Wag Hotels - Santa Clara — Local services in Santa Clara

We began to check our dog in as you typically do in all wag hotels. I mentioned to my husband that our pup may need to use the bathroom and I would run him out real fast, unless they wouldn’t mind. One of the workers was quick to say we can do that an then the girl checking us in was quick to read out loud ok adding a night stroll. My first thought was ummm your literally charging me for something you offered to do when I just said I would do it? But I was nice and smiled and went about check in. I asked if I could try all day play as my dog had never done this. He had only done the typical 2-1 hr plays that come with boarding. They said yes an added it. We leave.

The next day I check the camera and I am unable to see my dog. I give them the benefit of the doubt that my dog hasn’t been reached yet and I check back an hour later. Still my dog isn’t on the camera.

So I call the new and improved wag line number (note my sarcasm). I wait online for almost 25 mins and then finally give in to having it call me back. A good hour goes by. No call. No dog on the video. So I call back again and this time choose to wait on the phone. Another 45 mins go by and I finally get a call back from my first call. This would be a good hour and a half between the first time I called them to now. I’m told my pup wasn’t doing well in group play and was removed. Which I was ok with. I asked if he would go back to the 2-1hr plays. I was told no. Apparently he was moved to special care (I’ve been to other wags and never had this issue). Special care is only 3-20min play sessions alone. I tell the manager I am speaking to that I’m not mad at her but I don’t understand. I’m not mad that I pay the same for less play. My dog needs interaction and play time. That’s why I bring him to wags when we go. I repeat several times how I’m upset that I am paying the same amount for less play time. The manager basically tells me there is nothing we can do. So I’m forced to add more play time to my dogs stay for more money. Again money isn’t the issue.

So the following day we leave much earlier then planned just to pick our dog up early. So he’s not stuck with no interaction.

I go in an it’s the same girl who checked me in. I give her my dogs name she radios back for it. She goes over the services and I let her know we didn’t receive all day play. I’m confused because I was told it was removed from my account.

Thinking to myself - It’s clear that what ever you say to the wags new hotline number doesn’t get relayed to the actual desk. Now I’m concerned and wondering if my dog even got the extra walk I asked for. I proceed to tell the front desk girl that apparently he was moved to special care. She then proceeds to give me the price. Even my husband flat out laughed. I told her no. We are not paying that. Not only was I not informed it was a different price. That’s ridiculous especially since you guys choose to put him there. We asked to see the cameras. We were told no. We asked for a manager.

Out comes the same manager that I spoke with on the phone. She proceeds to tell me she can remove 50 bucks off. That’s it. Proceeds to tell me she did tell me it was a different price. At this time we are telling her that we were not even contacted. We had to call wags an ask about our dog. Had we never asked would we have even been notified. I go over waiting on the phone. How I brought up the 3-20 min play groups for the same price. I stated you mentioned the price would change. Anyone would believe that means the price goes down cause you removed all day play. At no point in time were you clear nor stated the price of the care about it going up.

At this point in a good company. Charges would have been removed and we would have left. The manager (Roxanne) got so flustered she walked away. What manager does that. I told them to charge me and I would fix it on my own. We tried to contact the CEO for days but he’s never in. Finally we reach a manager with some common sense (Bridget) and explain the story and we are refunded immediately. We won’t be...

Overall a poor experience. This review would have been one star, had it not been for my conversation with this location's manager (Christen) who listened to my concerns and alleviated them.

I want to be clear that the failings of this business, I believe predominately stem from a poor corporate oversight of the facility. The on-site staff were relatively friendly, and I believe they do care about the animals.

This service is expensive and the cost of it has warranted a longer review.

Context: We boarded our dog for 7 nights, with "Special care" provisions. Our dog is older, 13, and requires special care. We left instructions with this location to provide that care. Used the video service (Petzi) to monitor our dog. Noticed after the first day that our dog had urinated in his room and attempted to bury it, causing urine to mat his facial hair.

Key Issues:

Communication with the Santa Clara location was non-existent. My partner and I attempted to call 6 times over 3 days at multiple times of day. Not once was the phone answered. The answering machine was also full every time.

We emailed Wag corporate and did not receive a response (still waiting after 5 days)

Instructions for use of pee-pads were not followed.

It was unclear to us when our dog was receiving "Special care," for example we were never informed if he was receiving his daily medication.

The "Wag" app was relatively useless. The "Petzi" app which allows you to monitor your animal was okay, but it was unclear to me why it was separate from the wag app.

Improvement areas:

Wag (Corporate) needs to create a consistent and clear roles & responsibilities delineation between the staff on-site and their corporate offices. When we call a hotel, pay extra for special care, we expect someone to pick up the phone and address our concerns.

Wag Customer service is either understaffed or undertrained and they have attempted to put their on-ground staff in charge of both care of animals and their owners.

This seems like a serious oversight and should be addressed from the top down. Do not make it the responsibility of on-site staff to handle all the issues.

Send notifications via the "Wag App" to owners when their pets are receiving special care. A simple notification push to my phone telling me that my dog had received his medicine for the day would have alleviated my concerns.

Send pictures of our animals to us daily. Not every 3 days as is the current policy.

I do not want to receive a response from Wag corporate to this comment, I want you to fix your customer service and fundamentally change the way that you manage customer expectations, communications, staff training and the use of your app. Pay your people, train them, and learn from...

Will not be coming back to Wag Hotel. As others have mentioned in some of the reviews, they do not take the dogs outside at all during the day. We dropped our dog off at about 7:30am and picked her up at 7pm, and all day the dogs are just in the one room walking around without being taken out at all. I wasn’t aware of this before hand because I didn’t look into the reviews as much as I should have. I just kind of assumed they would take the dogs outside every once in awhile to play and go to the bathroom. I was wrong. I asked about it when I picked my dog up and the lady at the front desk just said “if they happen to go on the floor, it gets cleaned up right away”. Well that’s great and all, but to me it just seems like you are teaching the dogs that it’s okay to go to the bathroom indoors. I understand that their floors are cleaned with a Zamboni and the material is more sanitary than fake grass and other materials. That’s fine and dandy but it just doesn’t seem right that the dogs are never taken out. It’s teaching bad habits in my opinion. Also, I watched the cameras quite frequently throughout the day and the workers don’t really seem too enthusiastic to be there. They just kind of walk around, giving the dogs pets every once in awhile and that’s about it. A lot of the dogs just lay around in the corners and are not pet or given attention all day. I guess I just expected more when you are paying good money to take them to a daycare. The rooms are full of a ton of dogs and only one worker, and the playtime during the middle of the day consisted of some toys just being thrown down on the floor and the worker having a rope toy and just kind of waving it around as she walked, not even interacting with the dogs. Most of the dogs didn’t even play with the toys and they are only offered for a little while. I guess that was the scent work, obstacle course, and scavenger hunt that they claimed was happening that day? Just doesn’t seem to be ran very well and I just don’t understand how people pay so much for their dogs to come there, and for what? To just be in a room all day with some other dogs, hardly be paid attention to because the worker has 30 dogs to watch all at the same time and is too busy constantly cleaning up messes on the floor because the dogs aren’t offered potty breaks for 12 hours? Nope it’s just “oh yeah if they happen to go on the floor it’s cleaned up right away”. Doesn’t seem right to me and I won’t be coming back, but that’s just my personal opinion. I’d expect more from...