A Dog’s Life in New Haven has an anniversary Pawty coming up!  I sat down with Amy to chat more about what’s new at ADL, New Haven’s Best Doggie Day Care, you can read the interview below:

Your business has a birthday coming up! 

The building is celebrating 5 years, but A Dog’s Life, LLC as been around since 2008.

Tell me about how you got started.

Well it’s a bit of a long story, so let’s see if I can give you the cliff notes version.

I was looking to rescue a dog to do therapy work with maybe visit VA or Children’s Hospitals.  I knew nothing about how to pick the right type of dog and relied on the rescue group for guidance.  I unknowingly got a dog from a fake rescue group with all sorts of fear issues. (it was raided by the State four days later)  As I learned to take care of a dog that needed more that just the basic training classes, a passion for dogs grew.

I still have that dog today! Miss Pepper is not perfect, but she is a great dog who has come a long way.

You have a new program all about Puppies!  What is that about?

We are in the developing stages of our Puppy Daycare Program.

From birth to about 16 weeks is a critical time for puppies to learn both good and bad behaviors.  Our program will help new owners get their pups off on the right paw in regards to: Potty Training, Crate Training, Bite Inhibition, Body Handling, Resource Guarding, etc.

Basically, we want to give them the confidence and tools to be good “balanced” dogs.

What gave you the idea to start the Puppy Daycare vs your regular Doggie Daycare?

The idea came to me in two stages.

First are the frantic phone calls we get. “I just got this 10 week old puppy and I have to go to work on Monday can I bring it to doggie daycare”?

Puppies have different needs than adult dogs and for safer playgroups all of our dogs in daycare are spayed or neutered. This automatically disqualified those folks from using our services as their puppies are too young for spay/neuter.

Secondly, I attend many industry training seminars, trade shows and workshops to stay current on important topics.

At the last trade show I attended a workshop about Puppycare and all the pieces fell into place for me.  Many of the puppies coming in at 7, 8, 9 months had missed out on critical social development.

They were harder to walk on leash, not properly crate trained and would jump and nip the staff.  So by having the puppies start as early as possible will set them up for a lifetime of success!

You’re really into Dog Nutrition, what do you wish more people knew about their dog’s nutrition?

Feed the best food you can afford! Educate yourself, learn how to read labels and stay informed.

Two sources I like to use are the Whole Dog Journal and Dogfoodadvisor.com.

If you are reading this right now, I urge you to find out how well your food is rated.  Some people are turned off by the price of a healthy dog food, but you actually feed 10% less because the nutritional value is all there. Meaning no cheap fillers like corn or soy, which cause you to feed more by volume.

And lastly, don’t be afraid to advocate for your dog at the vet or the pet supplies store. Sometimes they like to talk you products they want to move or get incentives to push.

What would you like people to know about coming in to try A Dog’s Life?

We are looking for great owners and great dogs!

We want to work with you and your dog, so that you can have a wonderful relationship.  This means we give really honest feedback to help figure out what is best for your dog.

Examples would be: If your dog is shy we might recommend coming in early, so your dog is the first one in daycare.  If your dog is jumpy and pulls on leash we might recommend some training and/or a specific type of harness.

At A Dog’s Life, our main concern is the heath and happiness of your dog.

I forgot to mention our Pawty is Saturday April 23rd 11am-4pm. Follow us on FB as we announce all the fun things we’ll be doing to celebrate!

I’ve been to a couple of your Birthday Pawty’s and they are always fun!  Can’t wait!