WHAT TO EXPECT
WELCOME!
We provide premier pet dog boarding & daycare in Arizona! We are located less than a mile away from the Chaparral Dog Park in Scottsdale and ~12 minutes from the airport, we provide a loving home for your pup for the day or while you are away! We blend the personal care of a home environment with some of the structure/safety aspects of traditional boarding facility. To suit guests of all comfort/energy levels there are five separate areas for your pup to play, lounge, and explore. Additional details on each area can be found below, which range from having playtime in real grass, access to air conditioning, doggy door access, covered outdoor areas, indoor only access, pool access, and all have plenty of room to play. Please note that only 1 area has pool access and when temperatures are above 95, guests will always have access to air conditioning.
Pricing differs based on small and average sized guests. If you have an average/large guest the rate will be slightly higher. Please see Pricing and Rates section below for full details.
We started as an exclusive Rover dog sitting host and now host guests directly.
BACKGROUND
We started hosting guest dogs in January 2014 and have had really amazing experiences! Our house host dog is Mr. Lucy (We lost Mr. Hobo the Goldendoodle in 2023 after a long battle with cancer ☹). Lucy is gracious hosts that are stupidly friendly, submissive, and full of energy. He absolutely love to welcome other pups and play with our guests!
We have hosted well over 2,000 unique guests ranging from small to large, puppies to geriatric dogs. Roughly 95% of guests on an average day have stayed previously and we strive for repeat guests. Mr. Lucy plays well with all of them and is definitely friendly to a fault. Lucy still has some puppy energy, so he can get a little excited meeting new people, but will match other pup’s energy level overall.
In late 2019, we expanded by adding three additional play areas and an additional 350 sqft of indoor climate controlled space. This allows pups more room to interact with other guests best suited for their activity/temperament levels, along with the comfort of just having more space! Additionally, we offer a dedicated indoor play area for small guests where having access outside via a doggy door may be concerning to the owners based on their small size.
PRIOR TO BOOKING A STAY
A Meet and Greet is required prior to a guest’s first stay. We host Meet and Greets here on most Tuesday evenings between 4:45-9pm so you can see where your dog will spend time, they can sniff all the new smells, and both of you can meet Mr. Lucy. If you would prefer another day/time, we can setup a time to chat via phone. Realizing some trips are last minute, at minimum a meet and greet via phone is required. Please note that guests must live in Arizona more than 3 months out of the year to be eligible to stay. Our goal is to maintain long term relationships and nurture the trust that comes from repeat stays.
OUR APPROACH
Our goal is to let guests run around and play until their hearts are content based on their preference while ensuring a safe stay. Depending on the time of year/weather, guests spend as much time interacting in the separated indoor/outdoor play areas as possible. Generally speaking, we strive for worn out pups so everyone sleeps well at night!
To ensure a safe stay, active and passive guests are separated in different areas, where they have the ability to interact with other guests matching their pace in life. This typically means large and small pups, but we often have older guests that prefer the calm space of the passive area and small puppies that just want to play for hours. Passive guests have plenty of time/space to move around in the outdoor areas, but tend to spend more time inside during the day depending on the time of year.
Realizing that our very smallest of friends (usually under 10lbs) are sometimes just too delicate for even the passive area, we do have a dedicated ‘tiny’ area just for these little guests where they still have room to move around but do not interact with pups outside of their size regardless of temperament.
THE PLAY AREAS & SETUP
All yard areas are surrounded by at minimum a 6 foot center block wall with all external access points constructed of heavy metal locked gates and monitored by sensors/cameras. Starting in late 2019 with our newest additions, we are excited to offer a total of 5 separate indoor/outdoor free roam play areas and almost 1,000 sqft of indoor climate controlled space in addition to regular living space! These areas are separate from the sleeping areas where guests rest at night (more on that below). This allows us to better match guests based on their activity/temperament levels and the comfort of having more space to interact! Additionally, we offer a dedicated indoor only play area just for ‘tiny’ guests (see Area 5).
A description of the play areas is provided below. Please note that with the exception of the ‘Tiny’ Area 5, the areas designated as active/passive is determined based on the guests that particular day. All area offers multiple auto-refilling water sources, raised dog beds, and toys (see ‘Safety’).
