Our Evaluation .

We perform a behavior evaluation for your pet's health, safety, and happiness. We truly want your dog to be happy during his or her stay with us and we go to lengths to ensure it... starting with an evaluation.

The evaluation is not our way of ruling out dogs that we find "difficult". We are professionals who work with dogs every day and we have chosen this career path because our love of dogs keeps us coming back! Ask anyone who works with animals and they will tell you that challenging animals quickly whittle a special place into the hearts of animal care givers. Our evaluation serves the purpose of making sure your dog will be safe, sound, and silly at our facility. We consider that a "must".

We ask that owners understand that animals can display very different behaviors outside of their home and away from their families. It is our policy to report behaviors to our clients so they know exactly how their pet feels about playing, eating, crates, etc when Mom or Dad is not around.

Our evaluation does not provoke animals. We observe your animal and decide whether, or not, we can accomodate the displayed behaviors. Please note that behaviors can change over time and/or certain behaviors may not be displayed on the first evaluation. Even if your completes a successful evaluation, we will keep you posted on any behaviors that give rise to concern.

We believe that any facility worth their salt (and there are many!) should be observing your dog, reporting back to you, and making educated decisions regarding your pet's well-being.

Here is what we look for:

Crate Behavior - we look for content behavior. No pacing. No excessive panting (stress) and no damage to kennel, which can cause harm to the animal, too. We make sure your pet will willingly walk into a kennel and out of a kennel. Dogs that hide in the back of the kennel and bare teeth are called "cage guarders". This not-so-uncommon behavior is displayed when a nervous animal feels that they have to guard their small territory. Once the animal is out of the kennel they may be licking and snuggling again. However, cage guarding is very dangerous for our staff.

Eating / Drinking Water - we make sure your dog will eat and drink water

Anxiety - we make sure we do not see excessive panting, drooling, heavy breathing, pacing, unusual types of barking, refusal to eat, etc that would signal stress and anxiety. We want your dog to have fun!

Feeding - we make sure your pet is not food aggressive. This is for our staff's safety.

Despondent/Shy or Happy? - we look for anti-social or despondent behavior that can suggest anything from aggression to depression. We do not allow aggressive animals at our facility and we would be sad to see a depressed animal at our facility. We make sure your pet will interact with other animals. Not a social butterfly? That's ok. Not all dogs want to bounce and play. However, we insist that your dog is content at our facility and willing to interact on some level with our staff.

Fence Climber? - we have double re-inforced 8 foot fences. Is your dog an agility champion? A houdini? We want to make sure your dog cannot scale fences or grow wings and fly.

Digger? - our fences are also reinforced with concrete to prevent digging out. We want to make sure that your dog is not going to spend her day trying anyway. Your dogs attempts to dig under our fence could cause her harm and we don't want that!

Damage? - when it comes down to it, we do have a business to run and we need to make sure your dog is not going to damage our facility grounds and kennels. We have many dogs to contain and making sure that animals are not damaging our property keeps all of them safely contained. Damage to kennels is very costly to Midtown and your dog can hurt herself if she spends her time trying to break out of her kennel. While this behavior is uncommon, we need to make sure your dog can be safely contained.

King of Barking? - because we are located within a residential area, we have to be considerate of our neighbors. If your dog takes one breath and starts barking on Monday and is not going to stop until you pick up on Friday, we may not be able to accomodate your pet. Let's face it, dogs bark. We aren't going to rule out a dog who barks unless it is excessive. Excessive barking usually means that the dog is not interacting in playgroups. Instead, it may mean that he is standing standing at a gate and howling away. This can be a sign of stress or discontentment.

** Note:

No reservations can be guaranteed until the completion of a successful evaluation.

Evaluations give us a snap shot of your pet's behavior over a 24 hour period. We reserve the right to refuse service at a future date should we become concerned about a pet's behavior, happiness, safety, or should a pet cause damage to the facility or noise complaints.

An animals' behavior can change over time. Please let us know if your pet has endured any major life changes in the recent past. Moving, surgeries, loss of a companion, etc can all seriously effect behavior. Always communicate with us about what is going on with your animals! We will make every effort to care for your pet accordingly and ensure a comfortable and fun stay at Midtown!