Frequently Asked Questions

Raw Paw is very similar to when you walk around a lot during a day of fun, and get sore feet, or even blisters on your feet. Pads can become raw playing on ANY surface (even carpet!!). For dogs, their paws can get very tender when they are first visiting our facility (some more than others), even if you visit dog parks and do socializing play dates with others. The pups at our facility play with a much higher energy level and create so much more friction on their paws than anyone could possibly simulate. In extreme cases, some pooches even tear their paw pads, or get blisters from activity levels they just haven't experienced before (in a few cases, we have had dogs come in and tear their pads within minutes of entering our play areas, but that is VERY uncommon).

Our handlers are experts at spotting at when our guests have had enough exercise in their opening sessions, and give them extra breaks when needed. We also keep you alerted in your first few pickups and drop-offs that this may occur. We also treat your loved ones paws with Tuff Pad, which helps toughen their paw pads up. If your fur baby does get a case of raw paw, do not let them lick their paws! In most cases, within a day or two they will be back to their old selves. And, in time, their pads will toughen up, and worrying about raw paw will be very uncommon moving forward.

Simply put, pea gravel is impossible to clean, and we have found pea gravel to be uncomfortable for our dogs to play on. In our experience with pea gravel, feces can be picked up for the most part, but urine and remainders of feces that can't be picked up work its way to the bottom of the play areas and can become a harvest area for Parvo and other infectious diseases. The same can be said for simply laying down artificial grass over paved surfaces with no drainage. Our artificial grass is properly drained, and cool to the touch for dogs' paws during the summer heat. At Playtime We try to provide the cleanest, safest play areas for your loved one to enjoy their time on.

We have an area for both our indoor play areas and outdoor play areas where the larger dogs hang out with each other, and another area where the smaller group hangs out with each other, but we do not separate specifically to size. Most groups, however, are generally larger dogs playing with larger dogs, and smaller dogs playing with smaller dogs. Energy level of dogs also factors in to our group distribution.

These are very large areas, as well, providing your loved one with the space to really get out and burn off energy! Other facilities use small play areas, and will have very small groups playing with each other in very confined spaces. For us, these type areas give your pup a "crowded elevator" feeling, and can actually create more instances where dogs could get into scuffles, and possibly get hurt. In our more than 20 years experience, the larger play areas are a far better setup for the play groups than what some of our competitors use.

NO! When you have a few dogs in a group, throwing a ball or kong can be a fun thing for your pup. But, when groups get larger, throwing balls and kongs can lead to scuffles between one or more dogs who are scrambling to get the object. These scrambling pooches can also run over other dogs while chasing balls and kongs, and to be honest, most dogs don't think about the well being of other visitors when they are chasing. Instead, Playtime has PLENTY of play equipment for your loved one to run around, be "king of the hill" on, and play on. We don't just paint a concrete floor and put up some fencing and call it a doggy daycare, we go THE EXTRA MILE for your loved ones by having play equipment that cost tens of thousands of dollars to build in each and every one of our play areas. As you will see in our Facebook photos, this equipment is heavily used, and loved by almost all of our members!!!

We believe more than yearly shots of Bordatella is over-vaccination, and in our work with local Veterinarians, we have found that they agree. However, if you are vaccinating in 6 month intervals, that is allowed.