At Play with Sparky

My boy travels with me for work, and spends his days at At Play with Sparky while I’m at work. He is always so excited to go, and everyone there treats him as if he was their own. He is always well taken care of. I highly recommend At Play with Sparky!

Used Sparky’s years ago for my dog. Great place over many years. Have a new puppy so thought Spark's is the place. Called for a trial. Explained I am a teacher so could I do an extended day trial The person on phone was lovely and said sure they have done it before. So when I picked up my puppy the person was cold to me. Asked how my puppy did, and she said ok. She then said I owed 35.00. I said it was a trial and she said she was the manager and didn’t approve it. I said how would I know I wasn’t talking to a manager. “Will you know now.” She escalated when I asked a few more questions. Got up abruptly to get my dog, and said I won’t be coming back to Spark's. She said things like “ life is not fair and get a life” which I didn’t understand why she said this. My puppy was a nervous wreck when we left. Nervous barking, clingy etc. Not a good experience for me or my puppy. I used to love this place.

Never again! I’m finding a new dog hotel. The last few times I have boarded my dog here, they have ignored feeding instructions. This weekend, they lost my dog’s blanket and didn’t give her the squeaky toy we specifically asked them to put in her kennel. The people that work here are nice, but they are a disorganized mess, and too busy to properly care for animals.

My dog attended daycare here weekly for about 10 months. We have since switched due to multiple concerns including reviews from past employees, but originally chose this daycare due to the convenient hours, proximity to our home, and decent reviews. I noticed a few red flags throughout my dog’s time here, which looking back I should have paid more attention to: - Constant barking can be heard from the back room (maybe some dogs weren’t happy about being away from play time, but it concerned me that during peak hours there were dogs stuck inside where there is allegedly no AC). - My dog would always be thirsty and have to pee when we left (maybe she was out playing and tired or maybe she was stuck inside the hot back room) - My dog got sick during the recent round of upper respiratory illnesses (she was in a high risk environment with other dogs at daycare, but maybe it could have been prevented with better cleaning procedures). - Staff was almost all teenagers without social or customer service skills, and many times there would be 2-3 sitting in the waiting room chatting when I arrived instead of out with the dogs. The age is fine with me, but I was concerned about the potential lack of training (mentioned by a past employee) and professionalism. - My final straw: upon picking up my dog one day, the window behind the desk was open, and I could see what looked like tons of poop all over the back yard (a ~75x75ft yard COMPLETELY covered in poop). I saw one employee take two dogs out (I guess this is the bathroom yard although advertised as a space for the dogs to play). When we left, I took a peek through the fence to confirm it was actually poop. Seeing the yard like this confirmed to me that sanitation was not taken seriously. Ultimately, we decided to switch to a more expensive daycare where I feel more comfortable taking my dog. The staff at her new location have been fantastic along with being trained in CPR. I can also watch her on cameras to see that staff is constantly providing fresh water, cleaning, and watching over the dogs.

We called for a last minute accommodation but the staff member we spoke with was able to make our experience smooth and easy. We emailed our dog's vet records over and gave them a heads up on the time we were expecting to arrive. The staff did a great job acclimating our dog to the daycare space once we got there. Upon walking in, another dog acted as a "guide" to introduce our dog to the play area. When we picked our dog up after about 5 hours, we could tell he was happy from socializing with other dogs and he slept well that night. This business offers a great service at an affordable price. We will definitely use At Play with Sparky the next time we're in Asheville and we need a "babysitter!"