No Leash Needed — Local services in Kirkwood

IF YOU CARE ABOUT YOUR DOG, DON'T GO HERE!!!!

My wife and I just boarded our precious family member here for a week and were bitterly disappointed.

For most of the week they placed ALL dogs in a single space, in spite of having two areas for large dogs and one for small. This meant there were, minimally, 30+ dogs in a single area. We watched the webcams for extended periods of time and the overcrowding was so much that the dogs didn't really even have space to lay down and rest.

The people watching the dogs rarely provided any type of personal attention. It makes sense, since there were so many animal to a single human, but it was not cool for the dogs. Largely, the person was consumed with mopping up urine and feces and picking up the feces. When they weren't doing this, they were simply walking in circles looking at their phones. If you question this, I have more than 3 hours of recorded video.

At least three of the days, there was no point at which the dogs went outside. They were confined inside the entire time. It makes sense that most of the caretakers time revolved around mopping up pee and poop, when the dogs were never allowed to go outside to relieve themselves.

When we scheduled the the boarding appointment, we requested a late pick up since weren't scheduled to land at the airport until a few minutes after closing. We made sure to ask them if they were certain it was okay, because this was on 12/24, Christmas Eve. They told us there'd be a fairly significant charge, but they'd be sure someone would wait for us to arrive. Upon dropping her off, we asked to confirm the arrangement, as we wanted to be sure that a Christmas Eve late pick-up was acceptable and were assured we were fine. Upon landing back in the US around 3pm, we immediately called to ensure everything was still good, only to find out the on-duty staff were completely unaware of any late pick up requests. The manager called us back and was unacceptably rude to my wife, telling her, "This could never have happened. A late pick up needs to be approved by a manager and no late pick-ups were requested. He was very clearly trying to bully my wife. Well, this is patently untrue since I was privy to listening to all the prior conversations. Essentially, the young and clearly inexperienced manager was accusing my wife of lying, rather than ensuring his staff was appropriately trained. I understand the narcissistic defense mechanism in the face of adversity, but it's clearly not the way to treat a customer.

When we did pick her up (literally only 14 minutes after closing) the terrible manager barely opened the front door, didn't greet my wife, only words he spoke were our dogs name with a question mark, threw her backpack out the crack after struggling for more than 30 seconds to squeeze it through and then slammed the door shut. He then went and grabbed our dog, stuffed her through that small crack and slammed the door without a single, even fake, pleasantry. All he had to say was, "She hasn't eaten dinner".

Ultimately, I understand the current staffing challenges, which may have resulted in #s 1 - 3, but I'd far prefer a more ethical and moral approach. What I mean is, instead of taking in as many animals as you can to maximize your profit during a busy period, I believe the right way to handle this situation would be to turn people away and allow them to find a situation where their beloved family member could stay in a situation in which they could receive the attention for which you're paying.

I have no proof of this, but based on the experience we received, I very much doubt our dog received the "tuck in and treat" service we paid for every day. I suspect they threw her in her kennel, closed the door and didn't once consider her until the next morning.

My hope in writing this is simply that anyone considering entrusting an adored pet to the Kirkwood location, thinks twice and whomever manages the person in charge on 12/24/23 provides career-salvaging coaching to the "gentleman" who treated my wife so...

"‼️DO NOT BOARD YOUR DOGS AT No Leash Needed Kirkwood owned by National Veterinary Associates

‼️ PLEASE SHARE TO WARN OTHERS

‼️ The facility is experiencing an outbreak of highly contagious bacterial pneumonia that management is ignoring, which means any dog remaining in the same kennel as a sick dog is at a significant risk of becoming ill.

This pneumonia is costly to treat (over $10,000) and can be fatal.

Our two dogs stayed at the Kirkwood location from August 3 to 19.

After management at No Leash Needed failed to provide daily updates about our dogs, Henry reached out and was informed that Leo was eating the chicken we provided but hadn’t finished all his food. Management assured us that Leo was playful and acting normally, indicating there was no cause for concern.

