Canine Social Assessment For Doggy Daycare & Vacationing Services

Once clients set up their account with us and submit their service request for their social assessment the following occurs:

Step 1 -  Contacting Your Vet 

One of our Pet Care Specialists will contact your veterinarian directly to confirm that your dog is all up to date on their vaccines including bordetella or have current valid titre tests. For puppies, they must have their first set of puppy vaccines plus bordetella vaccine.  We also require your vet to confirm your pup/dog is healthy and do not have any ailments that prevents them from safely being able to play with other dogs in our doggy daycare.

Step 2- History Assessment 

One of our Pet Care Specialists will contact you to set up an over the phone interview to cover your dogs history, play methods and to discuss your dogs current habits and their sociability. This includes if they've attended other puppy daycares, if they have gone to other Pet Boarding and Pet Sitting facilities in the past. 

Step 3- 4 hr Social Assessment 

Your puppy/dog will be required to complete a 4 hour social Assessment, which will entail an Observation Assessment, Exam Assessment, Standing Affiliation Test, Sitting Affiliation Test, Body Handling Test, Tag Test, Toy Test, Dog Social Interaction Test, Play Introduction & Toy Sharing Test conducted by 2 of our Pet Care Specialists. We know this sounds like a lot but it is necessary to perform all of these tests to determine whether or not your dog has Fight or Flight instincts, to learn their preferred play method (there's actually 9 different canine play styles) and to learn their predominant behaviours; Antagonist, Bully Tendencies, Reserved or Overly Shy, Shy and Confident & Friendly, All dogs will most likely demonstrate all of these behaviours at some point in their life time, it's our job to determine if your dog is the right fit for our environment because we strive to only accept dogs that are comfortable and will thrive in our daycare setting. 

Step 4- 4 Week Program

Each dog will receive a custom 4 week program based on the outcome of thier social assessment. This 4 week program is mandatory for all dogs to ensure they become as comfortable as possible at our facility along with building their confidence and independence. It also allows us time to see your pups true personality. 4 hours just isn't enough time to get to truly get to know your dog. 

Safety Measures 

Dogs are bred in all shapes and sizes and have their own personalities along with their preferred play methods, For all of these reasons we have designed our pet resort to accommodate multiple play groups to ensure the safest environment possible. Although we cannot guarantee that your dog won't sustain minor injuries even if playing with the most gentle dogs, all it takes is a game of chase and 2 dogs run into each other, or a puppy to catch their K9 tooth on an ear, etc. But we do our very best to prevent serious injuries from happening by matching up dogs of the same size that prefer the same play method and that have the same energy levels. 

You will notice we have a very strict "NO COLLAR RULE" this is to protect all dogs in our care from being strangled and/or from experiencing mouth injuries. More than 70% of dogs play with their mouths and they tend to grab other dogs by the neck or the scruff where there is extra loose skin to grab, this is 100% natural fun play for dogs, it's NOT meant to cause harm on each other or to show dominance, its just a playful technique that dogs love to do. WE WILL NEVER TRY TO TAKE NATURE OUT OF YOUR DOG!  AGAIN, WE REMOVE COLLARS TO ASSIST IN THIS PLAY METHOD TO BE AS SAFE AS POSSIBLE FOR THEM. 

We do allow and encourage all of our dogs to teach each other how to speak dog,  this involves standing up for themselves and telling other dogs off when being faced with behaviours they do not like, this is the most effective way for dogs to learn what is appropriate and what is not appropriate play.  If the dog that is being "too much" is not taking the hint we will intervene at that time because we do not want the annoyed dog to reach the "I've had enough" level and the dog being "too much" will be put on a "time out". If this behaviour persists and stays focused on a certain dog they will be separated permanently. 

We do not allow bullying at all, so if a dog presents bullying behaviour consistently they will be removed from daycare permanently and will not be allowed back. This is why it's so important to match specific play methods together because a dog may not bully another dog that plays the same as him (eg. chase) but it may bully another dog because that particular dog does not want to chase them. 

So as you can see there are so many characteristics that are considered when creating a safe well balanced play group.

If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact one of our Pet Care Specialists here at our Belleville location.