The Dog Day Care Club Terms and Conditions

Registration – all dogs must be registered with us before any services commence. We need to arrange to come and meet with you and your dog. This will give time to discuss any special requirements, your dog’s health, likes, dislikes and habits. At this point we will also require a copy of your veterinary details including vaccination records. This also gives you the opportunity to get to know us. We will then arrange hand over of keys, alarm details etc. This meeting is free of charge.

Frequency – During our registration process you will be allocated your required number of days of care for your dog. This is a minimum of 1 day per week. Additional ad-hoc days can be booked where needed.

Exclusions – we reserve the right to not to accept bitches coming into or in season. We will not accept any dogs that show aggressive behaviour. We are unable to take entire male dogs over the age of one for our services.

Enrolment – When you enrol your dog with The Dog Day Care Club, we dedicate a space to them and guarantee them this slot on your chosen day/s. For this reason, if for any reason your dog is away and not coming to us on a usual pre-booked day e.g. you are on holiday or are at home for the day and decided to walk your dog yourself, or they stay home for a veterinary appointment, a 50% rate of your normal charge will apply. This charge reserves your dog’s space and makes sure it will be available on all days that they do come with us, rather than returning from holiday to find the space has been filled. It helps us be 100% reliable and means we never put more dogs in a van or a group than is safe to do so. All changes to schedules, including cancellations, additions, boarding bookings etc must be made via phone, email or SMS.

Behaviour – Dogs mixing with other dogs (including other sized dogs and dogs of different ages and breeds) is a vital part of their life and socialisation. At The Dog Day Care Club, dogs are never left together without direct supervision, however during the time your dog is at daycare, they will come into contact with other dogs in an off lead and uncontrolled environment. In the vast majority of cases this is a hugely positive experience; however, as with any group interaction, this presents the risk of dog-on-dog aggression, fights, bites etc. and even death. By organising activities with us, you accept all of these risks and agree not to hold The Dog Day Care Club liable. We ask owners to accept legal responsibility for their own dogs behaviour, and assume any legal and veterinary costs to other dogs and property damage costs associated with their dogs behaviour. By organising activities with us, you agree to cover such costs and allow us to pass over personal information to any official authority or to any other dog or property owners that have suffered as a result of your dogs actions so that they may contact you. We may keep you informed of any altercation involving your dog, whether damage or injury occurred or not. We also reserve the right to dismiss any dog that shows dangerous or inappropriate behaviour from all services at The Dog Day Care Club with immediate effect.  By organising your dog to participate in our services, you are confirming that the dog has no record of aggressive or anti-social behaviour and you have made a full and frank disclosure of any characteristic or trait that might make the dog unsuitable for socialising with other dogs. If we feel that a dog does pose any risk to any other dog, even if you do not agree, we reserve the right to dismiss this dog from day care with immediate effect. If your dog bites someone or something, it is YOUR responsibility, as far as UK law permits- you could be sued or your dog could be put down. We will never take a dog into our services if we feel they pose any risk to people or other dogs and we reserve the right to muzzle any dog we think needs to be muzzled to prevent injury to our staff, the public or any other dog. Although these risks are always present within groups of dogs, we do everything possible to reduce the risks to as low as possible- our entrance policy is strict and we refuse to accept any dogs that show signs of aggression, and dismiss any dogs showing signs of aggression from daycare immediately, no matter how long they have been attending.

Incidents between dogs can have a cause not necessarily obvious from any injury as a result i.e. a dog who is injured in an altercation may actually be the one responsible for causing the incident in the first place and the other dog has reacted in a defensive manner. In these cases, liability for vet bills/ damages etc would be the responsibility of the dog that caused the incident rather than the specific injury. In ALL cases, the decision on responsibility for liability for costs relating to dog on dog incidents will be made by The Dog Day Care Club (as we will have witnessed the incident first hand to see what caused it) and will be final. It is also worth noting that the vast majority of minor injuries, cuts and scrapes that do occur in day care are from friendly play or wrestling and is done accidentally or when play spills over slightly in excitement- and as such these have to be accepted and any treatment would be the responsibility of the owner of the dog who happened to get the minor injury as it was not caused in malice. You agree to accept these decisions. Please note that we can not be held responsible for the actions of another dog while in the day care- this is not us trying to shirk responsibility, but pointing out the realities of a dog day care environment. Dogs are animals and can react in a split second- despite all best intentions and entrance policies, a dog that has never shown signs of aggression before can cause minor or serious injuries or even death within the shortest amount of time. It is not possible for even the best trained and experienced team of staff to prevent these incidents when dogs are together in a social environment. It is extremely rare that incidents like this do happen, but the risk is ever present. You agree that you understand and accept this as part and parcel of the service.

