Asheville
Enrichment Dog Day Care
Dog Day Care. Reimagined.
The bond with your furry friend is unparalleled, but our busy lifestyles can make it tough to meet all their needs for health and happiness. This can result in issues like loneliness, boredom, weight gain, anxiety, and unwanted behaviors at home.
At Central Bark Asheville enrichment doggy day care, your dog finds a safe and loving space to play and learn. Through socialization, mental stimulation, and physical exercise, we provide what their minds and bodies need to stay healthy and happy for life.
Our focus on canine enrichment is designed to elevate your dog’s overall quality of life. Engaging in fun and rewarding activities encourages them to problem-solve, learn new skills, and gain confidence through their senses. Rest assured, your dog is enjoying a fantastic day with their friends. Enrichment Dog Day Care is our expertise, and no one does it quite like us.
A Healthy, Balanced Day
Enrichment Dog Day Care delivers a well-rounded mix of play, exercise, socialization, learning, rest, and tender loving care. Each day is tailored to your dog’s unique needs and preferences, fostering their physical, mental, and sensory well-being. This ensures you have a healthy, happy, calm, and well-rounded companion at home.
- Play, Exercise, and Socialization – Physical activity aids in maintaining a healthy weight and muscle tone, improving mood. Positive interactions with new humans, dogs, and environments contribute to creating well-socialized and content dogs. Our facility offers various playgroups in indoor and outdoor areas, ensuring a suitable social environment based on your dog’s age, personality, and comfort level.
- Rest – Amidst play and socialization, ample opportunities for rest are crucial for your dog’s physical, mental, and emotional health. Our daily schedule prioritizes striking the right balance between rest, play, and learning, steering clear of unhealthy overstimulation.
- Learning – Dogs learn from both humans and fellow dogs, shaping their understanding of appropriate social behavior. Our expert staff utilizes positive training techniques to encourage safe play and support your dog in developing healthy social behaviors.
- Love – Your dog becomes an integral part of our family, receiving all the love and attention they need in your absence. We establish a strong bond with your dog, fostering comfort and confidence. With regular attendance, we become familiar with your dog’s personality, preferences, and needs. This will allow us to notice subtleties such as moods, behavioral changes, or potential health issues.
Commitment to Safety
Ensuring the safety and well-being of our guests is our top priority. As fellow dog parents, we take great pride in treating every dog as part of our own family. Our commitment extends to providing a healthy and secure environment for everyone entering our facility.
Central Bark® Enrichment Dog Day Care Features:
Flexible Group Play
Flexible playgroups allow us to match your dog with the social atmosphere and play schedule they can enjoy and benefit from most. This helps give them a healthy balance of play, rest, and learning and creates a safer social environment with a better quality of play. And our lower dog-to-staff ratios offer more individual attention, education, and love.
Group Play Skills
Interactive group activities and positive reinforcement help dogs practice important skills like name recall, and behaviors like group sit and calmly going in and out of doors and gates. These activities are fun and rewarding for your dog and help improve behavior and impulse control, prevent overstimulation, and create a safer social environment.
Rest Period Enrichment
Your dog gets to relax and recharge in their own private space with calming interactive toys and healthy food pairings tailored to their preferences and diet. It promotes physical and mental relaxation which can help them achieve a healthy balance of play, learning, and rest. It can also help them become more comfortable in crates by building positive associations.
One-on-One Enrichment
Personalized One-on-One Enrichment sessions give your dog the extra attention they love and the freedom to use their senses and safely explore their instincts through interactive toys, puzzles, and games. It’s fun and rewarding and exercise their bodies and minds and engage their senses. Add complexity with fitness and agility equipment.
At pickup, they took the time to give us a rundown of how he did throughout the day, which I appreciated. He apparently decided putting his harness back on was optional, and hearing the staff laughing and joking about him behind the door was cute. It was clear they were taking it in stride and treating him with patience.
