We had just an "okay" experience that could be summed up in one word: confusing. However, two months after our initial interaction, they staff at NPAH followed up with us and you can read the update... Read More
We had just an "okay" experience that could be summed up in one word: confusing. However, two months after our initial interaction, they staff at NPAH followed up with us and you can read the update below.Let's start at the beginning, shall we?We live in Boston and we planned to travel to Lansdale over the Christmas holiday. We needed to board our pit bull mix, Flower, on a Saturday night while we were at a holiday party. I did my due diligence and called over to NPAH and inquired as to what information, forms, or deposits were needed for Flower to board there for one night. The staff member assisting me treated me as if she didn't want to take our dog. "Oh, I don't know how you do it in Boston, but you need x,y,z vaccines." When I told her that my dog had those as part of attending doggy daycare, her reaction was, "Are you sure?" I'm 100% sure. It probably should have been a red flag. I then had to fax all the paperwork over to NPAH. I was supposed to receive a confirmation of her reservation to board, but that didn't happen until I followed up with another phone call.Honestly, we booked a pet-friendly hotel as a backup plan, because my confidence was a little shot at this point ....The boarding hours were just weird. We had to drop Flower off between 8:30 and 11:00 that Saturday morning. The intake staff were so nice and were so excited to see Flower. However, we then had to re-do most of the paperwork I had already sent over! I included my name, phone numbers, emergency contacts, etc. in all the initial paperwork and then we had to redo it again.However, we felt comfortable leaving Flower there overnight. Since the facility was less than 5 miles from where we were staying, we figured that in the event of an emergency or a meltdown, we could easily go get Flower and stay at the hotel. I felt better watching Flower interact with the staff - she was so excited to meet new friends and have some fun. She didn't "put the brakes on" when we walked in. We scheduled the time to pick Flower up the next morning and that's when we realized that although the facility opened at 8 the following morning (Sunday), we couldn't pick her up until 9:30. How does that make any sense? We stood there dumbfounded. We then found out that if we wanted to pick her up early, we would have to pay a half rate of boarding. Seriously. To pick her up early, we had to pay as if she was there IN ADDITION to an early pick-up fee. WTF?We really had no choice. We had to be back to Boston the next morning.We picked Flower up the next morning and she was so happy to see us, but not in a frustrated way. She had a good time and she was tired; hence, she definitely got plenty of play time.The only reason why we chose to board sweet Flower here was because it was a vet's office. At the time, I thought we will take our chances and choose another facility when we return to Lansdale...***UPDATE 2/12/2015***I did receive a phone call from NPAH in regards to our experience. The boarding staff is undergoing a new training program and the website/documentation is also being updated to outline all the policies because other customers have commented on the confusion as well. I interpreted the outreach as this: NPAH knows we won't necessarily return tomorrow or even next week since we live in Boston. However, they are committed to making animals and their humans happy. They wanted us to know that they are aware of our concerns and they are addressing them to better the needs of ALL their customers and not just the ones that return once a year when traveling from 6 hours away. It's businesses like this that take the time to address customers concerns that will, ultimately, keep customers coming back. Including us. We will certainly return to NPAH when we travel to Lansdale again. Read Less