Area 1: The main yard offers a large covered patio, real grass, and swimming pool access. The pool has large steps and your dog is welcome to swim should you allow access. This is the ONLY area with pool access.
Area 2*: The ‘west’ side yard offers a long more narrow outdoor space with a covered lounging area and indoor access to a climate controlled run via a doggy door. Guests have the ability to come in and out as they choose. Four industrial indoor fans and three outdoor fans give plenty of airflow for comfort in additional to the air conditioning. Depending on the time of year, this area has full shade after 1-2pm.
Area 3*: This ‘east’ side yard offers a slightly larger outdoor space than Area 2, while still providing a covered shade area. The majority of the area is in shade until late morning and then again after 4pm. This also has access to an additional indoor climate controlled play space via a doggy door. Five industrial indoor and five outdoor fans are strategically located for optimal airflow and comfort. This indoor space provides upwards of 350 sqft. of indoor play area that can be further separated to allow for individual play spaces if needed.
Area 4: Opening Soon - This large yard area offers ample space for running full speed, in circles, or for games of fetch, along with a large covered patio for shade.
Area 5*: Dedicated to ‘tiny’ guests, usually under 10lbs. Located in a separated section of Area 3’s indoor space this area allows the smallest of guests ample space to move around and interact with like sized pups without the stress of a doggy door. Per the intent, this area does not have full time outdoor access so guests will still receive outdoor restroom breaks.
*All indoor areas mentioned are fully climate controlled and Areas 2/3 allow guests to come inside via a doggy door to cool down after running around outside as they choose, especially ideal for the summer months here!
SAFETY
Hands down the highest priority and everything else mentioned takes a backseat to ensuring all guests have a safe stay. A short summation of our safety approach is as follows: All pups must be friendly and play well with others guests of comparable size/temperament. Guests will have access to unlimited water in any play area. With the exception of short periods and bathroom breaks, guests will either have access to the indoor play spaces via doggy doors when temperatures reach above 95 degrees outside (90 degrees for guests with short-snouts) or be in the living space. Areas are disinfected at minimum twice per week. Mr. Lucy hangs out in these areas with other guests so safety is of the utmost importance; the joke is that he is ‘working’.
Realizing that the level of neurotic detail and desire for redundancy in safety systems is a bit tiresome for most people, anyone not interested in further details may skip to the next section. For those that are interested in knowing more details than you ever thought went into simply ‘watching’ dogs, the details are provided below on some of the key safety systems.
Our network runs on high speed enterprise level hardware fully secured to support an internal network with over 40 cameras monitoring all play areas, sleeping areas, and entrances, coupled with door, motion, and sound sensors. Needless to say we use technology to help ensure an amazing stay as cloning/being in multiple rooms at one time is not yet possible. Key external access points are always locked/closed, most doors auto lock/close themselves, and all open into the spaces so as to increase the probability of self-closing should it somehow open. Vision perimeter monitoring is used to provide notifications that something may be amiss, such as if someone were to approach one of the gates from the street.
The Arizona heat is a large concern, so in addition to running four separate air conditioning units, there are upwards of 35 remote temperature sensor/weather stations that monitor any space guests may spend time both inside and outside Each space has redundant sensors on multiple power sources to ensure connectivity. These automatically measure and send readings every 15 minutes over the internet (temp, humidity, and CO2) and automatically regulate conditions, along with provide notifications/escalations based on certain thresholds. Each play area has multiple auto refilling commercial dog waterers wall mounted (11 total), so there is never a play area without direct access to the main water line. For purposes of avoiding accidents at night, unless medically required water is not provided in sleep quarters. The indoor/outdoor fans previously mentioned have capacity to move between 10,000-30,000 cubic feet of air per minute in each area.
