Dogtopia of White Flint

Brought B&R here for a nail trim ($10) and was happy I able to make an appointment for the day of. The nail trim was super quick, with both staff members being great with B&R. The nail trim didn't take as long as I thought, so I was even able to squeeze in a bath for one of them. Would visit Dogtopia again for grooming services, just wish they were a tad closer to us.

The location is a little difficult to find, so just make sure you follow the signs posted on top of a couple buildings as your navigation will probably take you elsewhere. Parking is ample in front of the building.

I have been a loyal client of Dogtopia Whiteflint for nearly a decade, specifically for boarding services. However, I have noticed a consistent decline in the quality of the services during each visit.

Unfortunately, my dog contracted kennel cough while being boarded at this facility. Despite being up-to-date with all his vaccinations, he is not recovering and has now developed bronchopneumonia. This is an unprecedented occurrence as my dog has never experienced such health issues before. As a result, my family and I were worried about his well-being while we are out of the country, instead of enjoying our vacation.

The vet bills had been astronomical, with two visits costing over $700 within less than a week of picking him up from boarding. The cost of boarding has also been a significant burden. I sent an email but staff from Dogtopia ignored me and I haven't received any response at all.

Even though my dog had previously contracted conjunctivitis after boarding in prior visits, I still chose to remain with this facility. Nonetheless, I believe that the health and safety of dogs is not getting prioritized. Dogs are getting sick and every time I watch the live camera it seems the daycare is overcrowded with too many dogs and insufficient personnel to cater to their needs. I am really disappointed on the lack of acknowledgment from the staff of this facility. We won't be returning.

There is a very poor dog to staff ratio and has been a series of terrible management of incidents. We had previously used Dogtopia for all of our boarding needs over the last 3 years whenever we traveled but during our most recent trip our dog was bit during his first day of what was supposed to be a 3 night stay. The staff downplayed the severity of the wound and kept trying to get us to dismiss it as an accident.

According to the emergency vet they dropped our dog off at, it was a very deep bite, not evidence of a typical accident. Our dog needed staples and a drain inserted in his neck. Upon telling a staff member and their manager about the severity of the injury according to the vet, neither person expressed any sympathy for our dog and instead quickly gave us the rehearsed line about the liability waiver we signed. We understood Dogtopia wasn't liable, but their contract says owners are liable for any damages their dogs cause to staff or other dogs. I hope that they don't allow the dog that did this back to Dogtopia, but I have my doubts due to the answers we received.

They ultimately ended up paying the nearly $1,000 emergency vet bill themselves but only after my wife and I persistently followed up. We did receive an apology from the manager but at that point their lack of sympathy and unwillingness to acknowledge the severity caused a lot of stress and hurt. I truly hope they are able to give their staff more training and show more love for the dogs who attend their daycare.

I love Dogtopia for doggie day care. This place takes great care of my dog. How do I know? (1) I'm able to check in on my dog during the day b/c there's a cam in the playroom, streaming a live feed available to dog parents. (2) My dog is SO happy to go to daycare. He gets excited when I tell him he's going to day care! When we pull up, he's pawing at the car door to get out and he greets the "coaches" inside with such enthusiasm--which they give back to him. Dogtopia is the best.

We have been customers for nearly a decade and the service has gone from a high level of care to abysmal. I have lost count of the management and employee turnover. As others have noted, the ratio of dogs to room attendant is too high, often 1 attendant to upward of 20-30 dogs on a busy day. The pricing has also been inconsistent - whether you were under old pricing schemes, eligible for multi-pet discounts, etc. We have 3 dogs and discounts and charges were applied willy nilly to the point where I'd rather pay full price to have some level of confidence that I'm being charged the correct amount. Earlier this year, we were double charged which didn't get rectified until a negative review was left.

More recently, however, our dog was bitten while Dogtopia was providing daycare services to our dogs. The bite was significant that it needed to be flushed, sutured, and drained. The vet bill was over $1,200. The manager Amanda contacted us to offer a reimbursement of the vet bill which we accepted. Unfortunately, to date, we have not received the reimbursement. We have made calls and written emails to follow-up without a response.

Although Dogtopia has failed to reimburse us for the vet bill as promised, the only recommendation I can provide is for potential pet parents to check other non-curated reviews on Google and Yelp and you'll find similar accounts just within the past year. Pay particular attention to the negative reviews because as a long-term customer, much of it rings true.

