I've been a loyal customer between locations for nearly a decade. I'm disappointed and upset that…read moreat this point, I've lost any semblance of trust for them and cannot leave my animals with them.
Twice in the last several months, my dog has been injured by other dogs. The first time she ended up with a hole in her ear from a bite, which they called and informed me about. I went to get her and she was oddly in good spirits but has a gnarly tooth hole in the tip of her ear. I monitored overnight and cleaned her up, since emergency vet visits after-hours are costly and the injury wasn't life-threatening. We lucked out in that instance, and I wish that was the end. Maybe it should've been for me, but I know dogs will be dogs. It bothered me, and I ignored a gut instinct telling me it could've been avoided by better temperament monitoring etc. I wish I'd listened.
January 2025: the long and short of it is that at pickup time the excited dogs tend to go bananas and cluster by the door. Apparently not one but TWO dogs got aggressive in this moment when my dog was being jumped on and signaled with a 'yelp' that she wasn't a happy camper...and the other two dogs involved (daycare's details, given to me from camera review) did not appreciate it; one left a tooth gouge so deep in my dogs back that it actually looked like a long, gaping incision - that we had to take her and our other dog in tow immediately to the emergency vet where she was sedated and required surgical care and 2-3 weeks of follow ups, stitch removal, and for me to take several days off of work to monitor and nurse her to a comfortable point so I could return.
$1000.00 later, I've now asked them several times via email for what my recourse options were. No acknowledgement. What's worse is the acknowledgements I did get avoid addressing those comments or concerns, and are simply "Ok great thanks for keeping us posted!" They'd only reply with their best wishes for my dog, and that they'd make sure the other two dogs weren't in open play with mine - plus a "warning." Conveniently, no acknowledgement of my concerns about the financial hardship or questions about what my next steps were.
I read the fine print in my liability with them on day one: you are responsible for any costs or repercussions of property damage, injury, etc. caused by your pets and Dogtopia was not. Which is fine, I signed it with full knowledge that could happen; dogs will be dogs. I had to put this issue on hold for a bit as the winter was not kind to us circumstantially. Now it's time to see if my dogs are ready for daycare again and some grooming, and things have calmed a bit so I could give this my attention yet again.
4/23/25 I sent a final email to them about it, and not shockingly at all, zero reply or acknowledgement. At least, not until I asked a very direct question - which I will get to momentarily. Initially I wanted to ensure that 1) the dogs who were warned would not be in open play with mine, so I wanted to warn them we were coming so they could be especially mindful (as you can imagine, my paranoia is in high amounts all things considered) and 2) if I could inquire about how to contact the two other dog owners to discuss the costs of the injuries further.
I was quickly told no, they don't share pet parent info. I replied and said well, I read your liability rules you made me sign and they say that pet parents are solely responsible for the consequences and costs of their dogs damage or injury. So how do you expect me to accomplish that if you won't give me that info to make contact? It's now been a week, well past the reasonable time to reply to an email, so I can only deduce that yet again I am being ghosted and I'm done trying to remedy this with people insistent on being unprofessional and avoidant. I suppose I will have to take further recourse against the daycare if they won't follow their own policies.
This is deeply saddening that I've spent probably in the thousands of dollars in 10 years just to lose this option for my girls. And to be treated like a casual afterthought when if I were the recipient of that last email, I'd at least sense the importance of a reply nonetheless maybe involving someone of actual authority and tenure there to help manage my request. Make no mistake, it will be settled as I don't intend to shrug it off. I just wish it didn't have to be the hard way, as I've had enough of that all things considered. I don't want to tell other consumers "stay away!" because that's not my place. But this has been my experience.