The living/sleeping spaces run two separate 4-5 ton traditional AC/heat units (both new in 2018) and all thermostats have internet connectivity. For Areas 2 & 3/5, the temperature is set at roughly 80 degrees in the summer and roughly 65 degrees in the winter. These areas run on two separate AC mini-split units (1 new as of August 2019 and the other as of July 2015) rated at 24,000 BTU (2 ton) or up to 1,200 sqft each (each area is only cooling ~ 500 sqft). All units are on completely separate power breakers and the temperature sensors are spread across four different electrical panels. The indoor areas/runs are divided with at minimum a custom heavy duty 5.5 foot steel divider that is bolted to the ceiling, floor, and walls. Pictures are worth a thousand words as they say, so please checkout our photos on the website and come see it for yourself during a Meet & Greet!
The living/indoor play areas are equipped with 16 Nest/Google smoke/CO2 detectors that self-network, which ensures that if an issue were to occur in one area all alarms will be triggered and emergency contacts would be called automatically. Each area/major room has redundant ‘regular’ smoke/CO2 alarms as well. Lastly, ‘listeners’ are present in the areas that notify if certain sounds are heard such as a smoke alarm or breaking glass.
OTHER GUEST DOGS & OTHER SAFETY INFORMATION
Our objective is to maintain the feeling, love, and personal connection of a home environment while marrying the safety benefits seen in a more traditional kennel setup. You don’t have to worry about your pup escaping or getting into the garbage here! If you could not tell, we love dogs and have built a system to allow for the hosting of a multiple variety of guests and that system would not be financially viable hosting only a single guest at a time. Therefore, we almost always have multiple guests staying. Due to the constant fluctuations in owner’s schedules, having a specific set ‘maximum’ number of guests is not realistic and is constantly changing as the number of guests depends on the specific time of the day (some guests may arrive in the morning while others will be going home that evening). Additionally, family emergencies arise and flights delays are common, so we obviously will not kick a pup out and they may need to stay a little longer. To provide context, although most guests are here because their human is on business/holiday travel, we frequently host guests where the owners are getting married, grieving a loss of a loved one, undergoing medical treatments/procedures, welcoming new members of their family into the world, or for daycare. Empathy and flexibility are critical in these situations and we strive to make the question of ‘what am I going to do with my dog?’ at the bottom of the list of concerns.
Historically holidays, the summer months, and weekends tend to be the busiest times (usually correlated with school being out). As previously mentioned, we do separate guests based on temperament and not all pups are created equal (smaller sized guests take less space, less food, less poop, etc). Guests that are invited to stay are friendly and well cared for at home. We individually handle all introductions between dogs and watch to make sure everyone gets along. Wagging tails are always a good sign! Based on experience, this approach seems to be most effective. Pups that are not friendly to Mr. Lucy during Meet and Greets or have a history of violent behavior are not allowed to stay.
Pups must be up to date on all vaccinations for their age and current vaccination records must be provided prior or at the time of drop off. The required vaccinations are: rabies, distemper, parvo, (all standard vaccinations required by vets ), and Bordetella (technically optional from a vet perspective but required by any boarding facility). The simplest way to confirm you have the needed vaccinations, is that we require all vaccinations a standard vet/boarding facility requires in the area, so if your vet would not board your pup with the current vaccinations then we would not be able to board either. Please note the leptospirosis (lepto) vaccination is not required.
DAILY ROUTINE
-Guests go to bed directly before human bedtime here (usually around 11-12) and are out running around again directly after breakfast, typically between 7:30-8:30am.
-Guests eat separate to avoid conflicts and so they do not eat each other’s food. Feeding is done in the morning and evening.
-The goal is for guests to spend as much of the day as possible free roaming in the play areas mentioned previously. If guests seem like they need a break from the fun, then they will be able to spend some time in their sleeping area during the day.
-Guests sleep in one of two possible rooms inside the home living area. Guest do sleep in kennels while they are here and kennels of all sizes are provided (24”, 30”, 36”, 42”, and 48”). We realize that a lot of pups are not accustomed to sleeping in crates in their normal routine. We have hosted many guests where this is the case and all guests seem to quickly settle in to the new environment/routine. It seems that being away from home they learn to view that as their space and it also helps that we are usually pretty tired after a long day. If there is a concern about sleeping in a crate, an alternative would be to stay in either Area 2 or 3 mentioned previously (assuming they do not bark and can sleep through the night). Accommodations beyond these options is not something that can be realistically accommodated as any damages are the host’s responsibility.
