Frequently Asked Questions

At most boarding facilities dogs are kept in kennels all day and night, they are walked 2-3 times a day for 10 minutes each walk. This means that your dog spends 23 hours and 30 minutes of every day locked in a kennel.

We never charge for playtime. Most facilities will charge you for extra walks, but to equal the amount of playtime your dog receives at Shady Acres each day, you would need to spend hundreds of dollars per day at a typical facility.

Shady Acres was designed to lower dogs stress and give them the fun experience of playing with other dogs the majority of the day.

No, dogs play outside in groups all day. All play time is included in your pricing.

No, all dogs are placed in play yards with access to the pool throughout their stay. If you would like to guarantee your dog receives pool time each day, you can choose our Deluxe or Luxury boarding which provides your dog reserved pool time each day.

No, we do not charge any fees to administer medications.

Accurate Feeding is one of the most critical parts of your pets stay!

For accuracy and safety, we require that you individually bag your dogs food by feeding.

CORRECT:

One bag of portioned food per FEEDING.

Your dog is staying 5 days and has AM and PM Feedings. 10 Bags.

Your two dogs are staying 5 days and have AM and PM Feedings. 20 Bags.

INCORRECT:

Food bagged per DAY. i.e. One bag of food to be split into two feedings.

Food for Two Dogs in a single bag

Bulk Bags or Containers of food

Food that includes vitamins or supplements

Food that includes medications

We will not accept bulk bags or containers of dog food.

Yes, we charge $5 per dog per day to feed our kennel food.

The simple answer is efficiency, accuracy, and storage.

One of the most time consuming activities for our staff is feeding. We must focus on accuracy of meals and medications for each dog we care for and that takes time.

When we started out, most owners brought bags of food with instructions on how much to feed and what times. For each dog we would need to refer to those instructions, measure food, take the food to the room, feed the dogs, then return to the storage cubbies for the next dog. We would also have owners drop off large storage containers and bags(sometimes 50lb bags) of food with a scoop. We do not have the storage space for these large containers or bags.

By asking owners to prepare their food by feeding, we were able to be more efficient. We also know that you have measured and prepared the correct type and amount of food for each specific feeding.

We are a small family owned facility that can only board a limited number of dogs. As we gained popularity in the Austin area our facility began to operate at capacity most of the year. This started to cause a logistical problem.

About 80% of our outgoing reservations were being picked up after 4pm and about 90% of our incoming reservations were being dropped off before 10am. This meant that between 10am and 4pm we would have double the amount of dogs we could handle.

Having a 1pm check out time allows us to clean our rooms, prepare for incoming dogs, while not compromising the level of care we provide for each animal.

We do not have any breed restrictions.

All dogs 8 months and older must be spayed/neutered. There are a couple reasons why dogs must be spayed/neutered to stay with us:

We are a group play facility, all dogs play in large groups outdoors for the majority of the day. We can not have intact animals in the play groups.

Even if intact dogs were allowed to stay in rooms and not participate in groups, other dogs sense intact animals and it causes all of the animals behavior to change.

We do not recommend placing bedding inside rooms. When dogs stay away from home they can become nervous and will often times chew on and ingest bedding. This can lead to serious health concerns including the need for surgery.

If you request bedding, and sign a bedding waiver, we will provide fleece bedding for your dog.

We do not accept toys to be placed inside rooms. When dogs stay away from home they can become nervous and will often times chew on and ingest toys. This can lead to serious health concerns including the need for surgery.