Once you arrive, one of our employees will greet you & your dog, where an initial evaluation takes place to see if your dog(s) are comfortable with being handled by Playful Acres Attendants. For the next step, we’ll ask you to step out of the room, so we may begin to slowly introduce your dog(s) to other dogs, one by one, to see how they interact with the pack. You can expect to be here anywhere from 10-20 minutes, if things are looking good, you’re free to go and we’ll continue to assess your dog through play until 2-3pm assessment pickup time! In our open & social environment, it is extremely important that we exclude dogs that exhibit any form of aggressive behavior, destructiveness, excessive shyness, severe separation anxiety or excessive mounting. All dogs must complete this assessment process before entering our group play environment for future boarding or daycare; safety is always first!

Along with our entry requirements, in general it’s important your dog has three components developed:

1. Comfortable around people.
2. Comfortable around groups of dogs.
3. Comfortable in new settings, around new people and around a new group of dogs *while away from the owner(s)*. It’s important to note that even well socialized dogs may act differently when out of the company of their owner(s)!

A playful personality is also definitely an asset, however, exploring types may also enjoy their time!

Our boarding dogs play with our daycare dogs all day long! Aside from feeding times, our boarding dogs are on the same day-to-day schedule as our daycare dogs, meaning they’re free to play & explore our massive facility all day long! A traditional kennel takes the dogs out of their cage/kennel for a play or a walk a couple of times per day – usually 20 mins apiece. A traditional kennel may also have individual dog runs where the dog is isolated from other dogs for the duration of the stay. Playful Acres is entirely different, our philosophy is that every dog should have the ability to play & explore to their heart’s content, ending each day with a happy & tired dog ready for a comfortable sleep time!

Out of town requests are a bit tricky. We are not a kennel and operate in an open concept environment, we ask that all new dogs come in for an assessment day in advance of an overnight stay to assess whether our hotel is a good fit for him or her. Usually clients from out of town cannot meet this assessment requirement so we unfortunately have to say no to a reservation requests from out of the Edmonton area (Edmonton, Leduc, Sherwood Park & St.Albert). If you are able to come in for an assessment day prior to your planned boarding stay, please let us know!

We do this for a couple reasons.

Firstly, our boarding capacity is limited, and we want to make sure we have space for our regular customers, especially during busy times like weekends and holidays.

Second, and more importantly, we do it for the overall happiness of the dogs & pack. With our open concept, having our boarding dogs fully trust us, the environment and other dogs is crucial for a successful & stress-free stay. We have found that dogs who come only for occasional boarding stays have a harder time settling in and often end up being stressful for them and disruptive to the pack.

Because every dog is different, we can’t specify how many daycare visits are required before a dog can board with us. Instead, we look at the individual dog’s reaction to daycare to determine when we feel they are ready, your dogs’ progress will be communicated thoroughly through regular daycare visits!

We require that all dogs be vaccinated against Rabies, Bordetella & DHPP. All dogs must also be on a flea prevention program from April to November.

We do feed lunch for daycare dogs! Please ensure you bring your dogs’ lunch in a small container or zip lock bag that is  labeled. Please note, breakfast or dinner is only given to boarding dogs!

Yes, we have over 2 acres of secure fenced outdoor play area available for your pup to explore & 4,000~ sq ft of secured indoor climate controlled space for boarding & inclimate weather days!

For anymore questions please email us at hello@playfulacres.ca for the fastest & most accurate reply!