Grouping – Although we split dogs by approximate size into different play groups and fields at the daycare, there could be periods of time where dogs of different sizes are together in vehicles, communal areas or fields for a number of reasons. You accept that your dog may mix and interact off lead with dogs of different size (both smaller and larger) and that all our terms and conditions apply in the same way. Judgment on which approximate size group your dog will put into is the decision of The Dog Day Care Club and within all of these groups there will be a complete mix of breeds and ages, personalities and temperaments- and some variation in sizes and strength. The group that each dog interacts with during services may change without notice as they grow, have behaviour changes or the group dynamics change.

Play equipment – It is important to understand that despite all our best efforts, dogs can get sick or injured for a variety of reasons. We believe in letting dogs be dogs and run around and play with each other and on a variety of surfaces and equipment. This can include raised objects and structures, water pools, grass, woodchip, bare soil and rocky areas that they could, for example, chew/ swallow/ cut themselves on/ jump from. We also have a variety of play equipment and toys on site that dogs have access to at all times. Although we make these surfaces and equipment as safe as possible, through play and interaction with these items and surfaces, there is a greater risk of injury than without them- however it also makes the day care a more fun and interactive place for them to be. By using The Dog Day Care Club, you accept this and will not hold us liable (financially or otherwise) for any injury, accident or sickness that occurs as a result of normal day to day participation in our day care.

Emergency procedure – We take the greatest possible care of all the dogs we are responsible for, however as stated before, injuries can occur for a variety of reasons. Should your dog be involved in any incident, our staff will check your dog over for injuries, however our staff are not trained vets so we ask that you check over your dogs further at home or seek professional opinion. You agree not to hold The Dog Day Care Club responsible for failing to spot that an injury has occurred, or that the nature of the injury is worse than realised. Should your dog show any obvious injury, we will inform you immediately and take your dog to the nearest vet on request, or if the nature of the injury is serious we will take them to the vet immediately without request. By organising activities with us, you give permission for The Dog Day Care Club to authorise any treatment/ procedure etc that the vet deems necessary to carry out immediately or to prevent suffering, and agree to pay the associated fees or reimburse The Dog Day Care Club for the full amount- including consultation or out of hours charges. This is to ensure your dog doesn’t suffer waiting if we can’t contact you before hand. We have staff trained in Canine First Aid present at all times in daycare. This also applies when a dog shows signs of sickness or discomfort that we feel needs investigating by a vet- particularly if they are staying with us for a long period of time (more than 12 hours). We will always try to get in touch with you beforehand, but whether we can make contact or not, you authorise us to request investigatory procedures and surgery should it be deemed necessary before your dog is due to return to you. You agree to cover these costs in full directly with the vet, or reimburse The Dog Day Care Club should we not be able to get in contact with you. We strongly recommend that you purchase pet insurance for your dog that covers them while they are under our care.

Walking dogs off lead – With any off-lead environment, there is a risk to dogs security. We work hard to ensure that dogs get the greatest amount of fun, interaction and exercise while they are with us, and we operate as a free range daycare- meaning all dogs are off lead. Our daycare is totally secured by 1.2M perimeter fencing. It is extremely rare that a dog would climb or jump fences of this height, but it is possible. By organising activities with us, you accept these risks and agree not to hold The Dog Day Care Club liable for any injury or loss resulting in escape. Should your dog escape, run off or get lost, we will do our absolute best to find them, and will contact you to let you know. If you believe your dog has any risk of jumping over or climbing up fences of this height- please inform us so we can take appropriate steps. Staff are with dogs at all times so the risk of any escape is extremely low. N.B. By signing this form you are consenting to your dog being exercised off lead, should he/she not return on our recall we will do everything in our power to find them.

Illness – Dogs who are showing signs of any potential contagious illness or disease are not able to mix with other dogs in daycare and should either not come to daycare or if illness develops at day care, will be quarantined away from other dogs while they are in day care until we are satisfied there is no risk present to other dogs. There are certain illnesses, such as kennel cough, where dogs are not permitted to be in daycare at all even in quarantine and must be kept at home until cleared by a vet. You must inform us if you think your dog may be ill so we can advise on the options available to you. During this period, usual charges and reduced cancellation charges apply. This also applies when a dog is recovering from any injury or operation such as neutering or spaying, injured foot etc. and may need to be out of the main daycare environment. We also reserve the important right to quarantine or ‘time out’ dogs from the main daycare environment for behavioural reasons.

Vaccinations & Microchipping- we ask that your dogs are fully vaccinated, including regular flea and worming treatments. A copy of vaccination certificate or card showing this is also required. Under UK law all dogs must be Micro chipped.

Identification – Under UK law all dogs should wear a collar with an ID tag at all times. This should include a name and full address of the owner.