THINGS TO BRING
REQUIRED: Food, current vaccination records, and if applicable, a list of medications/instructions* or an appropriate medical history. We will always use our own food bowls and crates.
*If your pup requires medication, we do ask that you provide written instructions on the medication purpose, dose, and frequency with the physical medication. We have the ability to administer both oral and injectable medication at no additional charge. Generally, we give medication during meal times, which can fluctuate a bit depending on the specific day. If your pup requires medication at a specific time or interval, please discuss this prior to booking to ensure the schedule is something we can accommodate.
OPTIONAL: You are welcome to bring treats to be given with meals. Please note that we greatly prefer that no personal items (blankets or beds) are in crates at night for safety reasons, unless medically required or if you have a very strong preference, assuming there is no history of your pup chewing on objects. We use metal folding crates, so they do have a more flexible plastic base (not a metal base). All toys and chew proof beds are provided in common areas to ensure everyone’s safety.
WHAT TO EXPECT DURING YOUR DOG’S STAY
-They will be happy, healthy, and pretty worn out! They may not even want to go home!
-Photo updates are sent every other day starting the day after the stay begins via text message.
-We handle reservations on a first come first serve basis. Reservations will always be confirmed with you once booking is complete.
RESERVATIONS, AVAILABLE HOURS, DROP-OFF / PICK-UP SCHEDULING, & HOLIDAYS
Once a reservation is confirmed, we will always ask that you let us know in advance the times you would prefer for drop-off and pickup. We are usually pretty flexible during the day if we know in advance and just ask that you provide a 30-minute window for the time you would prefer. Further in advance, generally the more flexibility available. We offer drop-off/pick-ups Monday-Friday from 7am – 8pm and Saturday/Sunday from 10am-6pm. We are available for over 80 hours each week so unless it is an emergency DO/PU will need to be during these hours please. We realize flights often get delayed, so you can send your flight info and we will track the status of your flight. Depending if your flight is domestic/international, baggage, and parking, it generally takes 45-75 minutes from the time a flight touches down to the front door here. No worries if your schedule changes or your flight is delayed, you can always add an extra day if needed. We would always let you know when booking if we have any major conflicts within a day of your DO/PU date where a stay extension would not be possible.
You are always welcome to reach out regarding availability. For regular guests, we will always do our best to accommodate requests whenever possible.
We do strive for balance so as of now we do not do drop-off/pickups on the following holidays: Presidents’ Day, Easter, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve/Day, and New Year’s Eve/Day. We ask that drop-off or pick-up occur either the day before or after these holidays. The intent is not to be difficult, but spending time with family is important for us as well. Hopefully you understand.
Due to the very high demand during the holidays, a 7 night minimum stay is required to book over the following days: Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Eve/Day.
RATE DETAILS & DISCOUNTS
A night is counted as an actual night stayed (as opposed to 24 hour period), so for instance you could drop off in the morning and pick-up the next evening and that still is counted as only 1 night. Think hotel with a very lenient check-in/out policy.
We will use the weight you provide or one agreed to during the meet and greet when determining the rate to use at booking. If actual weight at drop off varies significantly we will adjust the rate for the stay retroactively. A 5lbs leeway is granted between the small/average weight and a 10lbs grace is given for the 100lbs surcharge. We use an industrial veterinary scale to ensure accuracy and weight will be based on that reading at drop-off.
From time to time pricing/rates do change. Pricing may change from stay to stay and is not locked permanently; as costs increase rates may adjust as well. Rates are locked for a particular stay at completion of payment for the reservation, so pricing may change unless your reservation is confirmed. If nights are added to the same reservation, the same rate as the initial reservation will be honored. Rates are reviewed semi-annually and although they do not change frequently, they may change without notice.
A $2 per night additional guest discount is available. For example, if the base rate for the first guest is $47 then the second guest would be $43 ($90 a night total for 2 guests).
A long term stay discount of an additional $4 a night per guest is available for stays over 30 guest nights. For instance, if you have two pups then the discount rate would apply for stays longer than 15 nights (30 total guest nights).
We look forward to meeting you & your pup(s) at your Meet and Greet!