.
After getting home with stitches and a bag of new drugs from the vet and seeing a charge for a full day of daycare from Vintage Dog Ranch, I called and asked if they could refund us for the day as we received a $664 vet charge for the injury he received in Vintage's care only 3 hours into the day. In response, they hesitantly gave me a 50% discount.
In this entire experience, not one member of their staff apologized for what had happened or tried to rectify the situation to get me to come back since it was only my second time there. They very matter of fact said, "He got injured, we don't know what happened, let us know if you have any questions," and that was about it.
On recommendation from my neighbor who has been taking her small dog there for years, I went to speak to one of their owners, Mike, in person. We spoke in a private back room where I expressed 3 concerns. One, that it was quite unsettling that my dog got such a bad injury from the environment in their yard that not a single person or camera witnessed (there are at least 10 staff members on property and no cameras). Two, that their staff did not seem to have any desire to rectify the situation to ensure my return to their business. And three, that they were hesitant to give me even half a day's refund, let alone the full refund I believe I deserved after my dog's traumatic experience and the expensive vet bill that followed.
Throughout the time I spent explaining these concerns to Mike, I was met with extreme defensiveness. He interrupted me multiple times as I was speaking to interject his "expertise" or reasoning as to why what I was saying may not be right, with something along the lines of, "I'm not trying to stop you mid-sentence, but..."
Some of his most concerning responses:
"You feel this way because this is your dog."
"I'm not trying to diminish your feelings, but I have thousands of dogs come through here every year and we have been doing this for 25 years. This level of injury has maybe happened 5 times in those 25 years."
When I asked what they had discussed internally about the potential cause of his injury, "That's something we discuss internally and don't usually share, but I can share that with you if you want."
When asked how long they leave their dogs completely unsupervised, he said, "I can't really tell you--is it 10 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour? It varies, I couldn't give you a straight answer."
Instead of providing a solution or earnestly trying to make me feel safe enough to bring my dog back, he put the solution on me saying, "What is it that you were looking for when you came to talk to me today?"
Though the owners did let me do a lap around the yard and eventually agreed to fix some things in the environment (though I have not heard from them in a month about these improvements), after hearing the way he spoke about our dog ("you feel this way because it's your dog"), constantly being interrupted, and listening to him diminish the incident down to a number in the thousands he's dealt with, we will not be coming back--and I encourage everyone to reconsider bringing their dog to Vintage Dog Ranch. The girls who work there are lovely, but this is just a business to the owners, Mike and Brian.
Imagine if you took your kid to daycare, they got a deep wound that no one witnessed, and the owner couldn't tell you how it happened or how long your kid had been left unsupervised. I'm pretty sure all parents would agree with me in saying they would never be bringing their children back to that daycare.
Think twice before choosing Vintage Dog Ranch.
