Robert watched our two dogs, one of which has stranger danger but we were able to arrange a meeting…read moreto help acclimate her before her stay which I think helped. She started to get used to everything on the the second or third day so we think future stays will be much smoother and (hopefully) even fun for her (her housemate loves going to Robert's for a getaway).

This review is long overdue. Robert has been boarding our 10 year old Golden Retriever mix for the…read morepast few years. I couldn't be happier with my experience there. Our senior dog is on heart medication, and Robert does a great job in making sure our dog takes his life saving meds. Communication has always been excellent. I received regular updates and photos of my dog enjoying his stay, which put my mind at ease while we are away. When I picked him up, he was happy, healthy, and clearly well-cared for during his time there. It also says a lot when Clifford tried to follow Robert back to the facility (instead of me) during a recent pickup. He must have really enjoyed his stay there! Overall, I highly recommend Robert! It's reassuring to know that there's a place where I can leave my dog with complete peace of mind.

Roy, Uncle Pawpaw, is the best person to take care of your furry kids! We unexpectedly adopted a…read moreLabrador retriever and he's quite a handful. Roy takes care of him so well whenever we need to board him and he clearly has a lot of fun with his furry friends. We get videos and pictures when he's there and he loves it. Roy is easy to communicate with we trust him with our boy. I highly recommend you to try a meet and greet and bring the pups here.

My boy Duke absolutely loves Roy and his team at Uncle Paw paws! My dog is like Energizer bunny…read morethat never runs out of the battery! Since he's been going to pawpaws, he comes home tired with so much play time. Roy also sends videos of him playing and pics, so I know he's in good hands. Drop and pickup is very convenient, and highly recommend Pawpaws daycare!

Puppies In Play is my favorite place to board my dogs and cats!…read more The care and attention to detail Sarina and her family gives to my furries is priceless. They provide updates, photos and everyone comes back happy and healthy 11/10 we will bring our furries back and recommend to our friends and family!

I've been using Puppies in Play on and off for a couple of years. I typically can handle my two…read morehuskies myself but when I need day care or boarding Sarina is my first thought. She manages her business in a very professional manner and she is very understanding of dogs. I recently boarded them with her for the first time and they had a great time. I trust Sarina with my babies and I know she will look over them as if they're her own!

I'm so pleased to be able to update this review from 2010. How time flies!…read more Our dear Penny whom Shasta helped us with back then passed away in 2015. We started working with Shasta again in 2017 when we got our new pup, a border collie rescue. He came to us emaciated and poorly socialized, needing love and positive experiences to bring him out of his shell. Shasta gave us much-needed training advice, and from there her staff started walking Hugo on group walks, which he's done once a week since 2018. He enjoys these walks so much; they provide wonderful socialization experiences. All the treats and training in the world can get a dog so far, but a strong adult with a great pack really helps with confidence-building and calm. Hugo walks with Toni, who send us pictures of him each week with his crew. I can tell that Hugo is happy with Toni and his pack: as we release him to the car (to maintain social distancing), our pup who usually does not like to leave my side will happy run down the stairs to greet him and hop in the car! Shasta also runs Puptown for boarding. We've only needed this service once, but having been in there and knowing Shasta for so many years, I know that this would be a great resource as well. It has been a pleasure seeing Shasta grow this business for over a decade, and watch it continue to provide the same excellent service it did in the beginning. If you need training support, especially with difficult dogs, a weekly walking group, or more, Bow Wow is a great choice. Review from 2010 I love Shasta. She has walked our dog for well over a year. She been amazing. We have worked with four dog walking companies, and Shasta is a cut above. As a handler, Shasta knows dogs and dog behavior. We switched to her when we were having some behavioral problems with our dog at home, especially after walks. Shasta worked closely with Penny and we've seen huge improvements in her behavior. Last year our dog needed surgery; Shasta worked with us on her rehab, and continues to be conservative with her play to ensure that she stays strong. As a business person, Shasta has been great. She handled our initial interview, paperwork, and invoicing professionally. We LOVE her daily dog walk "reports"--these little report cards let us know how our dog was feeling, what she did, and (sorry for the detail) even if and how she pooped! Who could ask for more? Our dog loves Shasta, responds well to her, and behaves well at home after a walk with her. That's what matters most.

