Frequently Asked Questions

Your pup must be:

-dog friendly & socialized

-up to date on all required vaccines (DHPP, Rabies, Bordetella, Canine Influenza)

-current on flea prevention

-spayed/neutered by the age of 1

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In addition, we require new client paperwork and passing of a temperament test for dogs joining us for daycare/boarding.

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If your pup is younger than 5 months, we require proof of a negative fecal test for Giardia from the past month. The vaccines that we require for pups less than 5 months of age are at minimum Bordetella and 2 rounds of DHPP. Once they are 16-20 weeks, they will be required to meet the rest of our vaccine requirements. 

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For boarding, we do not take pups that have severe cases of separation anxiety.

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We require all pups to be fixed (spayed/neutered) by the age of 1 year. However, we do reserve the right to pause services prior to 1 year if we are seeing behavioral concerns arise from not being fixed. There are a number of reasons we may pause services for your puppy prior to being fixed:

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Male dogs that are intact will begin to mark everything (including indoors). Any signs of guarding, stalking, or humping our female pups excessively, along with posturing more with other male dogs, increase the likelihood of fights between dogs.

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Female dogs - We do NOT accept female dogs who are knowingly in heat. If a female dog goes into heat while in our care, we will do our best to keep her separate from any intact male dogs, however, we are NOT responsible for any puppies. If we suspect or notice signs that a female pup is about to go into heat, is not fully finished with her heat cycle, or is still too close to the completion of their heat cycle, due to the behaviors this causes with other dogs, we will reserve the right to pause services until your puppy is spayed or more time has passed after completion of her heat cycle.

To ensure your pup is able to get along with our other pups and can get comfortable with our team and facility, we require a "trial" day of daycare before we can agree to your pup regularly joining us! This day is a normal day of daycare, but we introduce your pup slowly, giving them the space and time they need to get comfortable. It usually takes a day for a friendly new pup to come out of their shell, but if your dog is truly unable to get comfortable at our facility, we will let you know that we may not be the best fit OR we may require an additional temperament day! We never want to cause pups unnecessary stress.

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As personalities develop and may change as pups get older, along with new experiences outside of our facility potentially affecting your pup, we may also require a new temperament day if your pup hasn't been to A Bark Idea in 4-6 months and boarding/daycare services are being requested. So please don't wait until the last minute to book if your pup hasn't visited in a while! If you are reserving a long boarding stay and your pup has never boarded or attended daycare on a regular basis, we highly recommend signing your pup up for 1-2 nights of boarding as practice prior to any long stays (longer than a week or so) to help them become more comfortable with staying overnight

As much as we would LOVE to show off our very cute and cozy facility that your pup will be calling their home away from home, it would be too stressful for our pups. Our top priority is the safety, comfort, and well-being of the dogs currently in our care, and keeping stress levels low is part of that. We are more than happy to send photos upon request of our facilities so that you can see where your pup will be enjoying their time!

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*For a very limited time, we will be offering scheduled tours of our new facility in Marina Del Rey. Please get in touch to learn about dates and times!*

We LOVE keeping our pup parents up to date on how their pup is doing, who their pup is becoming buddies with, and how cute they are being through personalized photo updates! With that being said, our top priority is to be with the dogs, so we send 1-2 updates a day maximum, for both daycare and boarding. Please only expect updates during the day and remember... no news is good news!

We have a ZERO tolerance policy for these tools. Do not drop your dog off in a prong or shock collar. These tools may work for you in your home, but having your dog in a prong or shock collar increases the risk of danger of our job. When we remove these tools, your dog may become defensive towards our staff, as dogs do not enjoy experiencing discomfort/pain. In addition, these tools may create dogs who are untrusting of new people. If you utilize these tools, please keep them at home and bring your pup to us in a normal flat collar/gentle leader/harness/sidekick/martingale collar/etc.

For daycare, please ONLY drop your pup off with their collar/harness/leash and any food/medication they may have during those hours with us.

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For boarding, please ONLY pack your pup's collar/harness/leash, any medication, treats for sensitive tummies, and food bag/container that is CLEARLY labeled with instructions OR packaged individually. We have plenty of bowls, dog beds, crates, blankets, etc. We have designed our facilities to truly be your pup's home away from home, so we have all of your dog's favorites!

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If you pack any extras, please be aware that there is always a chance that it may not make it home or may become dirty or damaged while with us!

