We've been working with Action Dog for the past 3.5 years and couldn't be happier with Jeff and his…read moreoutstanding team (especially Anna). They've remained patient with us through all of our dog's little quirks, and we know he gets super excited every time he hears their car pull into the driveway. He always comes back from his hikes happy and exhausted, and we've noticed his recall has improved significantly since we started working with Action Dog. We couldn't recommend Action Dog enough. We have complete trust when it comes to them taking care of our dog, as well as picking up/dropping off from our house even in moments when we're not around. Sadly we're moving out of the area and will hopefully be lucky enough to find similar care for our dog.

This review is long, long overdue. Elana, Jeff and Sylvester have been watching our Waffles 3-4…read moredays a week now for almost three years, and they've been nothing short of amazing. They are caring, flexible, timely, responsive and Waffles absolutely adores them. In addition to joining them on daily off leash hikes all across Oakland and Berkeley, we've left Waffles overnight with Action Dog about a dozen times. Bottom line is that we have the ultimate trust in this team and know that Waffles is always in good, loving hands with them. They really are his second set of parents and we can't say enough good things about the impact they've had on our lives.

A year or so ago I highly recommended Karen, and I need to provide another review. We were going…read moreback East for a 10-day trip and had dropped our Frenchie off with Karen. By the second day our dog was having stomach issues (she had been fine when we left and was still eating/drinking and enjoying Karen's hikes), but Karen immediately recognized that it wasn't just a nervous stomach. She took her to an ER Vet who found a large mass on our dog's spleen, and they had to perform an emergency splenectomy. This came out of nowhere! Karen spent hours at the vet with her before and after surgery. Long story short, the mass was benign and 1.5 months later she is doing great! We could not immediately return back to the Bay Area because we were back East for a family memorial service, but Karen nursed her back to health. I don't trust anyone more than Karen with our dog now - she is so experienced and caring and without her quick action our dog may have died of a burst spleen. I am so thankful our Frenchie was with with Karen. She is a smart, trusted, and super fun caregiver who dogs love and parents can truly trust with their dogs' lives!

We are very thankful for Karen and Piedmont Pet! We have entrusted our animals to Karen for…read moreseveral years and have only ever had great experiences. Piedmont Pet is an excellent in-home boarding and daycare provider for small dogs. Nervous pet owners like me will appreciate the genuine care, attention to detail, and communication Karen brings to every pet care interaction. Our little 17-lb terrier mix has a few health issues and is on a special diet and meds, and needs to be in an environment where he will be handled gently. We never, ever worry with Karen! She was extremely thorough when we first started working with her, making time to ask lots of good questions and answer all of ours. She is a confident and very experienced animal lover who organizes and handles small-dog pack walks like the pro she is. We get daily photos of his adventures when our dog is with Piedmont Pet which we really, really appreciate. Karen takes care of him like one of her own (little sweaters in the winter, no-pull harnesses, comfy beds and blankets, etc.), and we can tell he feels secure and comfortable with her and his "vacation pack". His time there is a great mix of snuggles and downtime and walks and enrichment time. Karen also provides drop-in visits for our cat when we're away which we really appreciate. Our cat doesn't like anyone and she actually plays with Karen and allows pets (we get pics and videos of this too)! We feel secure knowing our sweet little dog buddy is in great hands and our less-sweet but still loved cat buddy is getting wet food and playtime when we can't be there. Strongly recommend Piedmont Pet, especially to anyone with small dogs in the East Bay in search of secure, loving home boarding or daycare!

