Neddie (Ellen’s dog) and Hubble the corgi puppy who belongs to Kelly M (one of our staff).
I have to give a big thanks to Ellen our general manager (and Neddie’s mom) who filled in for me today! For the past week I have been dealing with a pretty bad toothache and the only time the dentist could get me in to work on it was this morning at 8:30. The only reason I bring this up is because Ellen gave up her day off today to come in and cover my shift in the lobby. This is something I LOVE about our staff, they are always willing to fill in where needed. After I was done at the dentist today around 11, I texted the daycare and asked if she wanted me to come in.. She said that it was ok, and i should just relax at home. So I am giving Ellen a huge shout out on our blog tonight for helping out today! Oh, my tooth is feeling much better, but the root canal hurt just as much as everyone said it would 
Funny thing… As I was waiting for the dentist, one of our customers was there and made a reservation with me for doggy daycare while sitting in their waiting room. Random!
Speaking of Ellen, her boyfriend designed some really cool shirts that we will have for sale at Pride this weekend. Stay tuned to see what they look like!
Have a good night!
Keith
Because I worked in the media for 11 years before opening Pampered Pooch Playground, I know how much celebrities value their privacy. We often get asked in the lobby if any famous people bring their dogs to us, and they do… But because we value their privacy we will never mention who they are on the website, Facebook or Twitter. I know you really want to know who they are, so lets just say we have had at least one of the following in the past 2 years:
- Minnesota Twins Player
- Minnesota Wild Player
- Minnesota Vikings player
- Musician (no it was not Prince)
- Radio Personality
- TV Personality
- DJ
- Artist
So there you go.. You can guess and guess, but we will never tell you who they are, heck, you might even run into them in the lobby sometime.
Have a good night.
Keith
Pampered Pooch Playground and Bubbly Paws Dog Wash are excited to be part of this years Twin Cities Pride Festival. Make sure to stop at our booth to see what fun events we have going on (we are just finishing the details). Pampered Pooch Playground is one of the founding members of the Twin Cities Dog Daycare Association, which is sponsoring the Doggie Drag Show and the Dog Play Area. Click here for a handy dandy map of the festival. Last year, KSTP talked to Keith and Trycia about why they support the Twin Cities Pride Festival, click here to watch it.
Pampered Pooch Playground / Bubbly Paws Booth Information
Stop out at our booth for lots of fun including our Pooch Lounge with free samples of doggy beer, Beds to relax on, Doggy Ice Cream and photo sessions from Modern Life Photo.
Doggy Drag Show Information
Come join the fun at 3:00 PM on Saturday, June 23rd. Registration is day of and will open at 2:00 PM. Sign up at the Twin Cities Dog Daycare Association Booth (it will be very close to the Pampered Pooch Playground booth). There will be a few props available to use, but we strongly suggest bringing your own Doggy Gaga or Elton Dog costume. The Grand Prize winner gets to be in the Pride Parade Sunday, June 24 and they receive a pretty sweet prize package. On a side note, Keith will be one of the judges!
Doggy Play Area Information
The Twin Cities Dog Daycare Association is proud to sponsor the Doggy Play Area. There will be some games and activities for you and your pooch.
Twin Cities Dog Daycare Association Information
Pampered Pooch Playground is one of the founding members of the Twin Cities Dog Daycare Association. The The Twin Cities Dog Daycare Association encourages the pursuit of excellence by our member daycares through honest effort, fair play and personal integrity, we will provide appropriate information and resources necessary to promote dog daycares as a viable and safe industry in the Twin Cities and creates a set of standards that each of the members must abide by. Other members of the group are Downtown Dogs, Dog Day Getaway and Dog Days.
