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| - We contacted Maleisa Hughes last year regarding watching our three dogs (golden retriever, afghan hound and a chihuahua. The prices were reasonable considering what other sites cost, as they were only charging $20 per dog and they were willing to give a discount for the third dog, so the price was set at $50 per day. We scheduled a visit to their home and brought our 2 big dogs to introduce them to the owners. We saw that there was an acre which looked fun for the dogs. They invited us into their home and said the dogs would be treated like members of the family if boarded with them and that all play time outside would be supervised. Maleisa said they had been boarding dogs for years and were experienced and advised we book early for any dates we wanted as they limited the number of dogs boarded to six dogs. We felt that was reasonable on a property of that size. Our dogs were all very well socialized with people and other dogs as we routinely went to dog parks so we felt this would be a great place to bring them. We booked a weekend last fall just to test the place out and see how it went. We checked in often, via text and and we were told the dogs were doing great and having lots of fun. The day we picked them up they were out in the yard with the owners running around with a few other dogs and seemed content. My Afghan hound went to the corner of the yard when he saw me and hid behind some ducks in an open pen, I assumed he didn't want to go home as he had enjoyed his stay. We went ahead and booked the Christmas week to bring the dogs again.
Christmas rolled around and one of my adult children announced she would be home and offered to watch the dogs for me. As we had already booked with Green Acres, I didn't feel right about canceling at the last minute, as I had noticed that the owners had numerous young children and felt it would not be fair to deprive the family of the income we had promised. I did opt to leave the chihuahua home, as I felt he might not be safe running around with bigger dogs. We boarded the big dogs for about 9 days. When I came to pick up the dogs that time, they were let out of a room in the back of the house and the afghan hound ran to me with his tail between his legs and couldn't wait to get out of there. I noticed that both dogs were filthy and smelled HORRIBLE. I can't even describe the stench, but it took several baths to finally get rid of the odor. I found it odd because the acreage is all grass, so I couldn't figure out where that stench would have come from.
Outside of the smell, the dogs seemed fine until a few weeks later we attempted to go back to the dog park where we had gone many times over the years, and when we entered the park the afghan hound FREAKED out and started aggressively barking at the other dogs that ran up to greet him as if to say, "stay away from me". I had to grab him and remove him to avoid a dog fight. We attempted to return to the park a few times thereafter and he behaved the same way each time. He even freaked out on a walk when he saw another dog across the way. We spoke to a trainer regarding the behavior and he told us once a dog is in that mind set it is VERY DIFFICULT to break it. We were very sad and couldn't figure out what could have triggered such a wild swing in temperament. We finally realized that his behavior HAD to have been impacted by the stay at the boarding facility. Looking back now, if he was stuffed in a room with 30 other dogs, it would have driven any dog mad, or to fear aggression.
We couldn't prove that anything horrible had happened to our dog at that point, it was just a feeling that something bad had happened there and we decided we probably should not use them again.
We decided to hire my niece and nephew last week to watch our dogs while we were out of town, because of that gut feeling something was wrong over there and came back to the news that 17-21 dogs had died in the Hughes' care, or lack thereof. All I can think about is, IF I had cancelled our plans during Christmas and left the dogs with my daughter, I WOULD HAVE BOOKED last week with the Green Acres and my dogs would have been among those poor souls who lost their lives. We were the lucky ones...I may not be able to take my temperamental hound to a park anymore, but at least he is alive. My heart is breaking for all the families who lost their sweet puppies.
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