If your pup is crate trained, we have lots of clean crates. If your pup is not crate trained, we have rooms with cozy nooks that each dog can rest in individually with a little more space. If your pup feels more comfortable in our living space, then they are going to cozy up there for the night. Wherever your dog is able to rest soundly and have happy dreams is where we will have them sleep. 

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We never leave our pups alone overnight, we would miss them too much!

We do not currently offer half days UNLESS it is for a temperament day. We offer surprise daycare packages on occasion that are able to be purchased for a limited time. We also offer daycare packages for our Happy Puppy School graduates. We do not currently offer boarding packages of any kind.

We do not offer grooming services of any kind aside from baths (including light blow dry and brush out) for pups in our care. We do not offer nail trims/grinds.

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For our boarding and daycare pups, we offer baths as an add on for $50 (small dogs) and $75 (large dogs). We highly encourage a bath before pick up for pups who are with us for longer than 4 days. Please note - your pup will be playing a lot while with us! Because of this, doodles, golden retrievers, and other breeds with longer or curly hair will be more prone to matting. While we are not groomers ourselves, we will do our best to keep your pup mat-free while they are with us!

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We do not have the equipment to shave your pup's bum if they happen to require a sanitary shave. For pups with fluffy bums/fur, we highly recommend a sanitary shave prior to drop off in order to keep your dog as comfortable and happy as they can be while in our care.

Each day changes and the number of dogs truly depends on the group of dogs themselves. We get to know each dog individually as adults, or have known them since puppyhood, so every dog in our group is as happy as can be! We pride ourselves in being able to care for your pups as if they were our own dogs. This means we accept a much smaller group of dogs than your average boarding facility, helping your pup feel as if they were staying at their home

All of our pups are in the same group! We have known the majority of our dogs since puppyhood, so we know and trust them as if they were our own. We love being able to socialize our tiny pups with our gentle giants and have our young pups learn polite manners from our older dogs. We are also always watching very closely and recognize dog behavior and body language. We ensure all of our pups are playing safely with one another and no pup is visibly uncomfortable around dogs that may be larger, older, or younger than them. If a pup needs extra time to get comfortable with dogs of certain sizes, we make sure to go at their pace.

We take it nice and slow with our new pups joining our group of dogs. We do have a secure gate and let our new dogs meet everyone with the barrier. If that meeting goes well, we introduce the new pup starting with calmer or older dogs, and eventually let all the dogs meet if everything goes smoothly! We also limit the number of new dogs introduced each day so we don't overwhelm our current group of dogs with new faces either!

Since we are a much smaller and personalized facility than your typical dog daycare, we are able to progress at your dog's pace when it comes to getting comfortable with our pups and staff. Being certified dog trainers, we are equipped to help shy pups come out of their shell in a way that helps make them more confident. We are fully transparent if any new pups need extra time or are unable to settle with us.

When having multiple dogs together, there is always a risk of your pup contracting and spreading potential illnesses (please read our entire FAQs to learn how we do our best to prevent this). There is also a potential risk of dogs having disagreements, resulting in fights. We have a zero aggression policy, meaning that if we notice a dog starting to show aggression, we notify the owner right away and unfortunately that dog will no longer be joining us. Our top priority is the safety and well being of each and every dog in our care. To avoid fights, we feed all of the dogs separately in their own secure place for meal time, we do not allow toys or bones in order to make sure there is no competition with our pups, and we assist with play breaks when we notice pups getting overly tired!

For the health and safety of your dog and all of the dogs at our facility, we do not permit any dog joining us that may have a contagious disease or active diarrhea until cleared by a veterinarian. If you are noticing ANY unusual symptoms (coughing, nasal discharge, lethargy, diarrhea, etc.) we require to to keep your pup at home.

We keep our facilities SQUEAKY clean by using veterinary recommended, pet safe cleaning solutions and are actively cleaning ALL THE TIME. We disinfect our turf regularly, we disinfect our water bowls with every fill up, we disinfect after every poop we pick up, the list goes on! With that being said, however, similarly to humans, sometimes bugs go around regardless of cleaning and vaccines. So what do we do to keep everyone safe? We ask all of our clients to keep us informed of ANY and ALL symptoms that come up with their pup. Illnesses are something we take very seriously. Even though all of our clients are up to date on their vaccinations, this can still spread in any setting when there are multiple dogs present or have previously been present, regardless of vaccination status.

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Kennel cough is one example of a mild but highly contagious airborne illness in the dog world. It is commonly spread in dog parks, daycares, vet offices, and even popular walking paths. 

