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Leaving your dog at home alone all day is typically not the best way to ensure they are mentally stimulated or living their best life.
It can even result in some challenging or destructive behaviors.
But is sending them to a dog daycare really the answer? And how can you tell if your dog is suited to daycare and that your local doggie daycare is a safe environment for your furry family?
Thankfully Robin Bennett, the person who trains dog daycare owners and staff, is on hand to help answer all these questions and more!
Here are her top tips for safely choosing and sending your dog to daycare…
Staff members should have some kind of training on canine body language. Asking about how they are trained and what they’re doing to make sure that they’re able to monitor the dogs to make sure that things don’t get out of hand and that things are well controlled.
Dog Daycare Popularity
Robin Bennett:
20 years ago there were no dog parks really in the United States. People weren't going to daycare. So it was sort of a new concept.
But I had heard about it in California. I heard of some places trying it. So I decided to open a dog daycare. And from there I just started getting inundated with that part of my business. It just started growing really, really fast.
And then other people started asking how to do it. And I started helping people learn how to open a daycare. And long story short, I ended up writing a book about that to help others to open their own daycare and then ended up growing into being a lot more consulting and training for that part of the business.
And then 20 years later, the landscape looks totally different. Now, daycares are so common now, particularly in the United States, and dog parks are everywhere as well. And that just happened really within a short, very, very short period of time.
Dr. Alex Avery:
That speaks to the place that dogs now have in our lives and as part of our families. We say over here that they've moved from the backyard into the house and now they're in the bedroom. They are part of the family. And as a result we've got all of these amazing facilities.
Why Take Your Dog to Doggie Daycare?
So who are dog daycares for?
The classic that we think of is you've got mum and dad, they're out at work all day, their dogs are being left for eight, ten, twelve hours. And a daycare is an appropriate environment for that situation to keep their dog stimulated.
But are there other situations where daycares are ideal for providing an experience or an addition to a dog's life?
Robin Bennett:
Dogs Home Alone All Day
Primarily we see clients of people that are double-income families so that people are out of the house and the dog just needs something to do during the day.
Enrichment Focus
But we're also starting to see it with more and more seniors who just want to have another opportunity to have their dog do something other than just go on walks or whatever. So it's really more of an enrichment focus.
Is Daycare Right For My Dog?
I will also say daycare isn't great for every dog. It's making sure you have a dog that's going to enjoy it because it's really not right for every single dog.
Dr. Alex Avery:
So how can you tell if it is right for a dog? And conversely, if it isn't right for an individual dog?
What situations would maybe be red flags that we need to think of an alternative?
Dog-Friendly Dogs
Robin Bennett:
I think the biggest thing is just making sure, it sounds kind of cliche I guess, but making sure your dog really does like the company of other dogs. And not every dog does.
Puppies, for the most part, tend to want to gravitate toward other dogs. So generally speaking, younger dogs who have high energy, who really like being around other dogs are a really good fit for dog daycare.
But some dogs would really just rather be with people. And so if you get a dog in daycare or you take them to a dog park and they're really avoiding playing, or they're really trying to get more attention from the people rather than the other dogs, then that's the dog I would say probably would have more fun in a different environment.
Senior Dogs
And then senior dogs tend to not do as well. Especially with really rowdy groups.
Unless it's a daycare that offers a special group for older dogs, you don't really want to have like eight, nine, ten-year-old dogs in with those adolescents because they'll just be miserable.
Dr. Alex Avery:
That rough and tumble that goes on and you think it's the old arthritic older dog just really struggling in that environment.
Well Socialized Dogs
And I guess that then speaks to if people are thinking of their family situation when they're bringing a dog into their life. If it's a senior dog and they're rehoming a dog from somewhere else, then thinking about the socialization that dogs had and their temperament and how well they interact with dogs.
And for our puppies, that socialization period is so important and we can actually prepare our dogs for success if we think that they're going to have to go in a dog day care situation early on in life.
Choosing a Dog Daycare: the assessment
Dr. Alex Avery:
So with that in mind, how can we then go about assessing a daycare facility?
