Cubby's Canine Castle Inc — Local services in Whitpain Township

Not a great experience for me or my pet. I found Cubby's to be small, overcrowded, and very hectic, if not chaotic. The play yard is basically astroturf over a fenced in portion of a parking lot. It did appear to be very well supervised. The inside premises are clean but unimpressive in every way.

In spite of this and for a lack of better options, I went through the exhaustive application and evaluation process for my happy, friendly, well trained, and fully socialized Australian Shepherd. I was told that he "passed" the process with their uncertified dogsitters. I then paid for daycare in advance, and made work/travel plans around having a place for him to stay in this area.

When I brought him for his first official daycare session, I got a call around midday saying that he was nervous, was whining, wanted to get out and would not be admitted to the play yard or allowed to come back to this establishment. I was also informed that they have added further new admissions procedures and will now require five visits before allowing dogs into their daycare.

The whole episode raised many questions for me. If they love dogs so much, couldn't someone from their staff have taken ten minutes to gently calm my dog down, reassure him and help introduce him to the play area? He has been going to (nicer) daycare centers for years and has never had a single problem. The poor guy was far from home, and a little unsure of his surroundings. He had already spent a day at Cubby's a few weeks before and was perfectly fine once he settled in.

One of the dogsitters suggested I might get more training for my dog. Really!?!? When I asked what training they had to make their evaluations or such a bold suggestion, the answer was none- outside of what Cubbys management provides for their own purposes. They are so judgemental of their potential clients dogs, but only allow grudging tours of parts of their own facility and seem reluctant to allow outsiders past their gated security.

I'm sure they work hard, are nice people, and keep a close eye on their canine guests, but their play area is lame, its already packed and they most definitely are not going to go out of their way to accommodate your doggy if he does not immediately acclimate to their...

Thank you for the response. Instead of addressing the critiques or issues posted, the scheduling conflicts were only addressed. Here is a response, since I cannot manually "reply."

As you can see the owner and management cares a lot about their facility. And it is not a bad one. However, it proves some of the communication issues and hypocrisy I was originally referring to.

Online reviews are perfect when referring to employee performance issues. They are reviews not only of the facility but the staff. Many will read these reviews as not potential clients, but potential employees.

Saying I worked 63% of my hours when every request was accepted until June, and every shift was agreeably covered during that time (with weeks upon weeks of notice), is misleading. If you're not willing to accept those requests to help someone with their other jobs/conflicts, then say so. Don't wait 4, 5, 6 months and then claim it was too much for your facility. Also, to suggest I was not working weekends which are "required" is more false information, since I was consistently working on Sundays.

Another incorrect statement, I requested off two more times after my first conflicting show. Neither was deemed an issue. In fact, my conflicts were approved. This was from February into June. It's important to communicate with your employees that they're becoming too much of a burden, rather than wait until you're angry and fed up.

There was no blame in the facility for letting me go from the position when it comes to availability. I was totally happy to get experience with you, and understood my conflicts were not manageable. But it is how and when I was let go that was unacceptable (at the time). My comments on general management had to do with inconsistency on the actual job and has nothing to do with conflicts or schedules.

*The previous review and further statements are not and were not posted to bash the staff or facility, but to provide a review of the facility, as that is the point of this forum. You will not fully know for yourself until you work here, or pay to have your dog go here. 50% is a customer side, 50% is...

On a positive note, the staff is friendly, and cares about the dogs. However, when we first got out of the car for our evaluation appointment we noticed that the entire facility is way too small. Outside hey have a play yard (very small). When we got there there were atleast 30-40 dogs with barely any room to run around. When they told us it was a “slow day” and there are more dogs in the play area than that, that got me concerned with it be over crowding and the dogs not being able to run adequately!

Inside they have boarding, they keep the dogs crated. Which is fine. But come night time, they crate the dogs from 7pm-6am straight with no time to play. For me hats alittle early and excessive, and the dogs can’t even get up and move around.

Lastly when the weather is bad, they bring them into an indoor play area, that is literally a basement with no toys to be played with it’s pretty dark in there too.

Personally, I wouldn’t recommend them, I definitely wouldn’t pay the $40 for boarding to keep my dog in a crate for 10 hours straight, and in a crowded ply had wth no room for my dog...