SomeMildLanguage
500+ Posts
Some of you are probably familiar with my pooch. That's her in the signature. Here are a couple of other pics:
I know some hornfans folks have met her and/or played with her. She's a little spastic sometimes, but a good run tends to settle her down.
She loves other dogs. She loves people. She loves everything, pretty much, except being away from us. She's extremely well-socialized with other dogs and has never had any aggression problems or any other weirdness around dogs or people.
She also needs a lot of exercise, so we try to take her to doggy daycare every now and then to tire her out. Happy Mailman has been our primary doggy daycare provider for nearly 2 years (right about when they opened). We've also used Taurus.
Well, a couple of months back, we took her to the Happy Mailman in Austin for boarding, while we went on a ski trip. So she stayed a few nights. She had stayed before, with minor problems. Bathroom problems. Runny stool for a couple/few days, etc. Sort of gross, but we figured that's just part of the game. The same had happened at Taurus.
This time was different. She got back with bite marks on her. She also went from an incredibly gregarious and outgoing dog around other dogs to a standoffish and defensive dog around other dogs (although she's just now getting back to normal).
Hmm.
We didn't dwell on it too much, and although she still seems to avoid other dogs and otherwise act much more defensive when they come near her, we didn't hold it against Happy Mailman. A fight could happen anywhere. There had to be some isolated incident, we figured.
Well, okay, so we decided to give Happy Mailman another shot. It was this past weekend, and my wife's sister was getting married. Last week, we were getting a new floor and a new air conditioning system (actually two of them). Lots was happening at our house. We were incredibly busy, but we called to make the boarding reservation.
We asked what time we could bring her in on Saturday and were told "after 9."
Okay.
So I show up to drop off the little gal at around noon.
Rejected.
There's a window from 9-10 in the morning. And we missed the window. And they were sticklers about it, even though they had told us, simply, "after 9."
Okay. Great.
It left us in an INCREDIBLE bind.
Normally, we'd just look up the dropoff times on the internet, but there was absolutely no reason to think "after 9" was not accurate information. And because they had conveyed incomplete information on the phone (and because there was room for our dog), surely they'd make an exception. Wrong. Surely, they'd accommodate us in some other way. Wrong.
The minor illnesses were strike one. The bite marks were strike two. This incident was a double play to end the inning. Happy Mailman lost a customer, AND we're getting back money that we had paid in advance for daycare sessions. Moreover, whether it's the bite marks or behavioral changes or leaving someone in a bind at a critical time, I would hope you might think twice about using Happy Mailman. It's not as happy as advertised.
These are the consequences of poor customer service and policies that are 1) not clearly communicated or 2) not bendable for a loyal customer.
Ultimately, we scrambled and figured out a way to make everything work, although the timing was thrown off considerably and we did miss some of the all-important set-up helping-hand face-time beforehand. The entire weekend could have very well been a disaster, because, unlike with a cat, you can't just leave a dog by itself for a weekend. And finding some other way to board a dog at the very last second is not the easiest thing in the world.
I know some hornfans folks have met her and/or played with her. She's a little spastic sometimes, but a good run tends to settle her down.
She loves other dogs. She loves people. She loves everything, pretty much, except being away from us. She's extremely well-socialized with other dogs and has never had any aggression problems or any other weirdness around dogs or people.
She also needs a lot of exercise, so we try to take her to doggy daycare every now and then to tire her out. Happy Mailman has been our primary doggy daycare provider for nearly 2 years (right about when they opened). We've also used Taurus.
Well, a couple of months back, we took her to the Happy Mailman in Austin for boarding, while we went on a ski trip. So she stayed a few nights. She had stayed before, with minor problems. Bathroom problems. Runny stool for a couple/few days, etc. Sort of gross, but we figured that's just part of the game. The same had happened at Taurus.
This time was different. She got back with bite marks on her. She also went from an incredibly gregarious and outgoing dog around other dogs to a standoffish and defensive dog around other dogs (although she's just now getting back to normal).
Hmm.
We didn't dwell on it too much, and although she still seems to avoid other dogs and otherwise act much more defensive when they come near her, we didn't hold it against Happy Mailman. A fight could happen anywhere. There had to be some isolated incident, we figured.
Well, okay, so we decided to give Happy Mailman another shot. It was this past weekend, and my wife's sister was getting married. Last week, we were getting a new floor and a new air conditioning system (actually two of them). Lots was happening at our house. We were incredibly busy, but we called to make the boarding reservation.
We asked what time we could bring her in on Saturday and were told "after 9."
Okay.
So I show up to drop off the little gal at around noon.
Rejected.
There's a window from 9-10 in the morning. And we missed the window. And they were sticklers about it, even though they had told us, simply, "after 9."
Okay. Great.
It left us in an INCREDIBLE bind.
Normally, we'd just look up the dropoff times on the internet, but there was absolutely no reason to think "after 9" was not accurate information. And because they had conveyed incomplete information on the phone (and because there was room for our dog), surely they'd make an exception. Wrong. Surely, they'd accommodate us in some other way. Wrong.
The minor illnesses were strike one. The bite marks were strike two. This incident was a double play to end the inning. Happy Mailman lost a customer, AND we're getting back money that we had paid in advance for daycare sessions. Moreover, whether it's the bite marks or behavioral changes or leaving someone in a bind at a critical time, I would hope you might think twice about using Happy Mailman. It's not as happy as advertised.
These are the consequences of poor customer service and policies that are 1) not clearly communicated or 2) not bendable for a loyal customer.
Ultimately, we scrambled and figured out a way to make everything work, although the timing was thrown off considerably and we did miss some of the all-important set-up helping-hand face-time beforehand. The entire weekend could have very well been a disaster, because, unlike with a cat, you can't just leave a dog by itself for a weekend. And finding some other way to board a dog at the very last second is not the easiest thing in the world.