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Giardia is another common bug that spreads when there are multiple dogs. This can sometimes be the culprit of diarrhea. Although we require a negative Giardia test for all new young puppies that come to us, this infection can be picked up ANYWHERE that your pup sniffs (dog parks, on a walk, honestly everywhere!). Many adult dogs build up an immunity to this bug or can be asymptomatic, but sometimes a dog can get sick with this bug and needs to be put on medication by their vet. We work very closely with local vet contacts to ensure we are doing our very best to keep our dogs safe and healthy. We will continue to notify our clients of any confirmed cases of illness that their pup may have been exposed to. If we are informed about a dog developing a cough or other illness, that dog is asked to be cleared by their vet before returning to us.

There is always a risk of injury, but we inform dog owners immediately if we notice a limp, scratch, or anything else visible to us! Sometimes when pups get into their playtime party, they may pull or strain a muscle, or get a scratch from themselves or other pups. Being a smaller facility, this helps us observe and stay on top of these changes or occurrences.

We are not able to leave our boarding pups for long periods of time. Your emergency contact must be able to come pick up your dog in case of an emergency. Please update your emergency contact with us as needed.

Hot spots occur when a pup scratches, chews, or licks a spot consistently, resulting in a wound. They are VERY common, especially for particular breeds. In general, many dogs are prone to skin allergies/issues for a number of reasons (diet, environment, weather changes, etc.). In addition, for some dogs, being in a new or unfamiliar environment can be a little stressful at first and they may develop a hot spot for this reason. We try to keep a very close eye on all of the pups in our care, ensuring they are not licking/scratching or biting themselves, however, it is difficult to have eyes on your pup 100% of the time (such as while they are sleeping!). For fluffy pups, hot spots might be difficult to spot right away. The same goes for pups who have mats, hot spots tend to hide beneath these. For our water loving pups, hot spots may be more likely to occur as wet dogs tend to lick themselves more frequently. If we DO find a hot spot, we will notify you right away and keep it as clean as possible. We keep a medical grade hot spot cleaner on site, along with dog cones, to prevent additional licking. During the warm months, we end water play early to mid afternoon so that pups have time to air dry before bedtime, helping decrease the chances of hot spots, as well. All of that being said, hot spots DO happen easily and are very common. Please reach out with any questions or get in touch with your vet. 

We are always filling up our water bowls with fresh water and sanitizing in between each fill up. During the summers, we have mini pools that we fill up with fresh water each morning for our water dogs to splash in. We also have ice cube treats that we love to give out, along with running our air conditioning to ensure your pup has access to a cool resting place indoors. In addition, we have lots of shady areas in our play yard that stay cool in the summertime. We are educated on how to prevent heat stroke and what symptoms to be aware of.

We still have daycare when it is raining. Most pups don't even notice as long as their pals are around! For those pups who prefer to stay indoors, they have access to choose whether they want to go out or stay insidWe do our very best to keep all the dogs dry and smelling fresh, but if your pup loves the water and playing in the rain, be prepared to pick up a wet smelling dog! We do offer baths, so just let us know and we will freshen up your pup for you before pick up!

We like to have all the dogs in our care practice polite play habits and good manners while with us. If we notice a dog is being rude or pushy during play, we do give them play breaks or redirect them. As certified dog trainers, we understand how important consistency is when it comes to a dog's behavior, so any behaviors we don't love to see will not be ignored.

That is totally up to you! But we always encourage you to do your own research. We are different than many dog facilities in many ways - being lead by certified dog trainers, being much smaller with fewer dogs, providing personalized care each and every stay. All of these can benefit your pup's behavior and keep stress levels low! That being said, we understand we may not be the right fit for everyone. If your dog does frequent the dog park or another daycare, please ensure they are not showing any symptoms of illness or aggression before bringing them back to A Bark Idea.

We encourage our clients to provide lifelong training for their pups. If you choose to send your pup away for a training program somewhere else, we strongly encourage you to do your research and ind a positive reinforcement only style program! Your pup is able to join us back at A Bark Idea as long as they remain healthy and friendly, however, you must disclose to our team that they recently went through training elsewhere as every outside experience has an effect on your pup's behavior. If we notice any behavioral changes, knowing about their outside experiences will help us better understand your pup, provide them with the best care to make them comfortable, and keep our staff safe, as well.

Complete an inquiry on our Get In Touch page and tell us all about your dog and what services you are interested in! We can't wait to meet your pup!