If you're looking for a dog walker in Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, etc ... LOOK NO FURTHER!!!…read moreThis is the last review you need to read because Michelle is AMAZING and I'm positive we wouldn't have made it through the first six months of life with our 60 lb. rescue pitbull without her! As I'm sure you've discovered, the majority of dog walkers in the East Bay offer off-leash, group walks through the spectacular scenery of luscious Tilden blah blah awesome, great, I'm sure they're lovely. But what if my dog doesn't like other dogs!?! And needs to be walked on-leash, on her own!?! I had no idea finding someone to fit that criteria would be so difficult and we were at wits end when I came across Oaktown Dog. Thank GOODNESS. Not only does Michelle offer solo walks for super reasonable prices, she's also flexible on days/times of the week (some weeks she walks our girl twice, others she walks her every day) and most importantly she truly cares about our pup. When she first started walking our pittie, she asked to come to a session with our trainer so she could reenforce what we were teaching our girl on their walks! Didn't ask to be paid, just showed up! When it's hot out, she takes our girl to a secret beach so she can play off-leash in the ocean without having to worry about other dogs. When it's cool, she has secret fetch spots. And after COVID hit and we hadn't seen her in 6 weeks, our girl FLIPPED OUT WITH EXCITEMENT the first time Michelle showed up to walk her again. So seriously, stop reading reviews. Get in touch with Michelle. You and your dog(s) will LOVE her. Oh, and she does house-sitting too. Pretty sure our dog was sad when we got back because that meant Michelle was leaving.

It's such a relief to have found a walker who is dependable and genuinely affectionate with our…read moredog. Even though we aren't going into the office anymore due to COVID, it's been a big help having Oaktown Dog come by twice a week on days when we have lots of meetings.

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.

Sen and Alex and the crew have taken care of our sweet and high-ish needs pup for 7 years. Their…read morecare of our dog, and also the human end of the equation, is exemplary. We've had moments of emergency needs and the team has bent over backwards to support the whole family through some tough moments. They've also been a second home to our doggo when her humans are out of town, and the pep in her step when she gets to run into the MBPC home is a testament to the dogs in their care. The humans who work here are big-hearted, and their thoughtfulness and love of what they do is matched by the high levels of expertise and the high standards they set for pet care. Is it possible to say enough about how great the whole team is? Probably not... but here are some highlights: Training: Sen worked with us on our dog's fear/anxiety response to other dogs when on leash -- mostly helping us understand how to change our behaviors to better support our doggo. The clarity, understanding, patience, and support Sen offered were hugely helpful to us all! Boarding/Day Care: What a joy to be able to leave our beloved doggo someplace where we never worry or wonder if she's ok. Does she come back exhausted and clearly well-socialized and well-taken care of? Hell yes. Do we get tons of glamour shots AND action shots of our doggo while she's with MBPC? Double hell yeah. Truly, their care is exceptional, as is their communication with the humans involved. Nails/Ears: Our dog loves her "spa days," even when she's a little fussy about her ear cleanings. It's never a real challenge for the MBPC team, and she loves to see the whole crew. If you're lucky enough to be in the MBPC family, you are truly in with the best. We moved out of the area recently and have not been able to find anyone else even close to meeting the high bar Alex and Sen have set.

We have now known Sen, Alex, & team for about a decade, and they have helped SO much with our…read moretraumatized found on the streets chihuahua mix. When I had our kids and they suddenly started toddling around, our dog got really scared and Sen helped me develop a plan to keep the dog and toddlers safe without having to rehome our dog. Now our kids are older and through using tips from Sen they have built trust with our dog, and I think that she is having just about the best life she can possibly have. After some bad experiences at other places and trying to trim her nails ourselves, we now drive 40 mins each way every other month to have Sen file/trim our dog's nails - and we wouldn't trust anyone else to treat her with such care and respect. Everyone we meet while waiting there also has nothing but praise for Mister Beever's team, and we have gotten to know several other members of the team who my children (big horse fans) have now come to admire and trust. I always recommend Sen to anyone looking for a dog behaviorist or trainer or anyone who is at the end of their rope with their dog or cat - he's just the best, and his team is amazing. I also want to mention that when we had a family medical emergency a few years ago I asked if we could board our dog with Sen & Alex. Our dog is safe and loved and actually calm & happy sometimes now, which is a miracle, AND I wouldn't leave her with most people because she is still a reactive traumatized chihuahua mix who doesn't do well with change. Sen & Alex didn't have space but said they would work with me to figure something out since they'd known us for so long and I was so panicked about figuring out details. We ended up not having to board her at the last minute, but I was so grateful that despite having PACKED schedules and lives they were willing to help me troubleshoot. Oh, and one more thing - Sen takes the BEST photos! This is our beloved pup - and Sen took this photo during a training session years ago. It remains one of my favorites of her because it captures her personality - intense, food-focused, smart, and a bit of a goofball. Thanks, Mr. Beever's Paws & Claws!