UPDATE 11/15/2021: After submitting the same review above in response to Dogtopia's request for feedback (which they reviewed but did not publish), the manager immediately contacted us - after not responding to prior emails and calls - claiming that she thought the check had been cut and that she would look into it. We finally received the reimbursement, postmarked and dated after the review was submitted. Again, this just confirms the continuing pattern of the poor service you can come to expect when your pet experiences a negative event at this location as we, and others, have described.

This place used to be great under old (old old) management. They've recently gone through a couple of managers and it's obvious there has been a ton of employee turnover. It has since gone downhill, and all they do is a daily thing so they can ask you to donate to their foundation.

My older dog had enjoyed his time here for basically 2 years until new management took over. Not sure what happened in that time but his attitude changed drastically - he became anxious at daycare and stopped joining the group, sitting in the corner ignored.

My younger dog is a bit of a wild one and I noticed they were crating her a lot, basically the full day. After weeks of this the new manager (new this week) told me she's "too aggressive and playing unsafely". Seems like something I could have learned weeks ago and stopped bringing her, but they got more of my money this way.

Over all, very saddened by the decrease in quality from Dogtopia. Supposedly, all of the good employees went to the Tysons location.

I called on Monday , 14th February 2022 to schedule boarding for my 2 goldendoodles. I was told by the woman on the phone that my dogs would need to come to their location for a meet-and-greet (which would cost me $25 per dog ) , attend doggie daycare for a minimum of 1 day prior to boarding ($22 per dog ), and be current on all of their vaccines . I made it clear to the woman on the phone that the dogs had a scheduled appointment at the vet for 2:30 PM the following day and I could provide current vaccination records after their vet visit. She suggested an 11 AM meet-and-greet on Tuesday , knowing fully well that my dogs would not be current on their vaccinations until after 2:30 PM . I unnecessarily showed up with my 2 dogs at 1100 AM for the meet-and-greet only to be told that I dogs could not be received with without vaccinations and that I would have to reschedule.
Instead, I booked dog boarding with a highly rated competitor , which ended up saving me $$ in the end because their requirements are not as stringent .
It would serve the owners of Dogtopia well to be mindful of their customers time .

I am a helicopter dog parent and I'm happy to say that this place is back to a fully-functioning, safe, and caring place to send my dog! As other reviews mentioned, there were some ups and downs over the last year - so much that at one point last year, I vowed never to return. However, after much turnover, the staff is now stable, attentive, and helpful. The new head canine coach really seems to understand the dogs. The pricing confusion seems to have been sorted out and it is slightly less than most places. (I have tried 5 other options in the area. Told you I was a helicopter parent!) There are not many other places that have cameras that actually have a full view of the room your dog is in. The rooms are larger than most places and the dogs are out of the crates for all but mid-day lunch/nap time. They have crates right in the same room so they can immediately separate dogs if there is any problem and the staff can still see the dogs the whole time. My little gal gets too excited sometimes, so she goes in a crate and I can see the staff checking their watches to see if her 5-minute timeout is over yet. She rarely expresses any affection, but she loves the staff here, which is saying a lot. There is a dog scale in the lobby, you can park right out front, they text me to let me know she's doing ok when she's boarding, and I love the photos they give me - especially the one of her with Santa (who she apparently does not love). I'm so happy that things have turned around here and I don't need to worry about my little one. I hope this is helpful for others!

Make sure you watch your pups on the surveillance camera. We had an incident a few years ago when an employee decided to put his hands on our puppy because he was being "annoying."
How was he being annoying? Our puppy kept trying to play with the broom that the employee was using. The employee grabbed his collar twisted it tight and got in his face. I watched all of this at work and was mortified. Please read the other 1 star reviews. This is not an isolated incident...

I should have known something was wrong... every time I came to pick up our dog he reeked of urine because they kept him in the crate all day. When I confronted them about this they said it was because he gets too excited and they needed to separate him. If you have a hyper dog, and or a puppy just make sure that you hold these people accountable to treating your dog with respect.
Yes some dogs can be a lot but you would expect people in this industry to actually have a frank conversation with you instead of lying, just so they can get paid. Please be careful where and who you leave your dog with.

WORST PLACE TO LEAVE UR DOG!
My dog came out bleeding and they did not contact me when my dog was ready to be picked up! like they said they would! My dog was only in for 2 hours i cant imagine if i left him for longer!