The reason we chose them is that they incorporate enrichment activities into the day instead of just having dogs running around together for hours. It feels like a very thoughtful approach to daycare, and we’ll be back when we’re in town.
The staff and other clients are always so pleasant to chat with at drop offs and pickups which makes it feel like a sweet little community. Getting to go pick up Jasper at Central Bark is the best part of our day!
They also can accommodate our busy work schedules with early (6:30am) drop offs and late (7pm) pick ups. We are so grateful for the whole Asheville team!
FAQs about Enrichment Dog Day Care in Asheville
Selecting the right doggy day care is an important decision for you and your family. You want to make sure you find the right fit for your dog and your family’s needs. Follow these tips to find the perfect place for your pup!
Tour the day care center before leaving your dog there. We recommend visiting several centers in your area before making a final decision.
While you’re there, ask yourself:
- Is the play space clean, odor-free, comfortable, and safe for the center’s stated capacity?
- Pay attention to how the management and staff treat you, your dog, and the dogs in their care. Are they mature, knowledgeable, courteous, professional, and patient at all times?
- Note how the dogs respond to the staff – do they seem happy, relaxed, and excited? How do staff members greet and treat each dog?
- How do other dogs act during your visit – relaxed, happy, stressed, scared, or out of control?
- Is there a great deal of noise?
- Does the facility seem well organized and equipped with essential tools and supplies? Look for access to fresh, clean water, sanitation tools, ready access to treats to reinforce good behavior in playgroups, toys, secure fencing, rubber flooring in the inside play spaces, and access to outdoor play spaces.
- Are there enough crates for every dog on-site in case of an emergency?
- Are the dogs ever left alone together without a staff member present?
- Are the handlers engaged with the dogs in their care and actively working with them? Or are they sitting on the sidelines?
Questions to ask the doggy day care provider:
- Will my dog get individual attention time with staff?
Ask if staff will have time to work individually with your dog on behaviors, play with them, and give them support and love while at day care. - Are there small group play options?
Small playgroup options help ensure your dog will have a social environment that allows them the freedom and comfort to thrive based on their unique needs, preferences, and play styles. - What’s the daily schedule? Is this tailored to my dog’s unique needs and preferences?
Dogs thrive on routine, so the center should have a clear schedule for how things run every day. A consistent program tailored to your dog’s individual needs and style will promote a healthy and happy dog. - Are there regularly scheduled playtimes and nap times throughout the day?
Day care should offer your dog a safe and balanced day of play, learning, rest, and love so you can look forward to a happy, well-balanced dog at the end of every day. - How and where are the dogs’ given downtime to wind down from the day’s activities to help prevent exhaustion and overstimulation?
Maintaining a healthy balance of rest and play is important for the physical, mental, and social health of dogs. Just like human athletes, rest helps dogs avoid bodily injury and provides a space for them to unwind, so they do not become over-stimulated or over-aroused during play. This creates a much safer social environment for dogs. - Are there fenced and secure outdoor play areas?
Safe outdoor areas are important for a healthy, fun playtime. Whether it is romping in the snow or playing in swimming pools, everyone loves recess outside! - How are new dog introductions handled?
The center should clearly outline their procedures around new dog introductions, with effective policies that encourage happy, healthy, and lasting relationships and experiences. - What training does the staff receive?
Doggy day care staff should be professionally trained and educated in animal behavior, socialization, and obedience training to ensure every dog’s well-being. - Are the dogs supervised at all times?
A trained staff member should ALWAYS supervise dogs. - Ask about behavior management tools used at the facility while caring for the dogs. What happens if your dog does something right? What happens if your dog does something wrong?
Staff should use positive reinforcement and reward-based techniques to develop and reinforce behaviors that will enrich dogs’ lives at home and day care. Avoid centers that use punishment or correction to manage dog’s behavior as those techniques can create negative associations and fear. Utilizing reward-based techniques and positive reinforcement, on the other hand, can help build healthy relationships and happy experiences. - What provisions are there for avoiding dog scuffles?
