Paradise Pet Resort & Spa — Attraction in Madison

UPDATED (10-14-18): Just wanted to update, as my dog, Irish, has stayed countless times now for day-play. I had family from Germany in town for 2 wks. Irish was able to spend time with us, but because we were going to various places ...she couldn't come most of the time. It was also too hot to leave her in the car & she still deals strongly with separation anxiety. So nearly every day for 2 wks (not the weekends), she did stay here for day-play. She seems happy when I pick her up each time & even knows where we're going when I say she is going to have a "FUN DAY"! Instead of lying down in the car, she stays upright until we arrive, which is unusual! She even wags her tail at times when I pick her up, which if you read below, this is a big deal, since she is an older rescue dog I recently adopted.

The AWESOME STAFF are starting to get to know her & her "ways" a bit more, which is helpful. More than they realize, they have helped me out quite a bit. I do pray she will get better with being left alone at home for short periods of time. However, until we get to that point, I will continue to bring her here when I have dr's appts and/or errands that will take several hours. This way I know she's cared for & won't be "as lonely" if she were just left at home.

I do hope they'll start to have day-play on weekends, which it sounds like they may do in the near future. That will help out greatly, as I don't want to just board her, but actually give her some social interaction with other dogs, if I need to go out-of-town for any reason.

I also like the cameras in upgraded rooms, so you can watch your dog while they are in there. However, I hope to see more cameras on the premises, so you can watch while they are playing, as well. This, too, may happen in near future, as I'm sure it's a matter of funds.

Lastly, I hope they end up with some kind of "frequent day-play and/or boarding" program. Where you can buy X-amount of day-plays and/or boarding in advance to get a reduced price. That would make for an ideal gift for someone!

KUDOS TO STAFF!

OLDER POST: I've only had my dog, Irish, since April 30, 2018. She is nearly an 8-yr-old rescued Beagle that I ended up adopting. She had major surgery for 11 tumors back in April (one literally the size of a baseball). The vet firmly believes she has cancer and could live for 6 months or 6 years ...there's just no way to know. Either way, she's a sweetheart of a dog and I know I made the right decision in adopting her back in mid-May.

Irish does come with a lot of separation anxiety, as well as being scared of loud noises ...particularly thunder & children. Due to all of this, it has been difficult to leave her alone. I've tried various methods to keep her calm while I have to run out to do errands & such. Unfortunately, it will take a lot more time with a lot of love & patience. However, I'm willing to do what it will take. This includes the added expense of putting her in doggy day-care -even if she is not much into "playing" given her age & health. She seems happy enough to be around other dogs & people ...more so than just staying at home while I'm out doing my errands.

I'm grateful that Paradise Pet is local & willing to take last-minute drop-ins & of course long-term boarding, if needed. I did use their long-term boarding last month for an unexpected death in the family that took me out to Texas. Paradise Pet took very good care of Irish while I was away. That was her 1st time there. She’s been there 2 more times just for day-play. I will be bringing her back for this again soon!

Over-all, I'm very satisfied with Paradise Pet & will definitely recommend to anyone that's looking for such a place to either board and/or do day-play for their dog. They take cats, too, but I don't have a cat, so can't give any info regarding that.

BIG-BIG KUDOS TO ALL EMPLOYEES HERE ....and to management for hiring such great & caring employees! I truly mean it, as it makes all the difference for both Irish & me!

Blessings to each!

Deb & Irish...