We've said that it's not for every dog, but there are differences in daycare. So what may be wrong for one individual may be right for another.
Robin Bennett:
Activity Matching
A lot of that is looking at what kind of activities they offer.
When I had my daycare I was all indoors, so dogs that were really high energy like border collies, they just didn't do well in my facility. They needed more room and they needed more places to run. So I actually referred some dogs to a daycare that was down the street from me that offered that.
So just looking at what things your dog likes and what activities they offer and is that going to be a match?
Staff Training
I would also look at the training of the staff because you do want the dogs to be supervised. I recommend the dogs are 100% supervised anytime they're playing together, not just with cameras or windows, but somebody physically in the room.
And those staff members should have some kind of training on canine body language. Asking about how they are trained and what they're doing to make sure that they're able to monitor the dogs and make sure that things don't get out of hand and that things are well controlled.
Structured, Scheduled Play
And then just being able to identify whether a dog needs a break or needs time out or just needs some downtime. So they're not just playing and not having one big recess all day long.
I really tend to like daycares that offer more activities and more of a schedule in their day so that the dogs get a little bit of structure as well as all that playtime. There's some there's some times when they actually get some rest or sometimes when they're working with people, not necessarily just playing.
So it really is a lot of the same kind of things you would look for if you're taking your child to preschool or a daycare, as ironic as that might sound.
Dog Daycare Certification
Dr. Alex Avery:
And are there any kind of associations that they should be members of, or certifications that people can check for?
Robin Bennett:
There's a certification called the Professional Animal Care Certification Council, and that's actually a certification body that certifies individuals who are in the pet care industry specifically doing daycare and boarding.
Looking for someone that has that certification or have staff members that have that certification is a really good way of knowing that you're working with somebody that's probably a little bit higher quality of providing higher quality care because they have shown that they've got the education to get that certification behind their name.
Dr. Alex Avery:
That's great, because it's easy for people to say, Well, I love dogs and I've got this facility and I'm going to open a doggie day care, but actually a love of dogs and having a few in your life doesn't then make you an expert at some of the challenges that I imagine some of the dog daycare situations get thrown at them, like dogs that don't like each other.
Dog Body Language Assessment
And assessing that body language is so, so crucial. To you or I who are used to reading a dog's body language every day, it becomes second nature. But it's a big process to learn.
Robin Bennett:
Exactly. And it's not even necessarily dogs that are bad or aggressive. It's just sometimes making sure you're matching the right play styles with other right play styles.
One of the biggest challenges I see in dog parks, when situations happen and a fight breaks out or a dog gets injured, as you know, everyone's quick to say, well, aggressive dogs shouldn't come to dog parks, which obviously they shouldn't. But a lot of times it's not an aggressive dog.
It's just a dog that is just put in a group with the wrong playmates and their play styles don't match. And it causes one dog to go, Hey, leave me alone. And that leads to a scuffle or a little fight or growling or whatever.
And all that can be avoided if you just can identify, Well, this dog should play with this dog over here because they just like people they have different personalities and different ways of playing. So I think all that's really important to understand.
Dr. Alex Avery:
That clash of personalities is inevitable, isn't it, between people and between dogs. And it's through no fault of anyone's.
Visiting a Dog Daycare
With that in mind, the next thing that I tend to think about when I'm thinking about clients asking me about boarding facilities if they're on holiday. And I imagine it's the same for dog daycares, actually going and visiting and having a tour and maybe leaving your dog for a short period of time.
How would you recommend people start implementing that side of things and actually getting their dog into the facility?
Touring a Facility
Robin Bennett:
Yeah, I would absolutely take a tour and most facilities will offer specific times or sometimes you can drop by, but a lot of times it's best to schedule that. You're going to be able to see the dogs playing and hopefully watch. And you want to look at a bunch of dogs that seem to be happy and are having a good time.
Character Evaluation
The second thing is making sure that you do an evaluation. I would be skeptical of a daycare that just says, Oh, come on in, we'll bring any dog into our facility.
Most daycares will schedule an evaluation where they can bring your dog in and essentially decide what kind of playstyle your dog has, whether or not the facility thinks it would be suitable for their facility itself and the other dogs that they have, and kind of see what things the dog likes or doesn't like.
