Unfortunately, we had a bad experience boarding our dog with Amanda, and we would/will not recommend Amanda as a dog boarder. She herself has 2 dogs, and one was barking most of the time I was present at drop-off. When dropping our dog off, the bark collar was on the TV shelf, and it beeped. She said she just leaves it there to keep her personal dogs from barking inside. Based on her explanation, it seemed clear that the collar was for her own dogs. She did not state that she would also use the collar on my dog, nor did she ask permission. She was informed of our dog’s breed, size and that he likes to bark in the initial message that was sent. She should have mentioned right away if our dog barks a lot that she would put the bark/shock collar on him. Having a bark collar was not something that we would have agreed to had she disclosed that this is her practice. Our dog had never experienced this before and he was also in an unfamiliar place. Amanda put a bark/shock collar on our dog without ever asking permission or letting us know, and then she lied about it multiple times. We found out that she put the bark collar on our dog by seeing it in the pictures she sent via text. Had we not noticed that, we never would have known about it. When I asked about it via text message, she said that she had it on a low setting, and that she put the collar on our dog because her neighbors were having a BBQ that day and she did not want to bother them. Additionally, our review of the pictures that she texted us the previous day shows that the collar was on our dog the day before as well. We appreciated the many pictures and updates she sent during our dog’s stay, yet we do not know what information she gave to us we can actually believe. We were disconcerted that she did not ask our permission to put the collar on our dog, and that it seemed like she had been dishonest with us about using the collar by omitting the fact that she uses it on other peoples’ dogs when we talked about it. We voiced our concern when we picked up our dog, explaining that we should have been made aware of the fact that she uses bark collars so that we could make an informed decision on whether to leave our dog in her care. We also stated that in the future if she is going to put a bark collar on a dog she should make sure that the owners are aware that is her policy to use the bark collar, and that she needs to get permission from the dog’s owner to use the collar. She immediately became defensive and stated that she took good care of our dog. She stated that we were irresponsible pet owners because we did not pick him up right away when we noticed that he had a bark collar on him. She then claimed that the collar was for her fifteen pound dog, and that it did not even have batteries in it - another lie! Why would you put a bark collar on a dog without batteries? – That makes no sense! When we called her out on her lie she admitted that there were batteries in the bark collar. Dogs bark, and if you are going to advertise that you board dogs, then you should be prepared for barking, or not board dogs. Later she texted and stated that she did not do anything wrong or inhumane. Based on the fact that she had lied to us, and admitted that she lied to us, I don’t know if she is trying to convince us, or convince herself that she did nothing wrong. If she did not do anything wrong, then why did she omit the fact that she uses the collars on the dogs she boards, and why did she lie about the collar having batteries in it? The collar may not have harmed our dog, but we do not know. We certainly are not going to take her word for it.

Amanda was so wonderful to work with! Communication was very easy and she is so kind! Winston loved his stay with Amanda and I will definately use her in the future! She even sent photo updates of him. I will definately use her in the future. Thanks Amanda!!