Fur Get Me Not

Great place for puppy training. We took our little guy to puppy play and ended up enrolling him in classes. Be sure to sign up early since orientation classes fill up quickly. We liked being able to go to 2 classes a week and it greatly helped us train our first dog. Comparing our expierence to stories our friends have from Petsmart training makes us feel great about our decision to go here! Staff is very knowledgeable and friendly. Highly recommend.

I’m long overdue in writing this review for Fur Get Me Not’s dog boarding facilities. Frankly, the fact is that I’m still pissed. To say that Fur Get Me Not caused me and my family extreme distress, let alone my dog, would be a wild understatement. Bear with me cause this is going to be a long one.
My parents and I chose Fur Get Me Not’s boarding facilities for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend for our three dogs. My parents have two very tiny dogs (a maltese and a pomeranian), and I have a moose of an english bulldog. For those of you in the know, bullies are notoriously high maintenance and require a lot of care to stay healthy. Riggs, the spoiled booger, takes fish oil, has greek yogurt in the am to help with discoloration and eye discharge, and requires wipes for his face folds and paws to avoid yeast infections in these frustratingly moist areas.
Fur Get Me Not requires a lengthy introduction form where all issues and needs of your animal are addressed; this was a selling point for me. As a helicopter dog momma, I filled this form out in detail. After assurances from staff and leaving pre-​portioned food and supplements, we dropped our animals off and promptly left for Reagan to catch a flight to Phoenix, AZ, to visit family.
Imagine, if you will, the distress and terror of receiving a voicemail from Fur Get Me Not upon landing and arrival that my dog, Riggs, had apparently suffered from a grand mal seizure. He was described as being lethargic and disoriented. Bulldogs can die from these issues. I immediately called Fur Get Me Not and was directed to their day manager, who described that Riggs was getting excited with a playmate (unsurprising) and was separated per Fur Get Me Not’s procedure (which I happen to agree with). This was approximately 1 hour after we left. Riggs was then unwilling to enter his crate, so the staff «coaxed» (I can only assume shoved, dude is stubborn) Riggs into his crate. At this point, he «evacuated his anal gland», which is code for pooped, was lethargic, and unwell for the rest of the day.
Seems simple right? Except that it took me three phone calls to get this story. I was told an entirely different story from a different staff member, and had to wait an excruciating hour to get the real story from the actual person who had seen the «incident». Apparently, they also fed Riggs a second time in the morning, which was totally my error in mislabeling a bag, but regardless, dude had two breakfasts. In this time, I’m panicking, and we’re thinking about what hospital to send Riggs to. I call the vet hospital, and they tell me that if Riggs had a seizure, he needs to be taken there immediately. Life or death. Imagine, again, the terror. When I get «confirmation» from Fur Get Me Not, I tell them to drive Riggs to Alexandria with, might I add, a courier fee, to get him checked out overnight.
Later that night, the vet hospital calls me to tell me that a) it’s vastly unlikely Riggs had a seizure, b) he’s in perfect health; in fact, he’s well above what they expect for a bully, and c) he’s happy as a clam. They agree to watch him overnight and then have FGMN pick him up in the am for ANOTHER courier fee.
After this fiasco the vet at the hospital and I came to this conclusion. Riggs was fed twice that morning and was NOT taken out to go poop. He gets ants in his pants when he has to poop and gets overexcited. Therefore, he gets overexcited with a playmate. When they try to shove Riggs in a crate, he doesn’t want to go because he is extremely well trained and hates having accidents. As a result of FGMN not understanding a dog’s basic need to poop, he soils his crate. And then, because he’s a good dog, Riggs gets ashamed and lethargic. Please keep in mind that at no point did any FGMN staff see Riggs shaking or seizing; this was ALL assumption based. Therefore, my dog did not have a frigging seizure.
You would think after we called and ripped FGMN a new one for this fiasco that they’d shape up. OH NO. They instruct me on Sunday that we need to pick up our dogs before 9 am or it is a 1 dollar per MINUTE charge. I’m there at 8:45. No one’s there. I rattle doors, I pace, I call. Finally, frustrated beyond belief, I drive home. My dad finally reaches someone– and he’s calling from Arizona, mind you– and they instruct me that pickup is actually at noon. I have to pick up my cat by Dulles at noon. Out of frustration, I demand they use their beloved courier service to drop the dogs off at my house. They wisely comply.
Imagine my overwhelming fury when Riggs shows up looking like absolute shit. He had a fever, guys. I’ve attached pictures of my dog’s state when he arrived at my home. It’s taken me over a month of antibiotics, antifungals, and meds to clean up Riggs. Thanks to FGMN’s tender loving care, Riggs was sick for a month. They refunded us for our stay, but all in all we are out $ 400 for the hospital plus $ 300 for meds and vet visits post-​stay.
If you love your pup, AVOID.