This crew... where do I start? Shasta and her team have been walking our dogs since they were…read moremonths old. Now they're in their twilight years, we still feel the same. They are a wonderful team that treats these dogs like their furry children. Shasta and her team have been awesome, helping to transform these loving, high energy dogs to obedient and happily exercised ones. One of our dogs is socially awkward -- he's gotten kicked out of almost every doggy day care in the East Bay. o_O The off-leash hikes are must haves for them and our backyard - you should've seen what these two did before we hired Bow Wow Ventures! They're worth every penny. I'm not kidding when I say our dogs love them. When they hear the truck coming, they're raring to go. And they're the only ones we call when we need to board them. I cannot recommend them enough.

Lyla of Dang Dawg is the best daily dog walker ever! She handles our "spirited" doberman Daisy with…read moreease and gentle compassion. We have had a few dog walkers over the years and Lyla is tops. She's responsive, caring and reliable. In addition to regular dog walks, she is available to dog sit or do drop-in visits whenever we're out of town. It's so nice to have peace of mind knowing that Daisy is in such capable hands. Thank you Lyla, we're so very lucky to have found you!

Lyla of Dang Dawg is incredible. My wife and I have a 9 year old chihuahua who is very barky and…read morefinicky about humans and Lyla totally welcomed her to the group and now our pup absolutely loves her pack walks! Lyla came over and spent time with us and our pup before the first walk and we could really feel how great she is with pups. Our dog looks so visibly happy on walk days now, we are so super grateful to Dang Dawg!

Pam has walked & cared for our senior Brussels Griffon for 4 years. She is a wonderful pet care…read moretaker, and has even become a friend. :) She is a truly experienced professional who really cares about each animal and their well being. We highly recommend Pam and Run with the Big Dog for all your pet care needs!

Pam and Jerry are amazing…read more Our wonderful German Shepherd before we found Run with The Big Dog, Charlie has been with a couple of walkers but none were as educated about his breed then Jerry, which made a world of difference. Jerry is a dog whisperer and has a lot of experience with the big dogs. Charlie adores Jerry so much, and they worked together to take Charlie from on-leash walks to fully integrating Charlie into the pack, a process which has been absolutely great for Charlie. My only wish was that I have found them earlier :( we are moving now and I just don't know if we will ever find this kind of fit again for Charlie. If you are in their service area, CALL THEM. You won't regret it.

We've had Imari come to our home as a pet sitter for several trips over the last year and I wish we…read morehad found her sooner! She cares for our two kitties like they are her own and is so professional. There's always a check in a couple days before our scheduled visits and each day we receive multiple photos and/or videos. You can tell she takes pride in her work and I love being able to support local business owners. Highly recommend Imari to anyone looking for a pet sitter in the East Bay!

We absolutely adore Imari. She is so dependable and great with our two cats, Fitz and Luna…read more When she checks on them we can tell she takes the time to give them each a little love and attention, even our Fitz (who can be surly at times). Would highly recommend her to anyone looking for a good pet sitter in the East Bay!

I met Kristina while walking my Oggie Doggie around the lake. She was hanging out by the boat…read morerental with the Ladies of the Lake just before they were about to get their row on. I used to row the lake with the boat club so I already had a soft spot for that aspect but I actually appreciated her asking about my dog and giving me her card for future reference. I had only adopted by a dog in January from Rocket Dog and had as-of-yet, not left him with anyone day or night. He had been loyally by my side for many months in my disability and unemployment. My family does an annual trip to Reno in July so as the date approached, I tore up my house looking for the card she gave me. Once I located it, I both text her and called her. She had just had a tooth pulled so she wasn't feeling 100%, the date I needed boarding was over a month away so I said let's touch base when she was feeling better. A couple of weeks go by and as I was thinking to myself, I should call, text, or email her again. No sooner had I had that thought, had I opened up my email to find correspondence from her saying just that! I have read a couple of negative reviews on here about her personality. I like to do that when I am getting to know a business to see what others have had issues with. Even after reading those, I still stand confident that for my older dog, who is half-blind due to coming out of a hoarding situation, she is a good fit for us. We initially did a meet and greet for about an hour with the dog, my 10-year-old daughter, and myself in her backyard to see how Oggie did with her other dogs, both resident dogs, and boarded dogs. He did great and neither Oggie nor my daughter wanted to leave. The next step was a day boarding so he could rest assured that his new adoptive mommy, me, was not passing him off permanently but temporarily and I would return after 8 hours and take him home. The final step in our Reno trip coming up on Saturday for a few days will be to take Oggie there the night before we leave and pick him up the morning after we return home. I am confident that Oggie and Kristina will do well together. If not, I will update this review to reflect such... To be continued...

