The Girls Past The First Test

Normally when we go out of town the girls stay at the PetSmart Hotel, which has been great. Since our girls are very outgoing and need to run and play a lot the PetSmart isn’t ideal for long weekends because two 15 minute play sessions just isn’t enough for our very hyper active four legged friends. So, our friends suggested a place called Born to Run which is basically like a dog park with a dog sitter round the clock. The dogs are outside in the very large backyard from 9am until 11:30am when they are put in their kennels for nap time. They are then let out again from 1:30pm until 5pm when it’s dinner time. If they are staying overnight then they get to go back out to play from 7pm until 10:30pm when it’s bed time. This sounded great for when we head to Madison in September and then again in October; however, it’s not just as simple as making a phone call. The girls have to go through two separate tests to make sure they can stay overnight at Born to Run. The first test was this past Thursday when we took them in and filled out paperwork while they tested the girls. They gave Madison and Izzy a tour of the place and then let them out back while they let one dog out at a time to make sure Madison and Izzy could handle it. On Thursday they had about 20 dogs there, but only let out 17 to meet and greet Madison and Izzy. This was because the others are more “in your face” dogs and more aggressive and the owners believe this is too much for a dog on their first test. Only if this place knew our dogs they would know that it would not be too much for them, but they can learn that later. While the workers were doing this Andy and I sat in the lobby waiting to hear how the evaluation was going. We were sitting there feeling like parents trying to get their young children into a very privileged school. It felt kind of weird. Well, we got the good news that Madison and Izzy got along very well with others and were having a great time with the other dogs and we were invited back to get a view of this. Yup, looking out the window Madison was having a blast with the other dogs. She just looked so happy. Izzy was sitting in the shade panting really hard because it was 108 degrees out. Since she is a boxer she can’t handle the heat very well. We assumed that Izzy probably went nuts right away in the backyard and burned all her energy in that first half an hour. The workers said they would normally have kiddie pools back there so the dogs don’t get too hot and they spray them down with the hose. They didn’t do that while we were there because they didn’t want to send us home with wet dogs. That made me feel better for the AZ hot days when the girls could be there. Once the full hour was up we got the good news that they past their evaluation and we got to take them home. The next step is to take them to a full day of puppy daycare to make sure they behave themselves in a full day. I booked that day for Friday, September 11th. Once they complete that evaluation then they are all ready for their weekend stays while we head back to Wisconsin.