Dog Daycare Ideas for Summer

Discover summer dog daycare ideas tailored for a paw-sitively delightful season. From splashy water activities to tasty treats, these creative suggestions will ensure a joyful and comfortable experience for the dogs in your care. Perfect for daycare providers, these activities promise a tail-wagging good time for your four-legged guests. 

Exercise and outdoor time are important to dogs’ livelihoods, and all of your handlers need to be wary of overheating so pups can have a great time and stay safe. Dogs need exercise: not only does running and playing keep dogs fit, happy, and healthy, but exercise also cuts down on potential behavioral problems, leading to pets who will be a delight to care for at your facility. In the summertime it makes sense to let the dogs out to play outdoors, or take them on a field trip to a park or river, so they can explore new environments with new smells, and maybe even chase a squirrel or two. But sadly, there can be too much fun in the sun: if a dog overheats through exercise and hot temperatures, the consequences could be fatal. A dog’s body temperature begins to quickly rise if temperatures are over 75 degrees, and certain breeds, like those who have double coats or are brachycephalic like pugs and bulldogs are even more heat-sensitive, and some can develop heatstroke in less than thirty minutes. We’ll dive into the signs of heatstroke and how to keep pups cool, below.

How to Keep Dogs Cool Outside?

Did you know dogs can’t sweat? Our furry friends instead pant and release heat through their paw pads and nose to keep cool. If they’re unable to keep cool, they can easily develop heatstroke. If you were wearing a fur coat all day, even in the summer, you’d get pretty hot, too! It’s tantamount to help dogs cool off in the summer through the following activities.

Dog Hydration: How to Keep Dogs Hydrated?

Your daycare should have multiple hydration stations around your indoor and outdoor spaces, with water bowls placed in shady areas if they’re sitting outside. Your daycare attendants should encourage dogs to drink water and frequently check these water bowls to ensure there’s enough H2O in there for thirsty pups, that the water’s not too warm, and that no debris like dog hair, dirt, or food in the bowls, even adding ice cubes as an enticement to get pups to drink. If they’ve been playing outside for a while, you might also stock up on cold towels or wet bandannas to wrap around pups or put on their backs to help them cool off. Lastly, educate your staff on how to recognize the signs of heatstroke: purple gums, red skin, diarrhea, vomiting, lethargy, sunken eyes, and excessive panting. If any of these occur, contact the dog’s owner and veterinarian to alert them of potential dehydration and heatstroke. 

Daycare Space: Ensure Your Outdoor Area is Equipped for Heat

In addition to buying water toys like sprinklers and pools, it’s important to ensure your outdoor space is as cool as possible. To make lasting shade, you can plant trees around the outdoor area, as well as set up umbrellas, awnings, and canopies. You can also purchase cooling pads and raised cots to place in shaded areas, for dogs to cool down while they nap. You can buy misters that spray a thin mist across your outside area without wetting pups, or outdoor fans. Lastly, you may consider using astroturf instead of pavement: not only does turf provide better support for their joints, but also the turf doesn’t get as hot as concrete.

Inside Time: Schedule Breaks Appropriately

After the pups have had fun in the sun, it’s time to take them inside. To schedule the right breaks for indoor naps and inside play, have your staff keep an eye on the weather and take dogs inside when the sun is at its height and when temperatures are highest. If dogs still need to get some energy out, try exercising their brains with snuffle mats and puzzle toys, setting your pools up indoors, or starting a training session.

Provide Frozen Treats

Frozen treats are sure to help pups cool off from the hot sun. Licking calms dogs down, getting them into a great mood for resting and relaxing. You can try making ice cubes of low or no-sodium chicken or beef broth, freezing dogs’ favorite treats like peanut butter and berries in food bowls, or freezing goodies in a kong or another puzzle toy. All of these activities are enriching, help them expend mental energy, and help them cool off.

Indoor Dog Daycare Ideas

Going indoors does not mean the fun has to stop! In fact, there are plenty of engaging and adorable activities you can do with pups. Bonus points if you take photos and send them to their owners to show them what fun their pets are having at your facility.

Puppy Pageant

You can dress up pups with funny costumes, hats, and fur accessories and have them walk towards you on a “catwalk” area, snapping photos and taking videos along the way.

Dog Yoga

Did you know that the yoga poses “downward-facing dog” and “upward-facing dog” are based on dogs’ real stretches? Dog yoga, or “doga” can help relax dogs and improve their circulation. There are many different poses you can learn to do with dogs, like chaturanga and chair pose. These poses are relatively easy, so your staff members don’t have to be yoga instructors to lead the dogs in exercise. If you do happen to have a yoga teacher in your midst, you could upsell a puppy yoga class where dogs roam while their pet parents do yoga. 