If you love your pet, please do not use Fur Get Me Not for dog walking. We have never boarded or left our dog there for day care, nor do we ever plan to.
To be fair, we’ve had a great experience with our original dog walker who took care of our pup for over 2 years. It’s the staff in the office that is incompetent and regularly makes mistakes. I’m also under the impression they have high turnover as we hear from different people every time we have to call them to follow up on any of the below:
1. This happened today, ⁸⁄₁₀: Say they have someone scheduled but then the dog walker doesn’t know and no one shows! We had to email the office in the morning to confirm we had a walker, spent some time emailing back and forth and then had to follow up to see if a walker was confirmed. The office said yes but when we got home there was no note… spoke to the walker and she was never told of our booking so needless to say our pup was stuck for 8 hours.
2. Forget to send confirmations for dog walks or don’t get around to processing until hours later — have had to leave work and take personal time off to go walk my dog because they didn’t have their act together.
3. Charges $ 10 to meet a substitute walker. That’s ridiculous and petty.
4. Doesn’t communicate when a regular walker will be on vacation or leave resulting in us finding out at the last minute and having to change plans
5. Accounting doesn’t bill on a regular cycle despite us asking multiple times

I have been nothing but pleased with this facility and it’s staff. Merlin loves going to day care there and always comes pooped. Since he is still a puppy, that is a bid deal to us because we come home exhausted from work and aren’t always able to keep up with his puppy energy. Highly recommend!

Beware– up sellers, instead of caring for your dog!
When I took my mini golden doodle for her evaluation they took her in and then came back saying she growled and showed her teeth at other dogs, then suggested I upgrade to at home care while on our trip. First of all my 7 month old doesn’t even know how to be aggressive to another being and has never, ever shown aggressive tendencies. I was astonished and said I needed to see this behavior for myself so I knew what to tell a trainer, because if this was the case I needed help, as I have children in my home. She took her in for another trial with the other dogs & I watched from the back where my dog couldn’t see me. Sure enough my dog did nothing of the behavior she talked about. This was a matter of 5 min between the two evals. The girl came back and said, «Wow, I’ve never seen that happen before,. .. I’m not lying!»
I was livid! But I couldn’t say anything because we were leaving in 2 days and my back was against the wall. Why on earth would they say those lies about my dog except to upsell their services?! And they don’t play games with your dog like the websites says, self professed from the same evaluator.
I couldn’t trust this place ever again even if they were the last boarder in Arlington!

5÷12÷15: I was contacted by the VP to apologize for the oversight of my email. Very nice of him. Might take a class in the future.
Original: This place has a lot of different classes for dogs and I thought it would be great to enroll my pup here. All of the course descriptions have a sentence at the end of the paragraph that indicates if you have any questions, you can contact the trainer. Well, I wanted to enroll my newly adopted pup in a course (more than one if the trainers are good) and wrote a detailed email about my pup’s behavior and personality to the trainer. I asked about the best class I should enroll in to start off given her behaviors… MANY weeks later… I get absolutely no response at all so I’ll gladly take my business elsewhere. Or MAYBE, just maybe, when I described that I taught my pup 10 new tricks within the first two weeks of adopting her, the trainer felt like I wouldn’t need the training.