And then from that, that facility should make a recommendation of, yes, this would be a great fit. Or maybe instead of daycare, maybe you should do some private stuff with a trainer and one on one tricks or enrichment.
But they're giving you hopefully their best assessment of what would be good for your dog.
Starting Visits
And then from there, once you have that evaluation, usually they'll schedule time for you to come in for a longer period for that dog.
But I do like the shorter, like starting out slow. Don't just throw them into like five days of daycare the very first time you show up, because I think that's hard for the dogs.
Separation Anxiety and Noise Phobias
Dr. Alex Avery:
And is there any form of separation anxiety, which is maybe the wrong phrase, but anxiety from being taken away from that home environment. Is that a thing just because it's a brand new situation if a dog has got a strong attachment with the owner?
Or is there anything that people can be doing ahead of time to get their dogs used to that?
Robin Bennett:
The Distraction of Play
There are some things you can do to help dogs get used to being away from the owner. But ironically, in daycare, if it's a dog that really enjoys playing with other dogs, that's usually not a problem at all.
Even if it's a dog who at home has some separation anxiety when the parent leaves to go to work or whatever, a lot of times we find that completely is not an issue. When they leave the dog in a daycare environment where they have other staff members that are interacting with them, plus the dogs.
That's actually one of the reasons that some people take their dog to daycare so they don't have a destroyed house or couch ripped up because the dog's anxious.
But in general, just getting your dog used to being on its own four paws, so to speak, not having them always with you, encouraging them to chew toys at a distance or in another room or any of those kinds of things that just help to teach a dog that they don't always have to be right next to you or touching you.
But it is interesting because we find that's generally not that big of an issue when dogs are going to daycare.
Dr. Alex Avery:
Which is awesome because that's one of the big anxieties that people have, especially if you've got a nervous dog who sticks to you like glue. That actually it's probably our preconceptions that need to be addressed and our anxieties rather than our dog's particularly.
Robin Bennett:
We see the same situation where dogs who have things like thunderstorm phobias or noise phobias, and then they come to daycare and you can have a thunderstorm go and the dog doesn't even pay attention to it.
It's very interesting that sometimes all those things are situational, too. Just the daycare environment versus the home environment being different.
Enriching the Daycare Experience
Dr. Alex Avery:
And is there anything that pet parents can do as well to help enrich and improve their dog's day care experience?
“Accessories”
I'm thinking of taking accessories or favorite toys, or any other work that they can be doing rather than just throwing them over the fence into the doggie day care, if you like, and leaving them to it.
Robin Bennett:
Honestly, most of the time for daycare, they don't really need to bring anything.
And for the most part, the toys that the daycare have are usually better quality toys that will hold up to being chewed on non-stop by a lot of dogs.
A lot of times the toys that pet parents might bring just won't last very long in a daycare. They'll get chewed up. So we really don't encourage that.
If there's a feeding schedule you could prepare for that. Or obviously any kind of medication the dog needs, you would want to bring that.
I would look at any kind of bedding, more for just if the dog is going to stay long term. If they're going to lodge overnight, you might want to bring something from the house that they can put in their enclosure when they're sleeping.
But not so much during the daycare, where they won't really need anything.
Dr. Alex Avery:
And is there anything else that that pet parents can be doing to succeed? Any other top tips?
Robin Bennett:
I think the basic thing is just finding out whether or not your dog really wants to play with other dogs.
Daycare Alternatives
I feel like a lot of times, in today's day and age, pet parents who find out that their dog is not good in daycare, maybe they take their dog and the staff says they really doesn't like it here, I feel like those pet parents feel like they've done something wrong and feel bad about their dog.
And I'm just here to say that is not the case.
I actually think more dogs, especially once they get past adolescence, more dogs prefer the company of people than other dogs. So if you have a dog that doesn't want to be in daycare or the daycare says they're just not happy there, we think he should do one on one play or some kind of one-on-one enrichment, don't feel bad.
It really is more about the personality of the dog.
