Wags 2 Whiskers LLC — Local services in Culver City

To start, I'm giving this place two stars because we did take our dog to daycare here a few times a week for an entire year while ignoring some of the problems that arose. But, I do not think many of the reviews of this place are accurate, as W2W certainly not worth 4.8 starts as a doggy daycare.

Today was our last day at Wags to Whiskers. I'll tell you about our story:

My girlfriend and I started taking our little cattle dog mix as a fresh, 4 month old puppy from the pound to W2W to socialize her. In new-puppy-parent-ignorance, we ignored the fact that W2W would not let us see the play areas like other daycares we were shopping for, and were consistently oddly guarded about letting us see them after multiple requests throughout our entire patronage as customers. We were never allowed to see the play areas, but do know that our dog came back filthy 90% of the time, and more often than not needed a bath as soon as she got home because of how badly she smelled like urine or worse.

Our pup was timid at first, but soon warmed up and was so excited to arrive when we took her in the mornings. Our pup is high-energy with a lot of happy attitude, being a little cattle-dog/terrier mix from the pound, but they would insert odd passive comments about her being a "character" that, over-time, resolved to be more like slights than an appreciation of her personality. This is a very concerning attitude for a place that takes care of your little canine partners as a business.

Anyway, we chose W2W ultimately for the price, as at the time it was about $25 bucks a day (with a package) for a full day relative to the $35-a-day we observed from (way more state-of-the-art) competitors that we would've preferred to take her to. But, after about 6 months they hiked the price up to $39 (what??) for the exact same resources, claiming they were going to open up an outside area and were installing webcams so we could watch our dog throughout the day (something common at other daycares). We expressed concern about the price change, they offered us loyalty pricing at the original rates after we explained that we chose W2W for the price and what seemed to be a family-run atmosphere (and that they had not delivered on the improvements they were claiming added value to their daycare). After a few months, I do believe they added an outside pen, glancing it on their instagram. But, it looks tiny - no bigger than a king-size bed. And filthy - just like their indoor facilities look from their instagram. The webcams have never come - and I doubt they ever will for a variety of probable reasons that make us uneasy.

We take very active care of our dog. She is routinely taken to the vet for any issues and is completely vaccinated for the doggy diseases that can come from un-vaccinated dogs. Our pup came home badly sick at least 5 times though-out her time at W2W - once with kennel cough. This means that W2W did not do their due diligence on admitting new dogs into their care. I called to ask about this and the female owner IMMEDIATELY knew what I was talking about and attempted to redirect the conversation quickly taking over saying, "Oh, she has a cold?! I have to call the other dogs parents! I have to go!" No - our poor pup had kennel cough because you did not check vaccination records of newly admitted dogs.

On multiple other occasions, she came home with vomiting and diarrhea. All of these issues I can guarantee came from whatever goes on behind the closed doors at daycare, as we monitor our dog 100% of the time when she's not there (we live in a small space with her). I would attribute this both to poor facility cleanliness and lack of oversight of the staff.

I'll start to wrap this up, but the last straw was when, near the end of our relationship with W2W, we took her to daycare she was suddenly absolutely terrified to go in. This was around the exact same time that we noticed new staff in the evenings. I don't claim to know what happened, but this was very concerning. We started making plans to try a new daycare. (I'll finish in...

I literally never write reviews on Google (this is my first one ever) but there’s no way around this. And it’s unfortunate because the people actually seem very nice here. Long story short, our maltipoo was attacked by a pitbull in the less than 10 minutes we spent in this facility. DO NOT GO HERE!

Now if the short story isn’t enough, here’s the long version: we came to tour the facility because we were thinking about boarding our dog at Wags 2 Whiskers and they said we could stop in any time to check it out. We showed up and were able to look at some cameras of the different rooms there, as well as have our questions answered about boarding in general.

It is a no-cage facility but the first red flag was that there is no staff there overnight. It is indoor only from what we saw and has small rooms for dogs of various sizes and temperaments. The staff says they give lots of love and attention when they are there, but keep in mind that’s only about 12 hours a day. Also, there is no temperament test required before dogs stay here. Another red flag.

We already weren’t crazy about this place but we stayed and listened to the whole spiel. Right when we were getting ready to leave, the groomer let a pitbull out into the lobby area without a leash. We didn’t realize this until the pitbull was already on top of our dog and had bitten into her. I had to physically pry the pitbull’s teeth off my dog’s face while one worker stood there frozen and another tried to help, but was untrained in how to restrain the dog in this situation.

I understand that accidents happen but the fact that this dog was let out into an area with other dogs without a leash, without giving us any warning, is a huge issue and the responsibility falls on the staff there. Also the fact that no one was able to get this dog off proves that they don’t know how to handle them. They need to have people there who are trained and able to restrain these dogs and also cautious about them running around unleashed when other dogs are around.

The owner was very nice about it all and paid for the medical bills associated with the bite right away, but the real problem is that it happened at all. Other facilities are so careful about these types of things, making sure dogs of such drastically different sizes and temperaments never end up in the same room, but it is clear that Wags 2 Whiskers is not as careful.

By no means is this intended to be a personal attack on anyone at the facility, and we understand that this is not a frequent occurrence so a lot of things had to go wrong at once for this to happen, but I feel the responsibility to let people know about it because I would not want this to happen to anyone else and I would never even think about bringing my...

This review is a long time coming. As first time dog parents, my partner and I have had a million and one questions and concerns since adopting our fur baby Juno back in August'20. When Juno got a couple of hot spots deep in her paws, we wanted to get her into the right hands asap to relieve her discomfort, and thank goodness we had some friends recommend this place. Wags 2 Whiskers is a family owned and run grooming service (I think they also do daycare and other like services; as I'm still working from home because of the pandemic, we haven't needed to look into anything beyond the grooming needs). I called them to inquire about making an appointment and I ended up having a half-hour conversation with Dillion as he listened to my concerns, asked thorough questions, and gave me thoughtful advice to begin to help the problem while I waited for my appointment. He reviewed the different options they have so that I could weigh my options financially and otherwise, never once pressuring me to spend more than what I felt I could afford, or needed to spend. I ultimately scheduled Juno for a full "Thera Clean" treatment, which is essentially a glorified bath that immerses the pet in microbubbles that not only deep cleans the hair, but their skin as well. This is an additional $50 to the regular bath price, but well worth every penny! Juno looked so much more relaxed and happy after just one treatment. After two more rounds she was all cleared up and back to normal. Dillion took the time to bond with her and put her at ease every time, he tracked her progress and showed us before and after photos along the way, along with some other cute behind-the-scenes shots!

I can't recommend this place enough. After setting the bar this high, I doubt anyone else will compare. We are...