I hate giving small businesses a bad review--after all, this is their livelihood, and my review could hurt them. However, my job as a Yelper is to tell the truth about my experience, so here goes.
The reason we decided to send our dog to Woofwalks was because of the three positive reviews here on Yelp. Upon further inspection, I'm starting to notice that these reviews might not be from unbiased customers:
The first is Stacey, the owner.
The second is a longtime friend.
The third is a person who has one review and one friend--the review is for Woofwalks, and Stacey is the friend.
So here is an unbiased review, Yelpers.
Our first impression of Stacey was a good one. She seemed really nice, and she seemed to like our dog. But it was all downhill from there.
First off, the cost. We aren't in Woofwalks' serviceable area, so they couldn't come pick up LuLu for a walk. I offered to drop LuLu off at their house and pick her up whenever it was convenient for Stacey. To me, I'm doing part their work for them, but I guess that's not how Stacey saw it, because she told me I'd need to pay the daycare rate ($35--their regular rate is $25) for their services. I asked what I'd be getting for that cost, and she told me that she'd take Lulu on TWO walks instead of just one. That sounded good to us, as LuLu has a ton of energy and we wanted her to have as much exposure to other dogs as possible. We decided to go every other week rather than every week, as $140/month is a lot of money to have your dog walked 4 times. Fast forward a month: we were never confident that LuLu was getting two walks--something seemed shady (like the time Stacey told me I could pick LuLu up at noon, which totally wasn't enough time for two walks), and LuLu didn't seem very tired. Then, when we left their house one day, we noticed that they'd left a bunch of dogs unattended in the back of their truck. It wasn't a hot day, but we thought it was a little odd. They'd just come back from a walk, and Stacey & Shasta were making themselves comfortable inside the house while the dogs waited in the crowded truck.
Our frustration increased when we had to go out of town and arranged to leave our dog with Woofwalks. While I was standing there, Stacey and Shasta had a conversation in front of me about whether or not they would charge us the client rate ($35/day) or the non-client rate ($40/day). I was very unhappy to hear that they would even CONSIDER charging us the non-client rate, especially given the fact that we are paying MORE than their average customer! It was at this point that we decided to terminate our service with Woofwalks--we disliked them more and more, and for the price ($35 for one walk!) it just wasn't worth it to us. But we were going out of town, and didn't know of anyone who could take our dog. Woofwalks agreed to give us the client rate for LuLu. My sister-in-law also needed to have her dog (Chickenpox) boarded, so we arranged to have him boarded with Woofwalks also. I asked Stacey if it would be necessary for them to meet Chickenpox. Stacey told me that I should talk to the people who would actually be boarding the dogs (they contract out to another couple), and gave me his number. I called the boarder and he told me that he didn't need to meet Chickenpox, because he's 14 and barely does anything.
Then, less than a week before we were scheduled to leave, Stacey left me a message telling me that she needed to meet Chickenpox. This irritated me to no end, as I have a life and made sure to have all of this squared away weeks earlier. I got the feeling that they only wanted to meet the dog because they wanted their cut of the profits from the boarder. The only way I was able to get her off my back was to have the boarder call her and tell her that we already had things worked out, and that I was starting to get pissed.
So we boarded the dogs, and all was well...until we got the bill. And of course, those cheapskates charged us the non-client rate for LuLu, without telling us that they would be doing so. Stacey claimed that, because we terminated our service a week before the boarding (we actually asked for a "break" because my fiancee had just quit his job), we were no longer clients. Nice. She quoted us a price for boarding, and in my opinion, she should stick to that quote. If she planned to charge us more at ANY point, she should have told us.
I find it interesting that they would alienate a client for $15. For all they know, we were planning to come back for services when my fiancee got his new job, and they lost our business for that $15. Not to mention the business of other people, because they KNEW I was on Yelp!
Overall, I thought the way we were treated was both appalling and totally unprofessional. In the end, I was wary of Stacey and Shasta, and I didn't trust them. And who wants to leave their dog with someone they don't trust? read more