Socialization Trial
So I think the biggest thing to succeed is just getting your dog out when they're young to see if they enjoy playing with other dogs. And if they do, that's great, then daycare might be a great option.
But if you go to a dog park and you just find it's not your dog's thing, then a lot of those pet boarding daycare facilities offer some one-on-one activities you could do as well and still get the dog out for a way to get enrichment and activity and just another outlet for your dog without it having to be play one on one with other dogs.
Dog Breed Factors
Dr. Alex Avery:
And are you finding there's any difference in breeds? Any breeds that are more likely to struggle? I'm just thinking with the rise of the labradoodle and the doodle crosses, they seem to be overrepresented with anxiety and some challenging behaviors.
Is that what you found in the daycare situation as well?
Robin Bennett:
It's always hard to make breed generalizations because invariably someone will say, No, my breed doesn't do that. But generally speaking, breeds who are by their breed definition more social and more outgoing tend to do well in day care.
So Labrador Retrievers, the Labradoodle actually do pretty well in daycares. They tend to be very high energy, which is nice because they get an outlet for that.
A lot of the breeds that work closely with people anyway, Golden Retriever, those breeds that you think of as the ones that do a lot of working positions with people. They do really well.
And then breeds that are a little more aloof, and that might even be in their breed definition like a Chow, they don't tend to do anything bad, they just don't tend to want to play. They just sort of walk around doing their own thing and they don't really make the best fit for a daycare because they don't really feel like playing. Akitas are similar in that sense.
I did have a chow though, that came to my daycare that was just like a lab, they just ran around and loved other dogs. So again, it's hard to say.
Individual Consideration
And most daycares won't rule a dog out based on breed.
They generally will want to see the dog and do an evaluation. And then you get dogs like the bully breeds. And some of them do really, really well in daycare, although a lot of people think, Oh no, they're not going to do well at all. But they play really well.
They just have to play with the right playmates.
Those bully breeds, like a PitBull or American Staffordshire Terrier, aren't going to play really well with some of the toy breeds because they'll just knock them around. But if you put them with a Lab where they both like some of that body slamming, they'll have a great time.
Dr. Alex Avery:
And this then speaks to making sure of the experience of the staff and the training that's being given, and being comfortable that that's all in place. Which is equally important for the little toy breed because you don't want them stuck with the bully breed and end up getting broken ultimately, in the worst case scenario.
Robin Bennett:
Dog Size Separation
Most daycares will separate by size as well as by temperament. But most will separate by size just because big and small dogs can just have injuries just because of the size. Not even because it's an aggressive situation, but just one big dog stepping on a little dog or whatever.
So most daycares will separate the large and the small dogs anyway.
Challenging Behavior Problems
Dr. Alex Avery:
Slightly switching and going back to your first expertise of dog training, we've had a lot of challenges over the last couple of years with that socialization and problem like that, are you seeing a lot more of a certain type of issue that people are struggling with at the moment with their newer, younger dogs?
Robin Bennett: I think right now the biggest thing that we're seeing, and this has really been since COVID, is more separation anxiety.
I think a lot of that is because people adopted a lot of dogs during the lockdown period. And then naturally because we were locked down, they couldn't take their dog out to do any kind of socialization. So the dog got really used to being at home.
But the big world out there now is a little bit scary to them.
So we are seeing a lot of dogs with some of those issues in the past two years and just working with people to help kind of re-socialize their dog to the world now that things are opening back up.
Dr. Alex Avery:
That's certainly what I've seen in the clinic as well. We were lucky here in New Zealand we had very short periods of lockdown, but even then we still saw an increase in these cases of separation anxieties and a bit of just general anxiety and even aggression towards strangers and things like that because they were just freaking out.
Positive Desensitization
Any top tips for people to be getting on top of that? Because it's never too late to start working on these behavioral problems.
Robin Bennett:
My biggest tip for people who are working with that kind of fear about anything is trying to make whatever the dog is afraid of into something the dog can be positive and look forward to.
Which is a way of saying we try to make positive associations with anything the dog is afraid of.
