2016 Is Over? Really?

I can’t believe this year is coming to an end.  It seems like yesterday that we were celebrating the completion of our daycare expansion and that was over a year ago.  But there is now snow on the ground and I am Christmas shopping so I guess ya… it’s the end of another year and concludes year 13 for K9 Kaos.

All of us were thrilled to have been voted as 2016 Best of Boarding and Best of Dog Training from the New Hampshire magazine readers poll.  I can’t tell you how proud the staff are to have won these awards.  Voting for us in a poll or leaving us a 5-star review on Google makes the K9 Crew beyond happy.  They all work so hard day in and day out for the dogs, just a few words from the customers really brings a big smile to their faces.  That makes me happy too.

We are always learning and working hard to create a safe, healthy and happy environment for the dogs.  This year was no different.  With the addition of a new daycare yard we have created a new group that we like to call “Tweenies”.  Basically it is for those dogs that aren’t really big and aren’t really small, they don’t fit in with the big dogs and they are too big for the little dogs… so they are tweenies!  This group is working out well so far and has helped some dogs that really needed this group.  I think we have perfected our routines to include this fifth yard.  It might sound easy but trying to rotate staff, have lunch breaks and all of that good stuff while keeping the dogs fully supervised can be tricky.  We have made many changes and I think our current routine is working really well.

You may have noticed many new faces this year!  We are having lots of fun training many new staff members in every area of K9 Kaos.  Everyone is doing a great job so far and some have taught us a few new things.  Your patience is very much appreciated while we get our trainees up to speed.  We are also looking forward to seeing our college students back over the holiday break and again this summer.

We are still working on managing our very very very very busy telephones.  With the addition of a second person on the front desk most mornings and the addition of a new runner in the afternoon will hopefully free up some time for the phones to be answered a little more regularly during our busy hours.  However, calling us between 7am – 10am or between 4pm – 6:30pm is still just too busy in the shop for us to get to the phones. Leaving a voice mail message is the best option then.  You can now TEXT us anytime at  603-534-2911 or email info@k9kaos.com, both are excellent ways to communicate with us and to schedule appointments especially for daycare.

Since we are talking about phones.  One of the other big changes we made this year was to step back a bit from training.  I noticed that the process for booking a training class kept our front desk staff on the phone for a very long time.  Since training is an accessory to our business, we made the change to have the trainer do all of their own scheduling.  We still offer training on Sunday, to sign up for a class, simply follow the link from our training page.

We are planning a few changes for 2017 which are exciting.  We are investigating a better wall material for our daycare area. We hope to replace all of the sheet rock with a more scratch resistant material that can take more of the abuse that the dogs dish out.  We are also going to add another 16 nap crates for our daycare dogs.  Lastly our staff will begin a brand new training program called “Knowing Dogs”.  The program will allow them to earn certificates for completion which I think is pretty exciting.

We have said hello to so many adorable puppies this year.  We all love to watch these dogs grow up, it is such a privilege for us to care for them day in and day out.  We have also said goodbye to too many of our dogs that passed away.  It remains the toughest part of caring for dogs everyday. We have a relationship with all of the dogs we meet.

So with another year coming to a close, I would like to thank our customers for another incredible year.  Without you  K9 Kaos would be not be what it is today.  With you, we are able to participate in the community as well as employ and offer benefits to an incredible group of people.

On behalf of the entire K9 Crew, thank you so much for sharing your dogs with us.  We love and care for them like they are our own.  I hope you all have a safe and wonderful holiday season and a happy new year!

Anne