How Seattle Canine Club can help you! Daycare and more

It’s no secret that Seattle Canine Club has its interest in providing daycare, boarding, and grooming, but we wanted to take the time to explain the true benefits of bringing your pup to daycare! We’ll cover everything from being able to assist in breaking through things like anxiety, separation anxiety, as well as being a place to provide socialization and exercise for your dog. Everyone’s different, from work schedules to constant travelling, and not everyone is fully available at all times to be able to tend to their dogs playful needs! Places like Dog Daycares provide a safe place for fun, play, and while you’re travelling a place to sleep with supervision by highly trained staff!

Firstly, the benefits!

Socialization, Breaking through anxiety, and more

With Dog daycare you can expect a TON of benefits when it comes to your pups growth. Daycares are an amazing place for your pup to be able to socialize and simply put, be a dog to their hearts desire! Dogs before domestication were pack animals that were and continue to be very social animals, so its only natural that they should be able to develop socially both with other humans and other dogs! Outside of socialization, daycares can be a great place for growth to work through anxiety, learning social cues, exercise, and more!

Main Benefits

Socialization

• As we talked about before, socialization is important and while we as humans may get it in our every day life through work, school, or other outside activities and interactions, dog to dog interactions are important for your pup as well! Daycare is a great place for them to be able to fulfill their social needs in a fun but safe environment where they can learn how to interact with other dogs in the most natural way possible. Dogs are born social animals just as humans are and without socialization they can often end up being reactive towards other dogs, anti social, and gain anxiety as a result of no socialization.

(Some) Anxiety and Separation Anxiety

• Piggy backing off of the last point, daycare can also be a great place to help your dog shave off that anxiety that they might’ve gained due to situations like being a quarantine puppy, or having come from a situation where they might’ve been cut off from dog to dog socialization for any reason. While we may not be an end all solution (As at times their anxiety may be the result of something else) we do work with our club members as closely as possible in helping their dog shed off that anxiety through human interaction and dog to dog interaction! We’ve had many stories of previously anxious dogs leaving our facility after some time, confident and happy!

Social Cues

• Social cues especially with younger dogs and puppies are especially important when it comes to socialization and overall interaction! Dogs have a particular system of body language signs, sounds they can make, even posture and showing teeth can have non-aggression related meaning. Learning the language and what their actions can mean to other dogs is extremely important to prevent and limit the possibility of being involved in what could turn into a scuffle!

Exercise

• All dogs regardless of size, temperament, or breed need some form of exercise, otherwise dogs at later stages in their life can develop joint pain and muscle tissue loss and even at their current stage can feel a sense of restlessness which can cause them to start wreaking havoc around the house! All things we ideally want to avoid as a pet owner, and among all that there can even be situations where your pup might whine consistently or even be generally withdrawn due to a lack of stimulation. Daycare provides them a place to run around, hang out with their dog friends, and even be in a place where you can ask us to ensure that your pup receives some one on one time!
• Our wonderful employee Robert is spearheading our new enrichment program where your pup can spend one-on-one time with Robert, one of our in house experts in dog behavior and can provide personalized time in the day to give your pup the exercise and stimulation they need!

Purpose

• While this does specifically relate to exercise, we found that dogs who move from farm lands and wide open fields can have a tough time adjusting to smaller spaces with not as much freedom as they’re used to, of course here we’re talking about specifically working dogs! Working dogs for a very long time have been bred to work a specific job, either that be to herd, guard, or even hunt, these purposes have been ingrained into their DNA and we as a daycare want to provide the best possible outlet for them to run around, burn off some energy, and feel that their energetic needs are met!

 

The best stages in a dogs life to bring them to daycare!

Hint: Any stage is a great stage to do so!

Starting young is important for dogs to quickly gain and learn social skills, but any dog at any age is very capable of learning! We want to emphasize that any and every dog can absolutely make daycare work, whether it be a dog you adopted through a shelter, a dog from a breeder, or even one you might’ve found completely by chance, they deserve a chance to be able to experience a safe and social space with humans who aim to help them with their learning journey!

Puppies – Socialization in this stage of their life is CRITICAL as this’ll be the building blocks for the rest of their lovely pup lives, and a safe but open environment is key! Dog parks can be an issue for some as anyone and everyone can come and go as they please, which runs a big risk, while at daycares (Including ours!) they’re able to vet the parents and the dogs that are brought in as well as confirming things like up to date vaccinations and that all dogs that come in are in good health. Dog parks while a great resource, don’t have the same guarantees as a daycare would.

Adolescent Dogs – Dogs once they enter this stage have what feels like an infinite amount of energy, and while we often want to be the best owners possible, life can happen and scheduling can be difficult, especially if your dog can go non stop for hours with minimal breaks. This is where daycares can be a great resource as they’ll have hours of playtime at their disposal while being in a safe environment with their fellow pup friends!

Additionally – High energy Dogs and Working Breeds are also dogs we would highly recommend for daycare! Some dogs need an outlet to be able to get their seemingly unlimited energy out or to even feel some sense of fulfillment as it might be apart of their DNA to do so, either way Daycare can be a great consistent outlet for dogs to be able to get their energy release and in turn you’ll be able to see an improvement in at home behavior!

To note – We do want to advise that some dogs have the possibility of not being able to work as well in a Dog Daycare – nonstop environment. Extremely anxious puppies, very anxious adult dogs, and reactive/aggressive dogs are ones we would typically advise to seek out a trainer before going into daycare as they’ll be able to provide expert consultation and advice for being able to tackle these specific issues on a much deeper level, as they would be able to provide a long term solution or possibly even medication if needed.

What’s Next?

The team at Seattle Canine Club prides itself in being able to provide excellent services and being your own local experts in pet care, we would love to be able to provide our services to the people of Seattle and we want YOU in soon! As the summer season approaches we find ourselves busier and busier so book soon! You’ll be able to find more details on our Daycare page, and more interesting blogs here as well, anything from in season fruits and veggies to new updates as to what’s happening here at SCC!