This is the first time we have ever boarded our dogs and spent a lot of time looking for the right fit for them. I was excited to find this place, but I was underwhelmed with the experience in some aspects. I don't feel like the dogs were mistreated in any way. The staff was all very nice and responsive. I have no complaints there, except that I felt some of the communication to be short and "sugar-coated", everything was "they did great!" when I could see from the cameras that they were unhappy, alone and anxious and I am not sure if our older dog ate at all while she was there. I would have preferred realistic communication, obviously they are going to be sad to be away from their family in the same little room for days, but it would have been nice to actually know how well they ate/drank and how they did outside. We have 2 dogs, an older dog and a very large, high-energy puppy. I brought a big bag of toys and bones. We had a villa so I checked the webcams frequently. I saw maybe 2 of the toys in there (only 1 at a time) during their 3 day stay. To be fair, I did ask them to ration them out and not give them all at once, but I guess I should have been more specific that the 2 dogs could have more than 1 of the 8 toys at a time.. I sent 6 bones, and zero came home with us. I know that there is no way they were all consumed during their stay (only one of the dogs typically chews bones but I sent enough for the other anyways). The last day I saw that there was an accident in their kennel in the morning (which has only happened at home if they didn't get a chance to go out before bed) and all of their bedding and toys were removed. None of their bedding or toys were ever returned back to them and my puppy who was without a cover on his bed and bored with no toys by late afternoon, ended up completely destroying one of the beds. I saw it on the cameras a few hours before we got there and it was still in the kennel with them shredded to pieces by the time we got there to pick them up after 5:00, which makes me wonder about how much time goes by between when they go out or when anyone even peeks in on them at all. We had scheduled for 4 days and I am really glad we were able to get back in time to pick them up before closing the third day because my dogs were definitely out of patience with the place by the time we picked them up a day early. They were worn out and depressed and both drank about a gallon of water as soon as they got in the house. I am not completely unhappy, I appreciate that they had a safe place to stay so we could get some much-needed time out of town, but I feel bad for basically having them locked in an empty cell for days on end. We appreciate the fair price on grooming, especially for our giant breed dogs, they both came back smelling great and clean. We are probably going to make at least a monthly visit back for that. We also want to try the daycare for the puppy. I think we will just look into something else when we go out of town...

We boarded both of our dogs for about 5 days at this facility. When I toured the place it looked very nice.

First thing that kinda got to me was I called the day before drop off to double check everything and was informed that the cameras were down, which is one of the main reasons we wanted that certain room/facility. It was disappointing to be told the day before but they offered a 15% discount for them being down. Which was nice of them to do. And the cameras came back up a few days after them being there which was great.

Everything seemed great until the last day of them being there. Around 6:30 am I had pulled up the camera, their lights were on and I noticed where one of the dogs got sick that night. I thought well they just opened I'm sure it won't take long for someone to check on them to clean up/make sure their okay. They are on a strict feeding schedule due to one of my dogs stomachs/Medication which we talked about at drop off. And was told there wouldn't be a problem with that. So since they were aware they needed to be feed first thing in the morning due to all of that I felt like it wouldn't have taken long for someone to be in their room. Since we were driving back I had left just the camera up on the dash. It was now an hour and a half and no one had been in their room to feed them or clean up. I called the facility asking why no one had checked on them yet or feed them. I was told they were working on other dogs and about to take care of ours. It was now almost 2 hours later and we were watching our dog throw up yet again on the video. About 10 minutes later someone came into the room and started cleaning.

I called immediately after stating how disappointed I was that our dogs were in a room for over 2 hours with vomit on the floor and getting sick multiple times. Plus being feed an hour and a half after the time we asked for. The response I got had really gotten under my skin. I was told no one had been in their room cause our dogs can't go outside with other dogs so they are taken care of last after all the others have been outside. Honestly, to me, the fact they can't go outside with other dogs has nothing to do with them not being feed/given medication on the agreed time or someone seeing my dog had thrown up in 5 spots in the room.

About 2:30pm I had pulled the camera up and noticed that she had gotten sick again. I assumed they would let me know about her getting sick again when we picked them up so I just put the camera back down. When we showed up to pick them up they didn't inform me that she had gotten sick another time, which makes me feel like there may have been other times and we were never going to be told.

This may not be a big deal to others but to me if I'm paying someone almost $100 a night to watch and take care of my dogs they shouldn't be spending hours in vomit and should have been given food/medication on the times...