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At Play With Sparky

At Play with Sparky™ is the area's premier daycare facility. Play, socialization, supervision, and individual attention are all part of our daily activities here at Sparky's. We are a family-owned facility that treats all dogs as if they are our very own. Your dog can be part of the fun at Sparky's! Visit Website

Or call (828) 254-5772 or email atplaywithsparky@bellsouth.net for more information.

Reviews

BringFido Guest Rating

At Play With Sparky has received a rating of 1.0 out of 5 bones by 3 canine critics on BringFido.

  • Aryn
    Aug 4, 2020
    The bad reviews are true

    I read the reviews most of which are poor but I decided to give the place a chance anyway just in case people were exaggerating. They are not. This is not a good place and I'm sorry I left my dog there for a trial period. I didn't get an honest, dog loving vibe from the (very young) people working there. I got a sketch vibe like they were used to lying about stuff to appease would-be customers. I got a tour of the inside kennel area and it smelled terrible. The building looks old like it's probably difficult to clean those floors and it just smelled like urine. They said that their staff person that normally cleans had called out that day. Interesting. When I walked in the kennel, I saw some dogs that were obviously scared and sad. The dogs were supposed to be outside but they weren't, they were inside in cages and I asked if my dog would be outside for the duration of the visit and they said yes. I specifically said I didn't want him in a cage and I was told he wouldn't be. I left for what was supposed to be 2 hours and came back one hour later (Surprise!) and where was he? In a cage. The manager had trouble locating the 2 other staff members that were supposed to be watching the dogs. They walked in a few minutes later and it was obvious they were not where they were supposed to be. I was told by one staff that my dog was put in a cage because they wanted to "see how he would do in a cage". Another person told me he was put in a cage because he was "biting the fence". I was told he had separation anxiety, even though I had made it clear to them when I dropped him off in the first place because he's a puppy and I had never left him before. So WHY, if you determined that a puppy had separation anxiety, would you put him in a cage in a strange place and then LEAVE? Rather than staying with him and allowing him to play with the other dogs? The other dogs were not outside when I returned, either, so I think they are not giving the dogs the exercise they are claiming and the dogs are not being supervised properly. I'm glad I was only gone for an hour and I would NOT recommend anyone bring their dogs here. Another thing is that the outdoor area for small dogs is small, offers little shade and the dogs only stayed on the steps when they were let out. To the owner: be more transparent about what you are doing with the dogs during the day and hire more responsible people for staff. Update your facility and get some new flooring in there that can actually be cleaned properly so it doesn't smell so bad.

  • Sarah
    May 31, 2019
    Horrible place!

