October Blast!

I know it has been a few weeks since we posted. We've been spending quite a lot of time getting our Tustin Location approved. We are in the final stages now and hope to start construction by the end of November. Yes, that means we will NOT be open at the Tustin Location for xmas or thanksgiving boarding. We anticipate opening in Jan 2008. Ultimately this is a better plan for us anyway to allow us more time to get it built just the way we want it and the new Tustin staff will have time to get trained properly at the RSM Location. We have had many calls about employment at the Tustin Location. We will start employment interviews mid November so get your applications in now. If you are looking to board over the holidays, book it at the RSM Location now....really book it today. We already have waiting lists for some dates. As always, remember that if you bring your own crate you are pretty much guaranteed a spot.

The other event that has kept us really busy was our Halloween Party! It is going to become an annual event. The turnout was truly incredible with 300 people and over 100 dogs. We are amazed and pleased to see how well the dogs behaved at the party. Most of them were pretty distracted by wearing all the crazy costumes and the parents did a great job and keeping the dogs under control. A special thanks to Lysa, Jodi, and Ranaye who helped plan and setup for the party. It took 2 days to setup for the party. We had so many scary decorations. We setup a tunnel that everyone walked through to get to the party with many spooktaculars hanging everywhere. In the main training area, we had seating for 50 people with balloons, the works. Ranaye spent an entire day baking all the cakes and goodies homemade for the dogs. We also provided a ton of food for the human party goers. A couple of the biggest hits were the Got Play Hats for the people as a door gift and there was a tunnel labyrinth for the dogs to go through.

Then we started the contests. Winners received FREE daycare....what could be better! The categories were: prettiest dog, scariest dog, best original costume, best dog/owner lookalike, and best overall costume. All the dogs entered pranced around while the judges tallied their votes. Prettiest dog went to Shelby the shihtzu as the princess. Scariest dog went to Ebon the Newfie as King Kong. Best original costume got a couple votes: Annie the cocker was the horse with a the headless horseman on top, Rocky the lab and both parents were pirates. Best dog/owner lookalike went to Frankie the Grt Dane and mom who both came as Cows....truly hysterical. Best overall went to Lynn, Dot and Fletcher who won 5 days of free daycare....wow! Special mentions went to Piper the sheltie who was a witch and Corby the poodle who was the clown he was born to be. Other winners were Alyce and Kris, the humans, who came was Wilma and Betty from the Flintstones but the kicker was their dogs Chezzy and Max came as dinosaurs. Finally, the best employee costume went to Katie and Jenny who dressed their dogs up as Me and Dave. Wigs, glasses, underwear sticking out (Dave, not me!), it was hysterical.

The party was a lot of work but every single person who attended said they HAD SO MUCH FUN and I continued to get tons of emails afterwards with thank yous. So we will definitely do it again next year. However we may have to turn it into a block party since we expect the attendance to grow next year. We hope to see you all at the Grand Opening Party for the Tustin Location which will be scheduled for Jan 2008. We have not set a date yet but we already have about 500 people on the waiting list so we expect it to be HUGE!