If I could give 6 stars, I would. Ruth Ellen has been a life saver for my husband and me. He…read moreworks long hours and I am temporarily spending half of my time in another state for work. She has been able to take great care of our Vizsla (Moose) with extremely flexible hours and short notice. Moose is beyond excited to spend the day her and he gets plenty of exercise and interaction with other dogs. I am never worried when he is under her care and I would recommend her to anyone looking for daycare or boarding.

Ruth Ellen is wonderful with my dog, who has some social anxiety issues and is not always the best…read morewith strangers. Her rates are reasonable, and she is very accommodating to my schedule - often able to work in last-minute schedule changes. She goes above and beyond just walking my dog around my neighborhood; often coming to pick him up and take him to the local trails.

Cahleigh was awesome with my animals. She is very experienced with medical care and was well…read morequalified for my special needs pets. She was great with communication and I received frequent updates with photos. I had no hesitation with leaving her the keys to my house and was very pleased when I returned and she left a cute fridge magnet that says I'm in the furry feet club! Best of all, my pets loved her and the way she handled them.

My wife and I have two special needs Great Danes. Both are deaf, geriatric, and both require…read moremedications. In fact, our oldest Dane, is 12 and a half years old. My wife is a vet tech with almost 20 years experience. I, can't have kids, so basically? We have four legged kids. Cahleigh, for the first time ever, was able to make our time out of town, completely relaxing. She came over to meet the kids about a week before we were going to leave, she spent about an hour getting the routines written down, she had an actual clipboard with a set of questions, that enabled her to make sure all needs were met. Her rates for overnight stays were completely reasonable, and honestly, with the amount of care given to our animals, she could justifiably charge much more. She sent updates, with pictures, several times a day, made sure we knew everything that had been going on from the moment we left town, to the moment she arrived at our place to take care of our family. She's nothing but professional, and even put our bed sheets in the washer, and washed out the dogs food and water bowls before leaving. She's absolutely magnificent with animals, and I know for a fact, we'll be asking her to come back again the next time we leave town.

Have used this service since I moved to Charlottesville. Excellent and highly recommend.read more

Use them for out cat sitting needs. They send us pictures every day we are gone. No problems with…read morethem.

Sadly returning to work and 45 minute (round-trip) commute meant that my dog was getting locked for…read morelonger during the day than I would long. Since he likes to chew things (like dry wall...) I have no choice but to put him in a pen. The combination led me to find a dog-walker to let him out around lunch time on my longer work days. I would definitely recommend Rover's Recess to anyone. They are really nice, they will work with your schedule, can come with as little as 24 hours advance notice and they will treat your dogs great. They are probably not as cheap as someone you find on Craig's List or something, but you can be sure it is a good person who is coming in your house and walking your dog.

Been using them for 2 years now to care for our two dogs. They treat them as their own. One of our…read moredogs got sick all around his cage one day, they cleaned it up and him for us! Never asked for an extra fee for this. Would highly recommend and already have referred two friends to them who still use the service. Not sure about the one star review, suspect their is more to that story.

Rod is the best. It is easy to see his love of animals. Great service and communication!read more

From the owner: Charlottesville Pet Care provides stress free environments for your extended family. Our clients…read moreand animals become apart of our family and we treat them as such.

Megan is a wonderful caregiver for my pets when I am away. She updates me with pictures during her…read morevisits. My cats really like her and I know I am able to travel without worries.

Such a great resource- it's the next best thing to having my cat and dog with me- and great…read morecommunication. Fetch really saved the day when I had to leave suddenly.

Very prompt & reliable - convenient scheduling and billing Responsive to customer needs and pet…read moremanagement/ wellbeing

Do NOT use Sara Lutz Pet Services for your dog walking/pet sitting needs. I never even got to the…read morepoint of having Sara or one of her walkers complete a service for my dog, Luna, because from my initial interaction with Sara, she exhibited nothing but unprofessionalism, disrespect, and dishonesty. I had heard from other people in my neighborhood that Sara herself was not a very reliable person (especially when it comes to communication) and that several of the walkers with her company were also unreliable, dishonest, and disrespectful in clients' homes, but she did have a couple 5-star reviews so I decided to give her a shot. I have since discovered that one of those 5-star reviews on Google is actually from her boyfriend (Zander L.), so is probably not a true or honest review of her services or company. My experience with Sara started with me asking her to explain some of the negative things I had heard about her and her company after she had confirmed all my requested services for the next 2 months. The issues brought to my attention were: (1) Sara is a poor communicator and you can never get ahold of her in a timely manner; (2) her walker Alex (or Alexandra as she is listed on your service confirmation emails) has actually been caught not only lying about the times she is at clients' homes completing services but has also been caught going through their drawers/cabinets/personal belongings and taking/using things in clients' homes for herself without asking first; and (3) some of her walkers treat clients' homes as their own and have caused significant damage to personal belongings, furniture, and walls with Sara refusing to message clients back after the damage has occurred. I never got any explanation for any of these encounters and in fact never even got an answer back from Sara to my initial email asking about these issues. I started cancelling my services about 5-6 days after initially sending the email and let Sara know that I would continue cancelling services until she had responded and I knew I could feel comfortable moving forward with her company. She sent me an email to my cancellation request saying that she was out of town starting that day and would return two days later, but then would respond to my initial email then. First of all, she had to send an email to tell me she couldn't respond to my initial email? That's laughable. However, her supposed return date and date of response came and went, and I still never received an email response from her. This is evidence that not only is Sara a poor communicator, but also blatantly dishonest since she told me I could expect a response from her upon her return and that response was never received. I cancelled a few more services and sent 2 more follow-up emails asking her to please email me back so I could decide if her company was a good fit for my pup and our needs. She still has never responded, so I have cancelled all remaining services and will be looking elsewhere for my dog walking needs. Everything that everyone has said about Sara being unreliable, unprofessional, and an extremely poor communicator has remained true for me. If you can't even get ahold of her when you're scheduled to have close to $5,000 worth of pet services completed with her company, imagine trying to get ahold of her in an emergency. Save yourself a headache and a lot of frustration and do not support Sara Lutz Pet Services. So far Sammy's Dog Walking in the Charlottesville area seems to be far more reliable and professional and much easier to get ahold of.

