PetsMart DayCare for dogs ?????
 

I am still mad... I went to visit my Mom today... so off we went shopping. I wanted to stop in PetsMart to look for those Valentine's Day Plush Lips dog toys....

Mom insisted on showing me something so down the isle we went... to a glassed in room full of dogs! There was an employee in there with them, and also a Fisher-Price outdoor kid's thing... basically a plastic square with doorways to get under it and stairs and a sliding board off the top. We stood there and watched the dogs play for about 30 minutes.

We were picking out breeds and there were 3 Chihuahuas in there... one that kept following the employee around. At one point, the guy stooped down and all the pups ran over to him for some attention. He got up, and they all went back to playing and running around, all except this one Chi, who stayed at this guy's feet. So, Mom and I walked away to shop.

I walked up and down a few isles adjacent to the Daycare room, and at the end each time I would peek in at them. After about my 4th trip, I saw the attendant had a spray bottle in his hand, and sprayed the little Chi right in the face with it! The little one darted off about 6 feet or so and then stopped. He/she had such a confused look on it's face... it broke my heart.... then the Chi turned around and went back to the employee, only to get squirted again. Again he/she darted away for a second and went back to the guy. It was making me too sad to watch anymore so I walked away, trying to get that little Chi's trusting little face out of my head. Back to searching for Smoochie Lips!

Two isles later I see a woman at the end of the isle peeking at the dogs. So I'm still looking at stuff, and at the end, this woman is still there, so I look over her shoulder.... and there's a bigger dog on top of the cube thing, and, to my horror, the little Chi walks around in front of this dog, looking for the employee. At one point, the Chi almost fell down the slide, but recovered, only to walk across the hard plastic cube top (again trying to get to the attendant) and almost fell off that side!

At this point , my Mom finds me and asks what's wrong, as she can tell I'm upset. As I'm explaining the situation, an employee walks by and I jumped out in front of her, and I point to the room and said, see that little Chi on top of the cube, that guy in there put the dog up there bc it was following him around... and I'll tell you this... if it falls or tries to jump down from there, it will break a leg or it's neck. She moved quickly to handle the situation, as I'm sure I appeared to be a crazed individual on the edge. Then, I turned to my Mom and said let's go, bc I can't be here around this any longer. If they don't do something, I know what will happen... so we left.

Now I can't stop thinking about that little dog, and others, too, that get left in potentially unsafe situations by their owners who think their dogs will be conscientiously cared for by strangers.

Wow. That is horrible. It makes me sad too.

It seems that poor little Chi wanted some attention from him. He should have pet him/her, or talked, or played...something! But not squirt water in its face! :mad: I have seen the daycare at PetsMart also behind the glass.

I would be nervous leaving my baby at any PetsMart, or Petco for anything.

That's horrible - and obviously that employee didn't care about other people seeing what he was doing because it's in a glass room. You did the right thing by reporting it. We go to our local PetSmart all the time but we've never seen the employees mistreating the dogs in daycare. They have that same toddler jungle gym though - you're right, not good for the little ones to be on top.

I've never considered putting Rio and Bullet in doggie daycare because they're both so tine (3 lbs each). Both my DH and I work fulltime but we're fortunate that my sister watches them during the workday. My DH drops them off before work and picks them up after work so we are lucky to have private day care for free!

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I would call and insist on talking to not just the store manager, but also ask for the district manager's phone. I mean, why is that guy squirting/punishing a dog for doing nothing that is negative? What kind of message is he trying to send? He obvs doesn't understand how dogs communicate :(.

Can you imagine what this guy would do to them behind a brick wall? Write an email to the "mother ship" (Corporate) and demand a quick response. If not you will go to the local media.

That is so sad, I would definitely contact the store manager or higher up. I am so glad you posted this, because the thought has crossed my mind to use them on occasion when im going to be away from home for several hours. Now I know they are not all the same, but I can see a lot of young uncaring teens and college kids just trying to make a buck working there as an "easy" job and mistreating the animals :(

Note: If anyone reads this that does work there, obviously I am not talking about you if your on this site you care a lot about animals ;)

If I had seen that, I would have talked to someone at the store as you did. I would have written a few letters and made a few phone calls as well. That was nothing but abuse. That poor little chi.:(

Wow, good point :(!

I was nervous about my girlfriend coming over 4 times a day to watch my dog in my house when I go away. This makes me realize how much safer he will be sleeping ALONE on his blankie while I am away.

There should be separation between large dogs and small dogs, with the appropriate toys in each. There should also be an adequate dog to person ratio similiar to what they require in people daycare centers. Its very unfortunate that the dog kept getting sprayed and not recieving his due attention.

But to be a bit of a devils advocate, the daycare personnel can't always give individual attention and after a while the "underfootedness" can get in the way of things the attendant is required to do.

What would concern me more than anything when deciding to use this type of facility is the level of training the staff has. I would think a pet store offering daycare is going to just have a minimum wage attendant in there simply to monitor the dogs' activities. I would expect a facility that specializes in daycare, grooming, boarding etc. to have more experienced or trained staff members. I may be wrong, but this is what I would assume. Does anybody know?

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Any one of us, however, would have picked up the little Chi and just carried it around.

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