Hockey Talk At Pampered Pooch Playground from keithppp on Vimeo.
Below is a copy of a blog post that I just put on the Bubbly Paws page, but I wanted to share it with all of our doggy daycare customers as well!
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Last year Roxy was a Ballerina for Halloween! The costume was custom made by Fugy Friends!
The past 2 weeks, I have been working hard to get everything lined up for our 5th annual Woof ‘n Treat dog Halloween party which will be outside Bubbly Paws Dog Wash! Each year it keeps getting bigger and better and this year will be no different. I think back to the first year that we had the party at Pampered Pooch Playground, our doggy daycare because it was the first real event that we had! We learned a few things and then made it even better and more fun for customers and dogs each year. Last year was the first time we had the doggy party at Excelsior and Grand and it was a huge hit!!. All of the businesses in the area were so impressed with how well it ran, that everyone wanted to be part of it this year! Earlier this week, I had a great meeting with all the business owners and managers from the area and everyone is VERY excited for the event. This year the event benefits Homeward Bound Rescue. You can see all the details on the Woof ‘n Treat website and facebook page.
Below are just a few things that will happen this year.
- Local Beer tasting
- Hay rides (for dogs and people)
- DJ
- Amy James from K102 hosting the costume contest
- And so much more!!
If you have any ideas or suggestions, just let us know!
Keith
Rigby is one of the many doggy daycare customers that love playing outside!
Fall has finally hit Minneapolis and all of the doggy daycare customers are enjoying our large outside play area. We don’t just use the outside area in the summer, we use all the time!! The synthetic grass makes it very easy to keep clean. I am so glad that we are one of the first doggy daycares to use the synthetic grass because, it is so hard to keep real grass clean and mud free. I would hate to send home dirty or muddy dogs each day! We can go outside and sanitize it a few times each day. You can’t do that with real grass! Customers often ask how often we take the dogs outside and we are outside often! It does depend on the weather, but we try to get each group outside about 5 times each day.
I really like fall and it is one of my favorite seasons in Minnesota! If you are looking for a cool weekend getaway, drive up to Duluth and stay Fitger’s, which is super dog friendly. You can check out all the fall colors, and have fun traveling with your pooch! 4 years ago, Trycia and I were up in Duluth sitting on the Fitgers patio and we started talking to Teddy the basenji’s parents who were from the Minneapolis area and they started coming to doggy daycare after we had a drink with them! What a small world! WE have tried to get a picture of Teddy playing, but he moves too fast for the camera!
Have a good night!
Keith
The view from the stage of the Dog Trick Contest at Linden Hills Woofstock!
This past Saturday was one of my favorite dog events of the year… Linden Hills Woofstock! Everyone always asks why it is my favorite event, and it is because we live in the Linden Hills area and it is our way of giving back to the community in which we live! Both our businesses have so much in common with those of Linden Hills Businesses (we are small, local, community minded and try hard to be as green as possible). For the past 4 years Pampered Pooch Playground has been a presenting sponsor, and Bubbly Paws has been a sponsor for the past 2 years. The highlight of my day was being one of the judges for the dog trick contest! There were so many great participants! All the products that we had for sale were either made by a local company or a green product! People that stopped out got to have fun in the Photo Booth and sample the doggy beer.
While we were at Woofstock, Trycia and I were walking around with Roxy and were talking to one of the doggy daycare’s that is part of the Twin Cities Dog Daycare Association, and we came up with a great idea for the holidays. We will be meeting about it in the next few weeks to get the ball rolling!
Have a great weekend!
Keith
Cider is one of the dogs that loves to come to doggy daycare at Pampered Pooch Playground!
As some of you might have noticed, “something has been going on in the Ruff House”…. Over the past few weeks, we have been gradually upgrading our HVAC system for the play areas. Most of the work has been completed in the morning, and during that time, we are able to move dogs into other rooms, or use our outside area so that they are not in the way. Fresh, purified air is very important when running a dog daycare (many places never do this), and our old unit was doing pretty good, but it was running on it’s “last legs”…. So rather than waiting for something to break, we take the pro-active approach and do a complete upgrade. While many of our 2 legged customers will never notice any change, all of our 4 legged customers will be very excited for a more efficient system that can switch over the air in the room about 8 times per hour (industry standard is about 3 times per hour). Tomorrow is the big day when we get to flip the switch on the new unit… Like always, construction is never easy to do, and our #1 goal is always to make sure all the dogs are safe and out of the way when they are working. I will give you all the details on the new system soon after we get to turn it on.
Have a good night!
Keith
From time to time, we enjoy making videos of the Doggy Daycare dogs playing and having a great time while they are at our building. The past few weeks we have been making short video clips, and we just edited them to music. Enjoy!
Cheerio at Pampered Pooch Playground from keithppp on Vimeo.
This past weekend, some of Trycia’s family was in town and all of the kids wanted to come to the doggy daycare because they LOVE meeting all the dogs. We stopped in on Saturday and Ava (Trycia’s Niece) carried Sami around the entire time they were at Pampered Pooch Playground. Sami is being fostered at Pampered for Underdog Rescue and would make a great addition! Ava wanted to come back to PPP on Sunday just so she could play with Sami. For more information on Sami, you can click here for his PetFinder page.
Other than visiting the doggy daycare, we also took them to the Minnehaha Dog Park. Check out the video we made.
Have a good night!
Keith
Most dog videos don’t normally make me laugh, but I just saw this one on Good Morning America and thought it was pretty entertaining.
Franklin’s last day at Pampered Pooch Playground ;(
This morning, Franklin’s mom told me that today was his last day at doggy daycare because they were moving to Denver. We always get so sad when our dogs move away and we are really going to miss Franklin!! It is really hard because we become so attached to the dogs!
The funny thing is Trycia and I just got back from a 2 day trip to Denver and we were able to visit 2 doggy daycares while we were there. The fist one we visited was a little older, but you could tell that is was really well run and it is run by a brother and sister. When we did the tour all the dogs seemed very happy. We also visited another one that had a few locations. While it looked amazing form the outside (brand new green grass and a new building) the rest left something to be desired. We were walking through, and their daycare rooms were very small , and the tour guide said that they can have over 150 dogs a day for daycare (we don’t even take that many and our play areas are about 2 times the size). They toured us through the cages and they were really nice with TV’s. I started thinking that the dogs could really care less about the TV, and that really is only something that is for the owners. At the end they handed us their price list and they had so many add on’s that it was confusing. I have never been a fan of up-selling and you will notice that we don’t do it. If we had to leave Roxy at one of the palces we visited, I would without a doubt leave her at the first one that was family run. They took the time to ask questions and get to know us and our dog. The 2nd location just went through the motions and never even asked what type of dog we had and had more of a corporate feel. I told Franklin’s mom that I would send them the names of the places we visited so that he can have a good place to stay!
We always strive to be the best dog daycare in the Twin Cities, and are always looking for ideas and suggestions. Feel free to contact me at anytime if you have feedback.
Thanks again and have a great night!
Keith