    Next time you take your baby there, SERIOUSLY, ask for a tour of the facility!! You will never bring your baby back!! It’s nasty, most of the staff is lazy as all get out so it’s just nasty in there!! Fur NEVER gets swept, pee rarely gets mopped up, and when someone poops in their pen, it’s just left there for them to walk through for hours until someone finally decides to clean it up or the owner makes someone else do it. I have literally seen the owner leave poop in a 14 year old Huskies pen who is sick & deaf, for hours!! She walked passed it a thousand times, even spoke to the dog about it, and never once even thought about cleaning it up. The dog walked all through it and it got all over her bed and blankets. It’s a very old brick building, it has no AC expect in the office, where the dogs never are. There isn’t even a ventilation system. It’s 30 degrees hotter in the building than it is outside at all times! There are a few bay doors that they keep open 24/7 for air circulation, and they have a few fans placed throughout, but they are rarely turned on. Some employees can get away with doing absolutely nothing, while others (like myself, former employee) are worked like slaves. Their website says they have large indoor play areas & huge outdoor play areas. That’s all lies. There are absolutely NO play rooms inside at all. And the outdoor play areas are not Huge. The big dog yard is large, the small dog yard is big, and the side yard is very small. Not all the employees are dog lovers, not really. One, I know of, likes to antagonize dogs that don’t like him/her. If a dog doesn’t like a person, there’s usually a good reason. They do not rotate the dogs properly at all. They are supposed to rotate all dogs in the outside yard every hour, 10 dogs per person watching them. But they don’t do it properly. Some dogs get left outside for hours, while other dogs get left inside in their, what I call jail cells, for hours or even all day. Examples, an old GS stayed a couple weeks. Every time he went in the yard, he laid in the same corner the entire time, wouldn’t drink water, wouldn’t play with other dogs, he would just lay there until you made him go inside. This corner was shaded for a couple hours, but during the hottest parts of the day it is in direct sunlight. And they would leave him laying in the 80-90 degree heat for HOURS without checking on him or rotating him! I’m seriously shocked that none of the dogs have died from heat stroke, esp inside where it gets so hot you can’t breathe sometimes. Then, there have been times when there are 4-7 dogs that get “forgotten” about and do not get rotated outside for hours or even at all, so they sit in their jail cell, alone, and without loving ALL DAY!! I wouldn’t even take my own dog their even for day care. Their website also mentions games and activities the dogs do outside, but it’s not true. The people who stay outside with them just sit on their phones the whole time. And there are some employees who don’t like getting too dirty so they refuse to fill up the little pools for the dogs so they don’t get to play in the water in the heat. They NEVER play actual games with the dogs. There are no frisbees or tennis balls are any toys at all in the big dog yard. It’s so sad, the dogs actually pick up rocks and want to play fetch with them. But the yard people take them away and “aren’t allowed” to play bc it will “cause fights”. There are tennis balls in the small dog yard, but the majority of them don’t step off the little porch, so they never go out in the yard. Oh also, the outside yards are not yards. They are gravel lots. There is no grass or soft spots for the dogs to lay down, like their website suggests. It is all gravel and wood. I have witnessed dogs not being able to walk right bc the gravel hurts their paws, especially the older dogs. And there are no special play areas or groups for older dogs. They go out with the rest of the dogs, except one, the 14 year old. She stays by herself 24/7. Also, when they bathe, that’s all they do. They wash the dog once, throw it in a small jail cell, and stick a giant fan right in its face to dry it. They don’t actually use a dryer to dry them. They don’t brush them, unless you specifically ask for it. And when they trim nails, they always use the dremel tool instead of the clippers, so it’s takes A Lot longer, and stresses the dog out even more. And when they do laundry, they barely use bleach, if any at all, so all the “clean” towels & bedding & everything comes out smelling like pee and/or wet dog and covered in fur. I am telling you, even Brother Wolf is cleaner than this place!!!
    So SERIOUSLY!!! Ask for a tour!!!
    And if you have cats, do not take them there!! The cat room is upstairs where it is so hot you can’t breathe!! They don’t get checked on but MAYBE once a day & they don’t get petted or loved on. There is an AC up there, but instead of using it they usually just open the windows. But it’s terribly hot. I almost had a heat stroke the first time I went up there. It was seriously hard to breathe from the heat. I really don’t know how they haven’t been shut down yet, for a number of reasons.
    Oh and also, as far as how they treat employees... if you are a fav of the owner, you get paid well, hardly work, and hardly do anything when you do work. If you’re new and/or not a fav (like I was), you are worked like a slave, doing the jobs of 3 people and don’t make any money. Seriously. It’s a little more than Min Wage, but still less than Nine Dollars an hour!! For everything I always did and how hard I always worked, the pay should at the very least, be $11/hr. But then again, I was one of the only ones that actually did everything I was supposed to.
    I was never trained properly, so I got jumped a lot by the owner about things I didn’t do, didn’t do correctly, or things I did do that I wasn’t supposed to do.... but other ppl with the same exact job, they barely do a quarter of what I do, and nothing is ever said to them. For example, I forgot to empty and wash out the mop bucket and mop head ONE night and got jumped and chewed out for it, but another guy didn’t even mop up any of the 10 pee spots throughout the building, didn’t check on the cats, didn’t do a lot of stuff that I’ve been made to do, and NOTHING was said to him!!
    So to sum it up, horrible place to work AND horrible place to take any of your babies!!!

  • Jessica
    More than a year ago
    Don't leave your dog here

    My dogs paws were severely burned after leaving her at daycare from 11:00-6:00pm. She is now limping and all of her paws are deep red. The facility is a bit run down looking and the staff seems stressed all but for one girl who was nice. I won't be taking my baby back here.

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