Ask staff how they manage the dogs in their care. What do they look for in dog-dog interactions? How do they deal with emergencies and scuffles? How do they interrupt and redirect dogs? How do they build useful playgroup skills to keep the dogs safe proactively? Pay attention to how staff redirects dogs who need additional support to stay safe and whether they respond promptly and use effective strategies in these situations. - Is there an in-depth interview to determine relevant background, behavioral, and health information including confirmation of spay/neuter, proof of vaccinations, flea and tick prevention, etc.? How is this information kept up to date?
Find out what kind of assessments and evaluations the center uses before they accept a new dog. Also, every dog’s information should be regularly updated and kept on file to prevent illness and injuries. - Do they have safety, cleaning, and disinfecting policies and procedures? What are they?
Step 1: Login
- Click the “Client Login” option found at the bottom of all pages on our website.
- Enter either your email address or phone number that you signed up with
- Click “continue logging in”
- Then enter your password and click “Sign In”
Step 2: Request Services
You will now see the page below. From this page you can do a number of things along with requesting a reservation from the drop downs including editing your information, editing your pet’s info, adding/removing pets, checking your package credits, purchasing package credits, and adding/editing/changing photos.
- Click the blue “request services” button
- In the popup window, click the “Book Day Care or Sleepover Now!” button
Step 3: Select a Service Type
- Scroll down past the notes (after you have read them) until you get to the “Details” section.
- Click on the drop-down in the “Type” row and choose your reservation type.
- Note: Grooming requests cannot be made through the customer portal. Please call to schedule an appointment.
Step 4: Make Your Reservation Request
- Choose the pet or pets you would like to add to this reservation
- Choose the date you are looking for
- You may edit the drop-off and pick-up time from within our open hours, if you know those approximations
- You can set up “recurring dates” for the same day/days each week for a timeframe
- You can add additional reservations for other days at the same time.
Step 5: Add-on Services and Notes
- You may add any additional services (such as enrichment training, training tutor, special meals (outside of lunch), salon and spa services, etc, to their reservation.
- You may add any notes that you would like us to see in the notes box
- You may run an estimate for the total cost of your reservation request (please note that the charges for “additional services” such as salon and spa, may vary from the default that shows in the estimate)
- Once you have added everything you want, click “Save” in the lower right corner
Your Done!
You should see the page below if everything went through correctly. You will get an email confirmation when your reservation has been accepted and confirmed, if you are added to a waitlist, or if it is denied.
Dog day care gives dogs a fun place to play with their friends while their owners are busy at home and work.
At Central Bark®, doggy daycare is our specialty, and nobody does it quite like us. We don’t just give dogs a place to play. We create a personalized program of activities that optimize your dog’s whole health – their physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
Central Bark goes beyond a traditional doggy day care with our unique Whole Dog Care philosophy. Our personalized approach helps enrich your dog’s whole health and well-being throughout their entire life so you can enjoy a healthy, happy, and loving life together.
The heart of our whole dog care approach is our Enrichment Doggy Day Care program. We combine Central Bark’s industry-leading doggy day care expertise with the latest dog behavior science. Our mission is to give dogs a balanced blend of exercise, social group play, learning, rest, and TLC. To help your dog be a healthy, happy, calm, and well-rounded member of your family.
Once you have enrolled, we will need a copy of your dog’s vaccination records, which you can upload to your online account or bring with you on your scheduled first day. We also ask that your dog comes in on a regular 6-foot flat leash (no retractable or flexi-leads in the lobby) and a quick-release collar. Not sure what a quick-release collar is? No problem! We’ll be happy to show you on your first day. If your dog usually wears a harness while walking, you’re welcome to bring that as well.
If your dog typically eats a midday meal, you can bring it in an airtight container clearly labeled with your dog’s first and last names.
Central Bark® Whole Dog Care
Our whole dog care approach offers a full range of fun and personalized products and services. To promote your dog’s physical, mental, and emotional health and happiness throughout their entire life.