Dear Pam and the entire Critter Pet Care team,…read more Thank you so much for taking such wonderful care of our family kitty, Dr. Robinson, during his stay. We truly appreciated the regular updates and loved seeing photos of him enjoying himself it gave us so much peace of mind while we were away. Our family had been searching for the right cat boarding facility for quite some time, and after reading the excellent reviews for Critter Pet Care, choosing you was an easy decision. From the moment I arrived, I was impressed by your beautiful facility, the attentive staff, and the genuine care you show every pet. Thank you again for making Dr. Robinson feel so comfortable and well cared for. We couldn't have asked for a better experience, and we'll definitely be back the next time we need boarding. With gratitude, The Robinson Family

We took our 3 month old kitten here while we when to Tahoe…read more Let me just tell you, the facility is top notch. Super impressive operation. The owner Pam is super professional and sent us daily updates of our kitty. This is definitely going to be the place we used to board our pets.

I was so pleased with the service provided here. My dog, who can have super separation anxiety,…read moreloved staying here! The rates are so reasonable and the owners really do this out of love for dogs. It's great because they won't take on too many pets at one time so each animal gets a lot of one-on-one care. They were also flexible with drop-off and pick-up times, which allowed me to be less stressed. One of my favorite things was that I received email updates with photos to let me know how well my dog was doing. I am totally confident with their capability in handling all dogs of size and temperament. My dog can be dog-aggressive and right away it was clear to me that there would be no issues leaving him in this home, as they are great at establishing pack order and never allowing a situation to escalate in the first place. It is like having one of those fancy dog hotels right in my neighborhood, but with less stress for my dog, and on my wallet. I shall be using this boarding center in the future.

I will am going out of town this weekend and again I will be leaving my babies here for the third…read moretime. I cannot praise East Bay Paws enough. They update me on what my babies are doing, I receive pictures, texts, calls etc... Julio & Skoshi are returned clean and happy.

Two years ago, I decided to drive my cat, Margie, home to Southern California. Long story short, it…read morewas a nightmare, and I decided to find a trusted cat sitter. I did my research on various pet sitting agencies in the area before deciding on Rene. When I reached out, she was extremely responsive and came to meet me and Margie to get a sense of Margie's personality as well as to see where I kept Margie's food, litter, etc... Rene was great at engaging Margie and not a single claw was seen that day. Since then, I have asked Rene to take care of Margie during the holidays and occasionally when I am out of town at the same time as my roommate. Rene sends me updates with pictures everyday and even takes care to describe Margie's mood to me that day. She makes sure I've arrived home so Margie doesn't go hungry and keeps my space very tidy--I believe I once returned home to find my room cleaner than I left it. Rene has also been able to fit me in very last minute and is extremely flexible with her hours. She has been caring for Margie for over 2 years now and I deeply appreciate how reliable and consistent she is, often going the extra mile to make sure Margie is happy and healthy. I love that I have had Rene check in on Margie for the last two Christmases and Rene not only took great care of her, but left her a Christmas present both years. Little gestures like this only add to the list of reasons that make me confident in my choice of cat sitter and I am comfortable recommending Rene to anyone looking for a competent, trustworthy, and thoughtful cat sitter!

Rene has been looking after our cat since she was a kitten and we really now wouldn't want anyone…read moreelse! She is extremely caring, professional, reliable and organised. Always sends multiple pictures and updates so that we know all is well. Our cat was sick (not serious sick!) a little while ago but we didn't have to time to pick up meds from the vet so Rene went for us. I completely trust her and our cat loves her! We have had pet sitters in the past for our previous cat and we used the usual apps but I feel there's a bit if hit and miss and not as much real care. Rene is by far the best pet sitter we have had and I can't recommend her highly enough.