Weather – We are relatively lucky with the English climate that it’s rare to suffer extreme weather. However, both extreme winter conditions and extreme heat pose potential safety issues to both staff and the dogs in our care. We plan as best as possible for these eventualities by providing facilities to cope with them as much as we can. For example, in hot weather we have an indoor play barn and woods with shade, we carry water and use cool mats when transporting dogs. For snow and ice, we again use our indoor play barn and reduce outside time. Sometimes though, despite all of these, the conditions make it unsafe for us to run our service. On these rare occasions, these terms and conditions are designed to allow us to make decisions in the best interests of the safety of the dogs and staff we are responsible for, rather than having to focus on financial implications. We will only ever instigate these when it is absolutely necessary and we always do our best to run the service as best we can- as long as it is safe.

In periods of extreme heat, (which we class as predicted temperatures above 32 degrees Celsius or when there is a warning issued by the Met Office or the NHS), The Dog Day Care Club reserve the right to alter, suspend, cut short or cancel the daycare service. This is only ever done in extreme heat and under conditions where it is not safe for dogs to be transported or to be outside even with the steps we take to combat it. Where the service is altered or cut short for safety reasons, days will be charged as normal full days. Where the service is cancelled in advance, days will be charged at the 50% cancellation rate. In the event of any change to service or cancellation, we will make clients aware via email at the earliest possible time after the decision has been taken. By the very nature of the decision, this is likely to be last minute to judge the actual rather than predicted conditions.

In periods of extreme winter weather, namely snow and ice, (which we class as a Yellow, Orange or Red weather warning for snow or ice from the Met Office in the geographical location of the daycare facility and pick up locations or the transport link in between the two), The Dog Day Care Club reserve the right to alter, suspend, cut short or cancel the daycare service. This is only ever done when conditions are bad enough that it is not safe for dogs to be transported on the roads due to driving conditions. Where the service is altered or cut short for safety reasons, days will be charged as normal full days. Where the service is cancelled in advance, days will be charged at the 50% cancellation rate. In the event of any change to service or cancellation, we will make clients aware via email at the earliest possible time after the decision has been taken. By the very nature of the decision, this is likely to be last minute to judge the actual rather than predicted conditions.

We hope you understand that these decisions will always be taken with the safety of the dogs and our staff in the forefront of our minds and with the understanding of the disruption that it will undoubtably cause. Safety always has to come first and a day stuck at home for a dog is always better than being put in unnecessary danger.

Keys – If you provide us with keys these will only be used on pick up and collection of your dog. Keys will be tagged and kept in a key safe within our premises which are also locked. No addresses will be kept on the tag.

Transport – We feel it’s important for you to know that although we do everything we can to ensure the safety and happiness of your dog, there are some risks involved with our activities that you should be aware of- risks most of which are present in everyday life for your dog in situations they will be in even out of daycare. Our vans are professionally fitted with the highest quality cages and offer the safest way of transporting your dog- however vehicle transport always presents a small level of risk from collisions, doors opening and closing to put dogs in or out of a van which increases the risk of escape from the vehicle, being unloaded on a roadway etc. and due to being unattended in the rear of the vehicle when drivers are driving or picking up/ dropping off another dog or refuelling for example. Our vehicles are insured for our business use and to carry dogs. You agree to allow us to transport your dog in any of our vans to any required location and agree to not hold The Dog Day Care Club liable for injury or death caused by a road traffic collision or incident involving our van or another vehicle at any time including when the dog is outside of our vehicle.

Boarding – We are unable to board entire male dogs, bitches in season or dogs that are not house trained. Dogs that bark excessively, chew property or show signs of aggression will be excluded and we reserve the right to book them in to boarding kennels for the duration of owners absence, the costs of which will be the owners responsibility along with our fees which will remain in place to cover the allocated space. All dogs must be up to date with their vaccinations including kennel cough and treated for fleas and worms etc.

Emergencies – In an emergency we would make every effort to contact you. If you are not reachable we will take your dog to our nominated vets, Dragon Vets Cheltenham. Any costs incurred will be payable by you unless liability lies with us.

Prices & Payments – Charges for our services can be found on our website. The customer will show acceptance to these and our terms and conditions upon signing the registration form. Payment of invoices to be made on a monthly basis unless otherwise agreed.

Giving notice     – For cancellations we kindly request 24hrs notice

– For termination of our services we kindly request 1 months notice

Insurance – We are fully insured with Brooks Braithwaite. A copy schedule can be supplied on request.

GDPR and Privacy – The Dog Day Care Club limits the amount of personal data we collect to the absolute minimum that is required for our service to operate. We will never collect data that we don’t need and we will never sell or pass on any personal data to 3^rdparties. When making an enquiry with us through our contact form or email, you will provide us with access to personal details such as identity and contact details. By sending an enquiry to us, you are not adding yourself to any mailing list and if you do not become a client’s we will not use your personal data in any way. It will only be stored within the emails that you have sent us in our inbox.