I use positive reinforcement training with all of the training that I do. So if I had a dog, let's say, that was afraid of people, when I walk down the street and people walk past me, I would turn that into a situation where every time somebody's going to walk past me, my dog gets a really good, positive association with that. Which for me means taking something really, really valuable to the dog, like chicken or cheese or steak, something he doesn't get at home.
And I would be feeding the dog that in the presence of whatever that thing is he's afraid of. And if you do that enough, what starts to happen is the dog starts to anticipate, Oh, here's like the scary man coming down the street. I'm just going to look to my owner and start getting treats. And then when the scary man goes away, all the treats go away.
So it becomes just a positive.
You're changing the emotional state of the dog from freaking out and being scared to saying, Oh, I can just hang out here and get some food. And it takes a lot of practice and you have to get out to actually work on all of that.
But that's one of the best ways really to help dogs overcome whatever things they're nervous of.
Dr. Alex Avery:
And it really works for everybody.
Listening to this, I'm just thinking of a dog that that we have as a patient who was very good but had a few negative experiences just because they were catching nails and ripping them out and they were not very comfortable when they were coming to see us and became quite anxious, coming into the clinic.
But the owner put in a lot of work, having some socialization visits, getting lots of treats, the staff making a big fuss and the dog now loves coming to see us again.
So that little bit of concerted effort can make a big difference.
And for those people who are struggling with that separation anxiety, we've already said, if daycare needs to be in their life, then actually that may be a real positive rather than an additional scary situation for them to go through.
Robin Bennett:
Exactly. My dog is five now, but when he was a puppy I used to take him to the vet's office and just go in the lobby and just play games with him and throw treats for him. And consequently, he loved going to the vet.
So it really does work. It's just a matter of what the dog associates. And obviously, if the only time you go to the vet is for your dog to get checked up or nails trimmed or surgery or whatever, then after a while they just like we would figure that out, Oh, we're at this place again.
But if you stop by there occasionally and just let them go, say hi to people and give them some treats and leave, which is what I used to do when he was young, then they start to say, Hey, this place is good. So it really is just a matter of making the right associations for the pet.
Dr. Alex Avery:
Now, all of my patients know that the right hand scrub pocket is where my treats live. And then they look there or they're looking up at the jar because they know that's where my hand goes when my pockets are empty!
Next Steps
Dr. Alex Avery:
Robin, this has been a fantastic conversation with some top practical tips that people can take, whether they're new to the daycare experience or whether maybe their existing day care participants and maybe questioning whether their dog is getting the best experience that they can be and the safest experience.
I'd love for you to let people know more about the work that you do, whether that's doggie day care or also the training you do because you've got a wealth of information out there online for people who aren't in your local area as well.
Robin Bennett:
So you can find out more and we have lots of free content on our blog at roughlyspeakingdog.com. We talk about a wide range of things, everything from training to just fun, crazy things that are just fun to learn about. So you can check us out there.
And then we also have an online membership at that same link roughlyspeakingdog.com. And our monthly membership is just a way to provide you content every month. That is ways to help you basically build a better, bigger, stronger and better bond with your dog.
And so there's information on training, there's also information on enrichment activities you can do with your dog, canine body language, information you can use with your dog to help learn how to really understand your dog.
And every month there's a little bit of a different focus. So everything from safety to training, but all of it's with the mindset of helping you build a better strong bond with your pet so you can check us out.
Dr. Alex Avery:
That's what I love about the internet, if you like, it's that people can tap into the wealth of experts like yourself no matter where they live and no matter what hours you work and all that kind of thing, there's all of these options still open to you.
And knowing the small changes, and sometimes they are just small changes aren't they, that you can make or the small activities can make such a huge difference to the bond with your dog or to the health of your dog.
Robin Bennett:
And I think there's a lot of really little things that if a pet parent knew just this one little thing.
And my biggest pet peeve, so to speak, is really canine body language because if you can just see the world through the lens of your dog, you can make such better decisions and be a really good advocate for your dog just by saying, Oh, he's nervous right here, and then you can change a few things and release that anxiety or make him a little bit more comfortable.
So I'm just a huge advocate for teaching pet parents about that, and that's one of the biggest focuses on our blog as well as on our membership.
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