We had a _terrible_ experience with Kristina, and I would advise anyone considering working with…read moreher to read this review in full first. She made several decisions that made us deeply uncomfortable, both in terms of how she related to our dog, other dogs and how she treated her financial agreements with us (i.e. not honoring her word and charging us for services not received). Shortly after moving to Oakland, we had to go away on short notice and had to establish a new boarding relationship. We contacted Kristina about a week before leaving. We agreed to one day of doggie daycare that we did not otherwise need to determine if this was a good fit. This was explicitly a "test". She required us to put down a deposit to hold the boarding spot. When I dropped my dog off, she began making derogatory comments about a very elderly dog she was boarding in a confiding way, as though it would be obvious to me that the dog was a problem (it wasn't). She said the dog was very old and needed to be put down, that the owners hadn't been up front with her about the dog's problems. I was amazed she would tell a new client that another client's dog should be put down. Mystified, I asked what the dog's problems were. She said that the dog was sometimes disoriented and bumped into walls, that it sometimes vocalized and cried for its owners (as it was doing then ) and it made her feel terrible to hear this. She said she would not work with this dog again. To me, nothing about the dog's behavior seemed problematic or out of the ordinary for an elderly dog while boarding and it was only stressful to me to hear a prospective dog boarding business owner talking about dogs this way. She also said she was possibly going camping for 2 of the 4 days we would be boarding our dog, but her roommate would be around to watch the dogs. This was also alarming, but we felt we had no time to find another arrangement, so we agreed. When we picked up our dog at the end of the day, we learned that our dog had been cowering under the furniture most of the day. We'd never seen our dog behave this way, though he has boarded with half a dozen other people. He usually sits in guests' laps the whole time they are visiting. We were alarmed, but Kristina asked us to bring our dog back a second day because she'd been out of the house much of the day and hadn't been available to make our dog comfortable. She could not remember our dog's name and referred to him as a "she" (he is male). We were reluctant not only because of the red flags already described, but because we did not need daycare, only boarding, and each additional "test" day of daycare was costly. It was concerning that we'd paid for a test day when Kristina was mostly out of the house. We felt she could have planned better. We were supposed to bring our dog at 7AM the second day. We ran late. Kristina called us at 7:01 or 7:02 AM and asked where we were and told us she needed us to arrive at the time scheduled. It was stressful for us that there was so little wiggle room. Kristina indicated that she was going to a doctor's appointment that morning and needed to leave promptly at 7AM. Yet the only point of this second unneeded day of daycare was to see if our dog would be more comfortable with her if she was home, instead of out of the house. Our dog was returning again to a frightening environment with nobody there to calm him. After drop off, my partner and I realized we were uncomfortable leaving our dog with Kristina. I contacted her and said I preferred not to go forward with the boarding arrangement based on the test daycare experience and would she be willing to refund for boarding. She texted, "of course." That afternoon, 8 hours later, with no further communication to the contrary, my partner picked up our dog. Kristina refused the refund because she said we hadn't given sufficient notice, even though our whole relationship had happened within such short notice that we could not possibly have given more notice, and even though she'd agreed to a refund based on the test days. She said her policy was to keep all the money, but that she would make an exception and give us a credit for daycare. We didn't trust her anymore, and so my partner argued for an hour before she agreed to refund 50%. She agreed only after my partner asked for a written policy, which stated she would keep 50%, not 100%, as she had been verbally claiming. Seeing the discrepancy, she said she's not much of a businessperson and can't keep track of her own policy. In the end, we paid Kristina ~$200 for 2 days of test daycare to determine that this was a person we did not trust with our dog. We happily made the 8-hour round-trip drive _twice_, on work nights, to drop off and pick up our dog from a family member rather than going forward with the boarding arrangement.