We are planning a few long weekends away this summer and just have not been comfortable with the idea of leaving them with friends or having them home alone while someone came over to check on them. There are too many things to worry about (them escaping between someones legs when they come in the door, the lawn guy not shutting the fence all the way and the dogs running out into the busy street, the bigs stepping on the littles, and the list goes on and on)
We asked a few of our friends for suggestions and the name Camp Bow Wow came up a few times so we checked them out. They have locations all over so check your area for one near you ...I promise you'll love them just as much as we did! The nearest one to us was in Sarasota (about a 40 minute drive from home according to mapquest) Since we work in Sarasota this was fine. Today we filled out all the camp applications and got copies of our vet records and headed up for the day.
First impressions were awesome. The place smelled so good and looked so neat and tidy. The girl at the front desk was very patient with DJ as he sat and barked at her while she tried to take his picture. For their first time you have to leave them a minimum of 3 hours so they can observe them with the other dogs. We dropped them off and rushed right to the office so we could watch them on the camper cam and see how they were doing. Vic paid close attention to their tails and if they were smiling. After about an hour we saw them running outside together and looking very happy.
Camp Bow Wow separates the dogs by size. They have a small area, a medium area and large dog area. I felt sorry for the big dog today because he was all alone with no one else to play with. The little area and medium dogs were very full of "campers" (that is what they call the dogs in day camp).
We lasted almost four hours before we just had to go pick them back up and see for ourselves that they were not traumatized or anything. When we got there we had the camp counselor show us the "cabins" the dogs will be staying in when they stay over night. Dj and Dexter will share a cabin that is about 4' x 8' , it looked very comfy and I think they will like it almost as much as our king size bed! (and we will actually get some leg room with no worries of rolling over on them)
Within minutes of the drive home both dogs were crashed ! They are very excited about going back to camp next week!