I’ve had quite a bit of experience with Fur Get Me Not beginning in 2010 when my dog was a puppy. We’ve done intermediate training and Nosework 1 with FGMN. I’ve also used their boarding and daycare services. All have been phenomenal.
Recently, I started using their midday dog walking service. Our walker is Ian and he’s really wonderful. He’s very sweet with my dog and takes her for really nice walks — even sending texts with pictures during the walks. In addition, he (and all FGMN walkers) leaves a daily «journal» with brief notes. It’s really wonderful knowing that my dog is in such great hands while I’m at work.
Speaking of journals — they also do this for doggie daycare. I crack up every time I receive one because sometimes the comments are pretty priceless. «She strutted around thinking she was in a fashion show» is one I think we had… so funny.
All that said, If I could change one thing about FGMN, it would be their overnight boarding. My dog has pretty intense sound phobias — specifically thunder. During the summer months thunderstorms are pretty common and often happen at night (as you know). Since there is no FGMN staff in the boarding facility overnight, I often get worried that she is in there panicking and scared by herself.
A really cool feature (but not at all a deal breaker) would be webcams for daycare/​boarding so you can check in on your pup. Just a suggestion for a 5-​year plan possibly :-)
On the whole, I trust FGMN completely and REALLY recommend their services.

This place hosts great Meetups for the NOVA Boston/​Frenchie group and my dog LOVES coming to these events. She also enjoys periodically coming to day care here although I encourage anyone bringing their dog here to really talk to the staff before using the day care services. I went through the whole evaluation process with my dog here but didn’t really vocalize some of my dog’s specific «preferences.» Because I have a Boston that is relatively social, they put her in the «B» group for active mid-​sized pups. She is not a good sharer, and in «B» group they use toys… uh-​oh! Anyway, I now make sure when she comes in to confirm that she is going in in the «A» group with small dogs and other toy non-​sharers and her experiences have been great.

I was training my dog there. The people are really nice and friendly. They understand dogs well!

We’ve done two workshops (training) with Fur-​Get Me Not and are only disappointed we didn’t go sooner. Both humans and pets benefit from positive training methods (and yes, you will feel like a «treat dispenser»). Our relationship with our Beagle Mix rescue has grown to one of pride where we used to fear brining her to public places and events to now knowing with a few calm commands and ample treats we can get the obedience we need (and curtain the beagle bay no one wants to hear in a confined space). We’ve found that the «food» driven nature of the Beagle Mix really responds well to positive training. We look forward to honing our skills and hers with more workshops (we chose workshops as we both often travel for work so having a shorter duration and less schedule ahead time is easier for us). I do imagine their full curricula classes be similar as the trainers are the same. Our favorites are Vivian and Juliet!

Our Ryder is a hard dog to train. He so much wants to play with other dogs and run up to people to greet them. He’s anxious. Short attention span. We just got him and his estimated age is 5. That’s hard for a group class. The trainers are very good, making sure he gets a little extra time and help, showing us new things, and Ryder is coming along. The facility is clean, everyone training is qualified, and I would recommend them to anyone.

Our dog is half Australian Shepherd, which means LOTS of energy, and Fur-​Get Me Not is the only place we trust for daycare. She goes twice a week to burn off her puppy energy and we love the report cards we receive when we pick her up each day. It’s clear she has a great time there because she gets SO excited as soon as we pull into the parking lot. I also appreciate that they arrange the play groups by size AND temperament, and have staffers actively monitor/​play with the dogs during the day.
We also did Fur-​Get Me Not’s Levels Training classes for two months and they were well worth it. Our dog picked up on skills relatively quickly, so it nice that the program allows you to move up a level as your dog progresses (and you’re not stuck in the level you signed up for). The instructors were helpful and patient and even taught me some great tricks on how to keep our pup calm and quiet during class.
My only criticism is the parking situation. The lot can get a bit chaotic during daycare pick up time due to the Crossfit and martial arts places next door. The spots in the back are a bit far and not very well lit at night.

I need a dog walker very infrequently (every 3 months or so) and I live in Cathedral Heights. When I was searching for dog walking companies, the majority would not accommodate my schedule or my neighborhood. Since joining FGMN I’ve had 4 walks by 2 different walkers. Both were capable, polite and understanding of my dog’s sensitive behavioral issues and specific routine. So far there haven’t been any incidents, and I was given extensive notes and texts whenever there was a question or concern.
The only downside is that while they try to schedule you with the same walker, if that’s impossible and you’re scheduled with someone new and want another in-​person meeting before they walk your dog, you have to pay an extra $ 10.

