Playtime Pet Resort — Local services in Upper Merion Township

I looked into Playtime Pet Resort based on referral. My 1 yr old GSD currently attends a well-established Main Line daycare with ZERO issues. Was seeking an alternate closer to work. When I say the experience was appalling, that's an understatement. The way they treated myself AND my dog, I'm surprised they are in business.

My first impression upon arrival was less than stellar: we arrived 10 mins early and were greeted by a CHILD who via walkie-talkie paged someone to come out front. The female owner? appeared who didn't introduce herself, offer a tour, provide ANY info about their establishment, evaluation process, etc. She seemed very scatterbrained and babbled about a few random topics. She asked if I had brought vet records (which were not listed as required when requesting an evaluation). She mentioned "Dan" had been bitten by a dog last week" and she should probably put that information on the website. She asked if I had errands to run, I said no, I will be staying with my dog. She was uneasy/pushy about me leaving, claiming most dogs get aggressive and protective over their owners and when on leashes??

We were led into one of their "suites" to wait for Dan who was performing the evaluations and was late, so he was not there to greet anyone for their evaluations which likely would have changed the mood of this encounter. The suite was a small, circular room with a glass door .. I had envisioned the evaluations being performed in an open/training-like area where the dogs would be free to roam? When Dan arrived, he made no attempts to greet myself nor King, he appeared out of nowhere and just stood in front of the door peering in, startling my dog who began barking & jumping up on the door. Less than a minute had passed and Dan said "I think you'll need to bring him back another day" based on a split second decision of ZERO interaction with my dog other than watching him in an enclosed room after being snuck up on and probably scared. Dan mentioned nothing of this and the female owner, said she had interacted with my dog by feeding him water and a treat and he was fine.

By now I was also irritated because it was coming clear to me that these people don't seem to have much knowledge of dogs nor how to counteract reactions or anxiety in a GSD if it occurs. We were still shut inside the suite like we were trapped and when I asked to come out in the hallway because the door may be causing anxiety. We let him out into the hallway & Dan still made ZERO attempt to interact with my dog, try to counteract this behavior (which someone who works with/is trained to "evaluate" dogs should know how to do), gave me no direction, & backed up to the end of the hall and just continued to stare at him while he barked. After all of a few moments with my dog he judged him as "not a social dog" because he was barking?? The woman mentioned Dan was probably nervous because he got bit last week. If that is the case he should not be handling dogs/suspended evaluations!! There is not an aggressive bone in my dog's body & there was clearly a reason he was having an abnormal reaction towards this person. This is a pup that lives with a senior dog and interacts with dozens of people and dogs at his current daycare without issue. I even felt uneasy being around Dan & there's no way I would trust that man alone/unsupervised with my dog or any animal because . Dogs sense bad people.

If you have a young/high energy dog this is not the place for you. I saw NOTHING that resembled skill in handling dogs, knowledge of their behavior, or qualification to evaluate any animal. I would be very concerned how they treat their current clients's animals should they exhibit and "negative" behaviors. In hindsight, it is clear the type of dogs Playtime Pet would like at their facility is not a high-energy breed, also likely not younger, even possibly discriminatory towards dogs viewed as "aggressive"...

We have 2 corgis that we were boarding for 5 days and nights. Nothing crazy happened but enough odd situations that we probably won’t be going back.

An evaluation is required before you can board with PlayTime, where you drop off the dogs for 4 hours. We gave the intake staff food and verbal instructions (which they told us at intake was sufficient). We gave them a container of hard and soft food with a scoop (each containing about 5 servings) And told them that each dog gets one scoop of each. When we returned, the containers were emptied and cleaned. I asked if they fed them ALL the food, and the woman sort of fumbled and said they feed the dogs “whatever is provided to them at drop off.” We thought this was strange as we got different information at drop off. Additionally, we thought anyone who works with dogs would realize this was way too much food for one feeding. Not a huge deal, but kind of strange. The staff you speak to/interact with is 50/50 in terms of kindness and helpfulness. Some staff seems great while others are extremely dismissive and rude. At our boarding drop off, I asked if I could see the room our dogs would be in and set up their beds and blankets. I was told no, because it was feeding time and we would disturb the other animals; but there was a virtual tour online I could view. Again, not crazy but we thought that was a little weird. For our boarding drop off (due to our evaluation situation with the food) I clearly packaged each dogs meals individually for each day and time of feeding. I was trying to show the woman what was in the bag and why, she was clearly annoyed and dismissive of my instructions (I was thinking, OK?, maybe I’m being a bit much?). However, The lady that came out to take the dogs back was much kinder and actually listened to my instructions. At pick up (my brother-in-law picked up because we weren’t comfortable leaving them the entire duration of our 9-day vacation since it was their first boarding experience) they gave back all of our toys and beds. All of it was kind of smelly, but the blanket WREAKED of dog pee. They told my brother that “they didn’t have time to wash” and we might want to do that when we get home. We were mostly concerned because, how long were the dogs sleeping with a pee soaked blanket? And why was it pee soaked? Were they not being taken out enough? Were they nervous peeing? Strange as both our dogs are house-trained, but we understand accidents happen. Overall, our biggest concern here was the attentiveness and overall cleanliness of the facility. Finally, one of our dogs left with kennel cough, and a rash on her belly. We understand this is a risk of boarding even with vaccination, so we don’t put this on the facility but worth mentioning.

We paid for an Phillies room, extra playtime, extra treats, and pictures everyday. We received the pictures we paid for, though the last day pictures were sent to us AFTER we picked up our dogs which was weird. And the dogs smelled as though they had been bathed. All-in-all, my husband and I agreed the experience wasn’t horrible but definitely not worth the money we paid. Deduct star for staff attentiveness, and another for perceived cleanliness of...

We brought our 4 month old puppy to Playtime Pet Resort for the purpose of doing the initial behavioral evaluation to determine how he would do with other dogs. When we scheduled the first visit we made this very clear and from the website and our scheduling phone call we were very excited about this program.

However, when we showed up to drop our puppy off it became very clear that the website does not portray reality. The first issue was that there was a sign on the door indicating that there was an outbreak of kennel cough. We spoke with the front desk staff who informed us we did not have the correct vaccine for this. We expressed that we would take our dog home and reschedule and they insisted it would be fine and that they did not have any current cases. We should have left, but were convinced and so let our puppy stay. He is now very ill with kennel cough and has not been anywhere else where he could have picked this up.

Our other major issue is that, as we said, the entire reason for this day at Playtime Pet Resort was to do the behavioral evaluation. However, we did not receive any of the promised text updates during the day and when we came to pick him up we were told they were “too busy” to do it that day and would do it “next time.” We expressed that this was the only reason we had come that day and after several back and forths they had one of the trainers come out to tell us that our puppy had been “overwhelmed” in the large yard with all the dogs and so they stepped him down to the puppy yard. He is a puppy who had never been around other dogs and they did not at all ease him into the play as they had said they would. They did not actually do the evaluation and we got no feedback other than this statement.

We paid $25 for an evaluation that we did not get, and for our dog to get kennel cough. The only reason we gave this 2 stars instead of 1 is that as we were leaving our puppy did try to go back into the building so it seemed like he did enjoy it in spite of all this. We, on the other hand, are incredibly frustrated and will not...