We also provided emergency contact information (our neighbors) to No Leash Needed in case of an emergency or if we were unreachable.

On August 18, while traveling to St. Louis from Europe, we received a call from No Leash Needed informing us that Leo had been rushed to emergency care. He had reportedly been unresponsive and unable to get up since the morning of August 17, but management had not contacted us until he was in critical condition.

We landed on August 18 and immediately went to the Brentwood 24-Hour Vet Emergency.

Leo was diagnosed with highly contagious bacterial pneumonia, and his right lung was filled with fluid. He was in critical condition and required continuous oxygen, IVs, X-rays, and medical examinations.

The total vet bill was $10,000, payable upfront (with a one-day ICU stay on oxygen costing $4,000).

On August 19, the vet informed me that if Leo did not improve by Tuesday, I would need to consider euthanasia.

I was devastated. Management at No Leash Needed had not reached out to check on Leo's condition. I went to their office in tears, asking to speak with a manager, but he was unavailable. The assistant manager on duty, who had taken Leo to the emergency clinic, seemed indifferent.

I inquired whether any other dogs at the kennel had fallen ill with the same type of pneumonia, and he claimed none had.

That was a complete falsehood, as Leo was in the ICU with another dog suffering from the same illness . That dog stayed at same Kirkwood location as Leo and was admitted to ICU just 24h prior.

As of last night Leo seems to start improving but not completely out of the woods yet. But our other dog, Bentley, started showing symptoms and will have to go to vet today which means more $$.

No Leash Needed negligence put our family under financial strain of paying vet bills (as of today $10K) and enormous emotional stress. All of this could have been prevented if business exercised duty of care and had disinfected boarding kennels professionaly to prevent further outbreak.

As of Wednesday morning, I am still waiting on Manager from Kirkwood location to give me call back and Leo is...

TLDR: Poor communication about group play and individual play. Didn't test for group play until the end of boarding period. Didn't pay attention to feeding instructions. Attempted coverup for missing/mixing up belongings.

We boarded our dogs together for an extended weekend with the understanding they would get temperament tested for group play that Friday morning if we dropped them off before 10am (we dropped them off at 8). When we called at 6pm to inquire, we were told they both failed. After a brief hold, they shared the test actually didn't happen, and it would happen tomorrow. We opted not to be helicopter dog owners and trust things were fine. We didn't call again until Tuesday. That's when we were told neither had been tested because the tester isn't in on the weekend. We were told they had been in individual play (together) every day. Then we were told one of our dogs was actually in group play the whole time. But, that same dog had a green collar labeled "individual play" when I picked up our dogs on Wednesday. Our other dog had no label collar, but apparently was tested and passed on Tuesday (what good is that now?). When I picked up our dogs in the morning, the poor receptionist was the only one hurriedly receiving dogs for camp that morning. They did their best to juggle receiving dogs and check me out, but it was clear that the job is not suited for one person. When they brought out our belongings, they handed me two beds that had both my dogs' names written on them. We never labeled the beds we provided, and I immediately noticed one bed was smaller and the wrong color from what we provided. What appeared to me as an attempt to cover mixing up beds (not a big deal for me) was exposed when another employee told me that our big bed was in the wash because it had gotten dirty. I suspect it got dirty because one of my dogs came home with the runs. We printed off detailed feeding instructions, and individually labeled and bagged every meal for each dog, each on a different diet. When I reviewed my belongings, one dog's food was now in a paper bag instead of the plastic bag I sent, when the only extra food should have belonged to the other dog (I picked them up early). This was evidence that they had misfed the meals to the wrong dogs, and one of my dogs came home with the runs due to the abrupt diet change.

This was our first time boarding at this location. I wouldn't recommend boarding multiple dogs at once here, since it seemed too challenging to handle a pair of dogs together even with provided instructions. Perhaps just boarding a single dog would be a less complicated experience for others out there...