When One Door Closes…..Day Two Hundred, Forty Seven

When one door closes; another opens.

Saturday our training center, the place where Sampson went every week, since he was 12 weeks old; closed their doors.

For good.

It didn’t come as a complete surprise to those of us who brought our dogs there, we had watched it slowly deteriorate; to the point where many of us had stopped bringing our dogs there.

Almost a year ago, the owner sold the business to two women, who really knew nothing about dogs.  They made no effort to learn either.  They did not introduce themselves to their customers, made no effort to get to know the dogs and rarely if ever worked.  The staff was upset and discord ran rampant.

About six months ago, the gal who ran the daycare quit.  People were paying $20 per day, per dog (for the big guys) to have their dogs sit either in a crate or by the gate; waiting for someone to play with them.  Almost immediately after she quit, Sampson and Delilah stopped going.   The new owners never contacted me to see why a longtime customer suddenly quit.

In June our trainer Sara quit.  She was not replaced; they simply stopped having training classes.  They survived on the few dogs that remained in daycare and grooming.

The retail section of the center was not stocked.  They no longer carried dog food, treats, herbal remedies.

Eventually their inexperience and unwillingness to learn the business did them in.

When Sara left,  she organized some impromptu classes.  It is sort of like a secret club.  We get a text on Thursday afternoon that tells us where we are meeting.  If we can make it we go.  It’s pretty nice having class outdoors; (except for the heat and the bugs) there is plenty of room to spread out and we get to do a lot more natural walking.  Sort of like a neighborhood walk, except with lots of people. 🙂

As they say every cloud has a silver lining.

Yesterday Sara got the keys to the old training center.   Sara has been talking about opening her own training center for a very long time.  Naturally I gave her my thoughts on what I would like to see. 🙂

I’m very excited because I also get to help.  I get to give input as to what types of classes I would like and what types of products to stock.  I may even get the opportunity to help run the retail section.

Now I’m going to tell you a secret. I hope to run a clicker training class when the center opens in September.

When one door closes another door opens.