These folks are amazing. I called them to get urgent help for me door-eating dog, and they came…read moreover that same day to meet him. By the end of the week they had him on a schedule, walking 3 times a week for a half hour, to train him to walk on a leash. Once he can do that (which may take a while, he's hard-headed :)) he is going to go on adventure walks with them, which are basically long hikes with 2-3 dogs at a time, that completely tire your pooch out. I have two walkers that work with my dog, and they are both awesome. They send me an email after every walk, with pictures of my dog and a progress report of how he's doing. They also are bonded and insured, and offer to keep keys to the house so they can come in while you are at work and exercise the pooch. And get this- it's $20 for the walk... and $5 for every extra 15 mins! And that is for one or two dogs... very reasonable. So much so that I can definitely afford the 3 days a week walking, and seeing my puppy so happy at the end of the day is worth it. Love these guys.

UPDATE: 7/23/17: I'm…read morewriting an update to this review 7 years later, still as a loyal client of Canine Adventure. Unfortunately, my 3 boys (Ozzy, Tyler, and Bono) have since passed away, but my 2 new pups (Cannon and Hollywood) are still regular adventurers. They get to go hiking and swimming with Marti every couple of weeks - with Cannon generally finding some enormous stick or piece of trash to keep him entertained and Holly swimming laps in the river and playing chase with other dogs. They always come home happy and tired. There is a review posted from someone named "Matin" (which I assume is made up as it is a brand new account and contains false information) that says someone from Richmond Boxer Rescue steered him away from CA. I am the founder and president of RBR and a loyal client for almost 10 years now. Many of my fosters and volunteers use them and love them as well. NO ONE from my organization knows who this person is or said anything negative about CA, so that is a blatant lie. Review from 2010: I cannot say enough good things about Josh and Canine Adventure! Aside from actually being able to sometimes make my boxer, Ozzy, slightly tired (a nearly impossible feat), Josh was always reliable, responsible and ended up being a good friend! My own dogs (Ozzy, Tyler and Bono) were lucky to get Adventure Walks with him every week! The highlight of their week was seeing Josh pull up in front of the house! In addition to working with my own dogs, Josh graciously worked with my many fosters through Richmond Boxer Rescue. He donates his time to several other local rescue groups as well. The walks and training were an invaluable asset to the foster dogs as were the AMAZING photos he would take on the walks! We moved to the west coast but would still be loyal clients if we were in Richmond! I so wish there were a service like this available here!

Great facility! I took my dog here for swimming. They have big dog pools and small dog pools…read more Assisted swim for all dogs at the start and free swim later if your dog is a strong swimmer. A lot of people come here to help their dogs recover from injury. My dog wasn't injured but I just wanted to give her some enrichment. She loved it!

Amanda has been awesome with Loki. When our pup broke her leg, Heather and I knew it would be a…read morelong road. What we didn't know is that when the splint was removed, Loki wouldn't know how to use her back leg anymore. With Amanda's help Loki is back to normal. We are so happy with how she took care of Loki. On top of that Niko loved visiting Amanda and everyone knows how picky he is when it comes to making friends.

Samantha at Pawville did a fabulous job grooming my miniature poodle today…read more My little guy is disabled and does not have the use of his hind legs. This means that many groomers are not willing to take him on since he can't stand on his own. But he's used to being groomed and the groomer where I used to live always told me that he was sweet and well-behaved. Samantha was just wonderful with him today. I was very nervous because of terrible experiences with other groomers in the area that I had tried. But Samantha was very patient and listened attentively to all my concerns. She was ready to take him when I walked in and he was ready to go at the exact time she told me he would be ready. Pricing was in line with what other's have charged. Pawville's new location at 3048 C Berkmar Dr. is super clean and is in a great, easy to reach location. So happy that I finally found a groomer I feel I can trust. Thank you, Samantha!

Samantha and her husband are wonderful! Our dog literally gets so incredibly excited to go to the…read moregroomer... which I can't figure out for the life of me bc he is crated (he isn't at home) AND bathing/brushing him at home is a nightmare. Safe to say it must be their personal touch. He is a Portuguese Water Dog (so have to groom every 8-10 weeks) and he always comes back looking great. Very receptive to tweaks when we decided we liked his ear fur shorter and head less round. and now as a repeat customer, they know exactly what we want which is super helpful so either me or my husband can do the drop offs without having to attempt to describe what he should look like instead of the overgrown fluff ball standing in front of them.