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Blue Collar Doghouse
Winter 2024 Important Updates Hello and Woof to our Blue Collar Doghouse family. As always, we want to thank our community for the continuous love and support we get from you. We have a few important alerts and updates that will impact all services at Blue Collar Doghouse. Please continue reading to be informed! |
Northwest Acute Canine Infections Respiratory Disease Outbreak
Most importantly, and the topic that impacts clients of all services, is an alert regarding a new acute Canine Infectious Respiratory Disease (aCIRD). The northwest, No Cal, Oregon, and Washington has seen cases and as stated in the attached article "Unlike typical CIRD cases, which are often linked to known pathogens, the aCIRD outbreak has a concerning, unidentified cause and exhibits unique symptoms that differ from standard respiratory illnesses in dogs." We have had a handful of dogs sent home for coughing over the past few weeks and want all clients to be on the lookout. Being a daycare environment, it is not abnormal to have a few respiratory cases here and there, though we try to keep you all informed when patterns arise. Please read This article to keep yourself informed and know what to watch for! As usual, we disinfect all indoor/outdoor surfaces, toys, kennels, and bowls daily with DS1 and Wysiwash. These solutions are known to kill all concerning viruses within the industry, though the strain of the new virus is still unknown at this time, we have high hopes that it will include this new strain as well. For grooming, kennels and spaces are disinfected in between each appointment to maintain a healthy environment. On a normal basis, friendly grooming dogs are sometimes allowed to roam free in our grooming room to avoid kennel anxiety. During this period, we are doing everything we can to avoid this however, we do have limited kennel space. To practice the highest level of safety, we encourage you to use our 15 minute heads up alert to try and be here right as your dog is being finished. If you need a heads up with more than 15 minutes, please let us know at check in. Our system auto generates the message, and it will state 15 minutes, but we will be sure to send it within the timeline that you requested. If you notice your dog with any of the symptoms mentioned in the article above, please consult your veterinarian and give the proper time for quarantine prior to returning! While it is unlikely that the current Bordetella vaccine protects from this unknown strain, we will continue to require this every 6 months for our daycare and boarding dogs. Like human daycares, we see cold and flu season in dogs, so please understand that this is always a risk in a daycare environment and we do everything in our power to prevent these outbreaks!
Holiday Hours - Daycare
Daycare hours are altered as mentioned below, all scheduled grooming appointments will take place as currently scheduled!
Thanksgiving - Daycare is closed November 28th & 29th
Christmas Week - Closed December 24th & 25th *Daycare hours will be 8am-6pm on December 23rd, 26th, and 27th*
New Years - Closed January 1st
Reminder content for our recent daycare/boarding additions below!
Arriving for Boarding and Daycare
We are kindly asking that you help us smooth our arrival process for both daycare and boarding services. As you all know, our lobby can get very busy and we are proud to continue to offer reservation free daycare. With that being said, we are unable to control the physical volume of our lobby and need your help by displaying both kindness and patience at drop off and pick up. Here are 3 things we kindly ask:
1. Potty Walk: Please, take your dog for a brief potty walk before coming into the lobby. As reminder we ask you do not allow your dogs to potty by the front door, there are signs displayed for clarity. We have seen a significant increase in dogs that come in and immediately urinate large volumes at the gate to enter daycare. If this is the case, we will begin asking you if you have walked your dog prior to entry.
2. Patience: Please, allow yourself time to drop off and pick up your dog. While we try to be as quick as possible, we are needing to put some of this responsibility on you as a client. If the front desk team is working with someone, DO NOT allow your dog to run back towards the daycare door. Please wait your turn, and we will let you know when we are ready.
3. Leashes: While we have seen significant improvement, this is a reminder that we do ask you to have your dog leashed at all times in our lobby. If you choose to hold their collar, they must stay restrained until we are ready for them. It is always possible that we have a reactive dog coming out of our self wash area in the far corner, at any given time. Please be responsible and do not allow your dog to free roam in our lobby.
4. Collars Required, please no harnesses: All dogs should have a quick release collar while in daycare! Because each harness brand is different, please only give us the leash for your dog at pick up. It can be difficult for our front desk to wrangle and harness each dog however, you are welcome to harness your dog once we have handed them to you on leash!