Dog Art Sessions

Like Dog Yoga, you could provide a service where pet parents could come to your facility and paint their dogs. But if the dogs are budding Picassos, you can get the dogs to make art of their own through lick painting. Simply get a bunch of canvases and spread some non toxic paint on them, then cover an empty, closed Ziploc bag with dog-friendly peanut butter. Place the bag on top of the canvas and have dogs lick away at the bag. Once they’ve smeared the paint all over the canvas, remove the bag to find dog art.

Outdoor Dog Daycare Ideas

If it’s not too hot, take pups outside for more fun and games. 

Water Activities for Dogs

To cool down pups while giving them exercise, you may buy doggy wading pools or sprinklers for dogs to run through and cool off. Dogs will drink some of the water as they play and swim, keeping them hydrated. 

Outdoor Games for Dogs

To train dogs in agility, set up an obstacle course for them, where they can jump, climb, and crawl. You can purchase a dog agility course or make your own with chairs, broomsticks, and tree stumps.

Streamline Dog Daycare Activities with PetExec

A great dog daycare software like PetExec can help you turn summer doggy daycare dreams into reality. If you’re doing Insta-worthy activities with dogs like painting or a fashion show, PetExec lets you send SMS messages to pet parents, including photos. If you’re serving frozen treats, you want to ensure they’re allergy-friendly for all pups. PetExec lets you set advisories on pets’ profiles, like what they’re allergic to. If you want to keep track of some pups who are playing outside and some taking a nap inside, you can use PetExec to create play areas that keep track of where all the dogs are at any given time. 

Commonly Asked Questions

How to start a dog daycare? Link here

Here are eight steps to starting a dog daycare.

1. Do some market research to see what your community needs: Are you the first dog daycare in your town? If not, what is your competition like? What is the average income in your area and how much are people willing to pay for services?

2. Create a budget. Think about upfront costs, rent or mortgage, how much you can spend on marketing, and your service prices that would cover all those costs.

3. Write a dog daycare business plan. If you ever want your business to be acquired, this is a great document to be able to present. Otherwise, it is useful to have an executive summary, competitive analysis, company description, services, marketing plan, financial summary, and personnel as your north star to guide your business to success.

4. Plan the location of your dog daycare and make sure you have enough space for play areas, feeding areas, water dispensers, and rest areas.

5 . Make sure you research laws and regulations and ensure your business is following them.

6. Make sure you follow health and safety regulations and obtain a facility license.

7. Create a marketing plan, website, social media profiles, discount or loyalty program and any other marketing activities.

8. Hire friendly and talented staff such as a receptionist, a business manager, dog groomers, dog trainers and marketing staff.

How to build a dog run? Link here

If you’re a dog daycare business owner, you can expand your business by adding a dog run, so people can try out your facility with their pets and hopefully want their pets in your care for longer stays like daycare and boarding. You’ll have to find a suitable outdoor area with ample space for pets to run around and shade for when it gets hot. You’ll fence it in to keep pets safe and keep any intruders out. You’ll select the ground you’ll want like grass, astroturf, sand, pebbles, or dirt. Then comes the fun accouterments, from benches for trainers to sit on to toys to agility courses to sprinklers.

How to choose a dog daycare software? Link here

The dog daycare business is booming, and with that comes the need to manage clients, their pets, appointment times, inventory, and employees. You can do all of this seamlessly with dog daycare software. To choose a dog daycare software you’ll look for a program that has a pet and client database, scheduling capabilities, payment processing, check-ins and check-outs, vaccination records, employee and inventory management, reporting, a mobile app, and  integrations with other software like cameras and business reviews. To select one software out of the multitude out there, you’ll have to first consider your business’s needs. Some software companies offer different pricing tiers based on how many reservations you get in a month or how many employees you have, so make sure you can answer these questions before choosing software. Then you can go to a software comparison website like GetApp.com or G2.com which will pit different software side by side so you can understand their pros and cons. Look up reviews from customers, too so you can get unbiased opinions about their services. And lastly, you’ll want to get a free trial of the software to ensure you and your staff can easily use it.

Citations:

• How to help your pet beat the summer heat
• Dangers of heatwaves for dogs
• Doga: Hot to start practicing yoga with your dog
• How to make your own lick pad for your dog
• Paint with your dog: Quick and easy lick painting tutorial
• The benefits of exercise for your pet
• First 2 hours: My dog is overheating
• Canine Heat Stroke
• Dogs Overheating: Signs, Symptoms, & Prevention