For anyone who wonders what their dog’s day looks like when they come for day care or for a stay with us, we’ve described below what a typical day tends to look like. Every day is different when you work with animals, but our rough structure is similar each day.

5am-8am – We wake up – the time is dictated by what dogs we have here and what ‘outs’ I have that day. Dogs are let out for their morning toilet break. We have our breakfast along with giving the dogs their breakfasts. I attempt to do morning yoga – sometimes this is easier said than done as many of the dogs insist on ‘helping’ me! I go out to do any morning visits I have.

8am-11am – Our day cares will usually arrive in this timeframe and once they are all here, I will do the morning walks. Dogs are appropriately grouped together and taken out in groups of 1-6. Walks are 20-40 minutes per group, depending on the exercise requirements of the individual dogs.

11am-2pm (Jacqui) – I head off to my ‘out’ walks and any other visits I have booked in for the day.

11am-2pm (Oli) – Oli stays at home with the dogs. During this time the dogs usually decompress from the morning activities, and many will take a nap. Any dogs that have lunch as part of their normal routine will have them prepared and provided by Oli.

2pm-4pm – The dogs get excited when I arrive home. We have our lunch. I do any admin work that needs to be done.

4pm-6pm – I get the dogs out for their afternoon walks (20-40 minutes, groups of 1-6). Depending on the dogs, Oli may offer them some enrichment, especially if we only have the one dog as they won’t have anyone else to play with. Many of our older dogs simply want to sleep and we don’t force enrichment on them if this is the case. Once the dogs have settled down after their walks/enrichment, we will work out our groups and timings for the following day.

5pm-8pm – During this timeframe the day care dogs usually get picked up to go home for the day. It’s generally between 5-6.30pm but can sometimes be later. We often have dogs arriving for boarding during this window as well.

6pm-7pm – This is generally when we feed the boarding dogs their dinners (we wait until day care dogs have gone home).

7pm-10pm – After we’ve done the dog’s dinners, we have our dinner. Then we settle in for the evening before bedtime. We generally try to discourage play so the dogs can relax and calm down before they are put to bed.

9pm-10pm – The dogs are given their last toilet break before we settle them in their designated rooms for the night and head to bed ourselves. We keep an eye on the dogs using the cameras so we can make sure they are settling for bed. If anyone is having trouble settling we will make appropriate adjustments and try again. Sometimes one of us will have to sleep on the sofa to ensure everyone has a stress-free night.

The dogs have access to a secure garden throughout the day for toilet breaks and short exercise sessions (weather dependent).

At any time during the day we may have a dog arriving or leaving for boarding. This sometimes changes plans/timings.

Weather conditions can have a big impact on our plans for the day, especially during the summer with the (what seems to be endless, in recent years) heat. It may result in the dogs’ walks being shorter than is ideal in order for us to get all of them walked before it gets too hot. We always try to make up for this with enrichment in the house.