Andrea is great dog walker. She always takes care of my Labrador Ben and writes great detailed messages for me. This business is reliable and very accommodating. I highly recommend them, because they truly are a professional service. Very hard to find a reliable dog walking service in or near Washington DC.

My dog just completed FGMN’s reactive dog class and he improved tremendously! I was fortunate to find this specialty class that was 1) reasonably priced 2) on a weekend in the morning 3) relatively close to where I live and 3) recommended by our previous dog training school. Because of the nature of the class, there were only 5 – 6 dogs and it was taught by Roz and Katherine. The trainers were very professional, extremely nice and patient, and knowledgeable in this particular dog behavior. I felt relieved to hear from them that dog reactivity is a common habit in a lot of dogs that can be corrected through training. We attended every class and we definitely noticed an improvement in our dog’s reactiveness. Most importantly, we learned a lot of skills to counteract and avoid reactivity triggers. I highly recommend FGMN especially Roz and Katherine!

Very upset at the fact that they didn’t accept my little Yorkie Bella. Only dogs over 6lbs. I Drove all the way from Brandywine MD only to find out they could not accept her when they could have saved me time and Gas money.

Fur Get Me Not is fantastic with training, especially for your dog that needs a little extra special attention. I was dealing with a newly adopted mini dachshund who had been hoarded all her life and was terrified of literally everything– including me for a while. I took her to the confidence building 6 week seminar, and the improvement was very visible. While she’s still a bit nervous, she’s settled in and no longer hides under the bed for 3 hours at the slightest noise. The trainers are very knowledgeable, each dog gets very personal attention, and they make sure that the owners know why they’re doing everything so that they can replicate at home. They also provide a lot of background information and reference material for you to use at home. I would highly recommend for any dog that has special needs!

In April, 2014, I scheduled house pet sitting for mid July, 2014. I have been a customer for three years. They canceled me June 17^th as they had no one to house/​pet sit during that period. if they can’t provide the service, they should not be advertising it OR taking reservations.

Our dog, Fenway, has been attending day care for about 9 months now. He is a rescue who is extremely shy, especially with strangers. He wouldn’t go for walks with us because he was so scared so we thought day care would be a good exercise option. We also wanted him to socialize with others. The first few times we dropped him off he was very timid but the attendants were awesome and were so patient with him. They gave us updates after each visit about how they worked with some confidence building. After a few day care visits Fenway began to fall in love. He knew when he was going to day care and would get so excited. He also really warmed up to all of the staff because he saw them regularly.
All of the staff really gets to know the animals there. After just a few visits they were calling Fenway by name when we’d walk in. I was very impressed. I also love the report cards they give at the end of a visit. You can tell the staff really love their jobs and working with animals. They have done such a good job working with Fenway and building his confidence. We also love having a tired puppy at the end of the day!
You will not be disappointed with Fur Get Me Not. We have also used their boarding services and training and couldn’t be happier.

I recently hired Fur Get Me Not to cat sit. They came in each day for 5 days, spending about 30 minutes per visit with my cat, who gets exremely unhappy without human interaction.
Now, it’s hard to know exactly how someone did and whether they spent all of the allotted time with your cat when you’re not home. But here’s what I do know: our cat-​sitter seemed very professional. She showed up on time for our initial consultation visit; she left a written note for each day that she was there; and she even sent me an email with a couple pictures one day. Her communication was excellent and she seemed to love my cat. So, from all I can tell they did a very nice job. I would definitely hire them again and would request the same person.
I also thought their fees were reasonable: $ 23 for a 30-​minute visit, with a $ 10 surcharge for Christmas Eve and Christmas day. Not inexpensive, but worth it to let your beloved kitty stay in his own home rather than being cooped up in a tiny cage somewhere if you board them (and not a lot of places board cats.)
I won’t post the name of my cat-​sitter here but, if you’re interested, send me a private message and I’ll send you her first name so you can request her when you make your reservation.