This weekend Trycia and I went to Chicago to check out the Cubs/White Sox Game. We went to the game with my good friends Judd and Cindy who own a doggy daycare just outside Chciago. We spent about 1/2 the game talking about the businesses. We also decided that it would be a great idea to trade daycares for a few days. Seriously, how much fun would that be? I really do enjoy checking out other daycares. We had a few moments to kill before flying back and we checked out one of the nicer daycares in the Chicago area (you might recall a blog post close to this from the fall). We walked in and everyone was super nice, and the place was well run. The one thing I did not like is the non-stop barking that was taking place. Seriously, I would have gone home with a headache after working for 30 minutes there. It did not stop and the staff did nothing to control it. Crazy!! Maybe you just get accustomed to the loud noise, but I know Roxy would be hiding and shaking in the corner. We did pick up some really good ideas from this place and will be updating a few things in the next month or so.
Hope everyone had a good weekend!
Keith
Lilly, the Basset Hound, has been coming to the Pampered Pooch Playground for over 3 years, and enjoys hanging out in the Canine Cove. Summer is one of her favorite months because she gets to sunbath in our outdoor play area, and play with the sprinkler. One of Lilly’s talents is “show me your belly”, where she rolls over on her back with her feet up in the air (check out our photo gallery for a picture of Lilly doing this). Lilly is also a regular in the PPP hotel and her parents love to watch her on the luxury suite webcam. Each day when Lilly comes in her dad gives her a carrot before she gets to go see all of her friends! We love Lilly and glad she is part of the PPP family!
I often think back to when I was working in radio and how we were treated by the management and owners of the station. At the station I worked at in Minneapolis, it was a locally owned station, the owners knew your name and everyone really enjoyed working there and they always had fun events for the staff. Prior to working in Minneapolis, I worked for the largest group of radio stations in the country. Working for them did have some benefits, but you were honestly treated like a number and hard work was very rarely rewarded. We never want to turn into this. I often think back to when we first opened and we had 4 employees and from day 1 we always tried to make working at PPP fun and rewarding. We have chosen to run our doggy daycare like the station I worked for in Minneapolis. We really do value all of our employees and love having fun outside of work with everyone. This summer we put together a PPP kickball team with employees. Tonight was our second game and we won! We really do have fun outside of the PPP!
Have a good night.
Keith
Please note that we posted this on April Fools Day…..
Starting Monday, April 9th, Pampered Pooch Playground will expand and begin offering baby daycare in our canine cove. But, this is no typical baby daycare, they will be interacting with the dogs in the canine cove. What can be better than 10 dogs and 10 babies all having fun in the same room. We will be lowering the webcams so you can see the happy expressions on all the babies faces when they are crawling around with all the dogs. Once a baby reaches 1 year old they will be able to interact with the dogs in the Ruff House. One final change will be our name… It will now become “Pampered Pooch and Baby Playground”. Prices for baby daycare will be the same rate as our dog daycare rates. Within the next 60 days, we hope to expand our baby daycare into baby overnight care. You can make your reservations for baby daycare by clicking here. Feel free to contact us with any questions.
We have been warning all of our customers that that the Flea and Tick season is going to be a big one this year. We require all of our doggy daycare and hotel dogs to be on prevention from April-October, but this spring, it might not be a bad idea to start early. FOX 9 did a great story on how to protect your pooch!
Warm Weather Brings Fleas, Ticks Out Early: MyFoxTWINCITIES.com
Chego loves to play outside at doggy daycare!
Today, I jsut took the 3rd call from one of those 1/2 price deal companies… You might have heard of them, their name starts with a G and ends in PON. Anyway, the guy said that we shoudl offer a deal (this is the 4th time in a month they have called us). I just wanted to touch on why we have never offered any type of deal for any of our services at Pampered Pooch Playground. Basically when you sell a deal you have to honor it. So if the dog is not a good fit for our doggy daycare we still have to allow them to come until the special runs out. This means we would have dogs that are a bad fit for daycare in the group. The other reason is that they take over 60% of the sale of the offer. So in a nut shell, we always put the safety of your dog ahead of everything else 
Have a good day!
Keith
