Airpet Hotel

Total jerks. Had a reservation weeks in advance. Showed up at the appointed time, only to find the place is deserted! Called their phone, and voicemail said they’ve «suspended operations while they search for a new location.» Well, they didn’t bother to call us to let us know we couldn’t board our dog there, so we were screwed on an early Saturday a.m. with no where else to go. Everywhere else in town was full. I can excuse that you might lose your lease, but not that you won’t call people who had reservations to tell them you can’t take their pet. If they reopen, hell will freeze over before I go there again.

Oh sure there’s a certain convenience factor here, but that’s where the love stops for me of late. Just step into the shabby lobby with the lean-​to product merchandising and you’ll likely agree. Dropping pets off is a lesson in frustration. Did they remember my reservation? Will I be changed what I was quoted? What is that smell?
I have used Airpet for quite sometime now, but my patience has been exhausted. What started as a terrific idea that was well worth any short-​term inconvenience has turned into a real question mark.
And I can’t leave my dogs with someone or someplace i have questions about. Who could?

Brought my Dog Yankee for a 2 day stay from 11 – 23 9 am to 11 – 26 4:30 pm. We provided a bed, food and snacks. The only thing they asked us for was an emergency phone number. When we picked up Yankee on 11 – 25 his paws were bloody raw and he had a rip in his eyelid and he was shaking. There was a glob of puss in his eye from the injury. We have gross pictures of this. We had to throw the bed out it smelled so badly. They claimed Yankee scratched himself. That is impossible where the wound was. The place smells realy bad of urine BTW!
We called the Vet when we got home. He told us apply warm compresses and see her in the morning. Yankee was very listless and started shaking violently through the night. The whole family got no sleep. The Vet saw him in the morning to check his cornea was not scratched and luckily it was not. The Vet noticed Yankee was not himself and told us to bring him back if anything seemed wrong. His eye is still pretty bad.
11 – 26 Calling the Airpet Hotel someone named Julie answered. She informed me that nothing was logged in regards to any fights etc. but would get back to me when she checked with other staffers. I reiterated it was very serious as Yankee was now throwing up blood and she swore she or another staff member would get back to me. Nobody got back to me all day. I called several times without any answer until finally I got a hold of someone named Josh at around 6 pm Monday 11 – 26. By this time my dog was at the Vet again bleeding from the rectum and throwing up blood in addition to the eye injury. The Vet said a bug of this type takes only a couple days to manifest and they would have to do a battery of test and X-​Rays. He also said he has seen this come from an unclean environment at Kennels.
Josh was very apologetic and forthcoming. He said the Owner Geoff Wittreich was not a very good owner and was not good with the staff or keeping the business clean and safe for the animals. He also informed me his partner was trying to push him out of the business because of the way he acting towards the animals and customers. He shared with me that many wrong things happen and they have gone through staff turnover because people just don’t like working for him. He said not every bad thing is written down in their logs because people are afraid of getting retribution or fired. He said he had to tell me the truth even if he got fired & was sorry.
We talked twice before owner Geoff Wittreich called and informed me that no one called me because there was nothing more to add. He also informed me that they are not responsible for what happens to the animals and used an analogy of my dog’s injury being equal to a kid falling on a playground and skinning his knee. He said the school couldn’t be responsible for that. I was appalled! I told him I don’t pay teachers to watch my kids on the school ground, but if a Nanny showed «Gross Negligence» in watching my kid I would have a case. He would not accept ANY responsibility for the 100’s of $‘s we had spent to that point & growing. He did say he would talk to the Vet the next day and get back to me.
Yankee was on deaths door the next day. The doctor did not know if he would live. Our family was very upset and my wife was crying all day and missed work. When Geoff called on 11 – 28 having talked to the Vet and verified he was very ill told me it was not policy to help victims of his services with Vet bills. I asked him where are these policies? We read nothing of such a sort or signed anything that had any policies on them. I stated that should I not expect «reasonable care» from a professional organization. He had the gall to tell me «That we assume all the risk when leaving our pet in his care». I could not believe what I just heard and said I would be talking to a lawyer and taking other measures such as this to get my now $ 948 in Vet bills reimbursed. I got a form letter basically informing me that I could not prove Yankee got sick from them and they would not pay the Vet bills he asked for from me.

We toured the facility and met with staff. We did not use the facility because we found another place we liked a lot better. Here’s what made us decide to go elsewhere:
It smelled like pee. I know we came right after play time, but still, yuck. The barking is SO LOUD. It’s a big warehouse space with lots of kennels inside it and some large areas for running around. Our dog would probably go insane there since her home environment isn’t that loud. The outside area wasn’t grass or very nice. The overall ambiance is dark and dreary, with dim lighting and it sorta looks like a doggy prison.
I don’t want people to think this place is hideous, it isn’t. The person showing us about was very nice and a staff member stays overnight on the premises to make sure all the dogs are ok. They play music for the dogs and seem to really care about them. It is less expensive than other places and they do a discount on park and ride. They also have very flexible hours and are right next to the airport.
We pay more to go elsewhere where our pup gets more attention in a different environment, but our dog is spoiled rotten and is still a puppy. If you had a regular sorta dog that is used to hanging out by itself and is older, I think this place would be ok. I really advise you check out different places before deciding where your dog should go. They are all different and it is worth being able to compare them with each other before you decide.

I need negative stars for this one.
I had an absolutely terrible experience here. I’ll break it down into level of offenses that occured over my dogs’ (marcus & kiko) 3 stays.
forgiveable oversight — hope to be corrected on next visit:
1. food instructions were not followed
a. I asked for my dogs to be fed separately due to food agression — when i showed up, both dogs’ food bowls were in the same crate together
b. marcus requires wet food mixed in with his dry food — when i showed up, marcus’ food had not been mixed with the wet food
2. my dog’s things were peed on! marcus’ bed and one of the food containers
absolutely unforgiveable:
my dogs are aggressive towards other dogs and i gave specific directions to keep my dogs separated from other dogs. it is understandable in a dog boarding facility that they may get into a fight if paths are crossed and that is exactly what happened. what is NOT acceptable is that i wasn’t told of what happened. i picked my dogs up monday morning and went to work — it is impossible for them to get a fight while i’m at work bc one is in a crate while at home. when i get home from work, it looks like marcus is smuggling chipmunks in his cheeks! WTF! i take him to the emergency vet (over $ 200 bill to go with it) bc I was concerned over constricted airway or any other potential fatal hazard and i find that he had puncture wounds in his mouth that would have to be inflected from another dog. meanwhile, i had called airpet hotel to find out if he had eaten any treats and find out what kind just in case it may have been allergy related — my message was left unreturned. after another call, i was able to explain my story and then i was told a manager would call me back… which he did.
their response: they were very apologetic & offered me free stays equivilent to the cost of the emergency vet bill but said it was against their policy to give money back. they did some investigation and found out that a fence fight had occured and the attendents assumed marcus was okay. they also said they were making changes to the facility in hopes that this type of incident would not happen again. as for the forgiveable oversights, they noted that they had recent changes in staff and therefore they were in transition.
when i went back to pick up my dogs’ belongings, marcus’ bed reeked of urine and they could not find the canned food that i had left.
overall, the people were nice & the prices are very cheap — although if i count the surpirise vet visit — it pretty much doubled the cost… not cheap. the place smelled terrible — i’m not sure how the attendants can stand being in there.