See what makes our service (for Fun Paw Care members) the most-thoughtful, best-customized doggie day care you can shake a bone at.
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If you are looking for a dog daycare near me, you have found the very best dog daycare Los Angeles California has to offer.
If you’re the kind of dog parent who would rather miss your dog than have your dog miss you, Fun Paw Care has both of you covered.
Most doggie daycare centers, dog boarding facilities, and dog kennels are run by people who spend most of their time thinking about getting to full capacity. A day when disasters are averted and dogs are fed is a good day.
It has long been known that even the best dog kennels and dog daycare facilities are much more stressful than home environments or playing one-on-one. Adding to that stress are multiple unknown dogs (and people) are shown to be much more stressful than a single dog and person staying in a home environment.
We think dog daycare can accomplish much more. In the kind and experienced paws of dog training Los Angeles/behavior expert Russ Hartstein, dog daycare is an opportunity to understand your dog better and grow closer to him or her – even when you’re away for the day.
We work with dogs throughout Greater Los Angeles, including in Malibu, Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, Downtown LA, Santa Monica, Venice, Manhattan Beach, Westwood, Marina Del Rey, Calabasas, Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena, Hollywood, Palos Verdes, and elsewhere in and near Greater LA.
Apply now to become a Fun Paw Care member for the best behavior-focused dog daycare program in Los Angeles, or read on to find out more about the daycare experience your dog can look forward to.
What’s included in the Fun Paw Care dog daycare service?
- Our vetting and screening process, for your comfort and peace of mind, and for your dog’s health, safety, and general well-being.
- A plush dog boarding and engaging holistic learning center that’s supervised, operated, and run by a world-renowned dog behaviorist/dog trainer and dog nutritionist certified by the CDBC & CPDT (less than 200 of us worldwide!), Russell Hartstein
- Healthy lunch for full-day doggie daycare guests. Your dog gets fed, healthy food from slow food bowls or from stuffed Kong toys (to prevent bloat, indigestion and to stimulate cognition, teach excellent chew toy habits, and provide additional daily enrichment)
- A private, fully fenced-in 5-acre dog daycare and boarding ranch.
- Custom-designed dog playgroups based on size, age, breed, energy levels, gender, and play styles – set up and supervised by Certified Dog Behavior expert Russell
- All the play, socialization, exercise, and other enrichment your dog could possibly want in a day – with other dogs and people on my 5-acre fully fenced-in dog boarding and training ranch, home, the neighborhood, or around town
- Optimal, species-specific dyadic play sessions
- Complimentary Los Angeles Pet Transportation with a Certified Dog Trainer and Behaviorist so you can stay out of traffic and relax at home
- A veterinarian on-call 24/7, just in case and for peace of mind
- Holistic dog Zen rooms, specially designed for canine relaxation and decompression, and situated in quiet areas that suit your dog’s specific individual needs
- Plenty of outdoor shaded spots for hanging out with friends in the fresh mountain air
- Quick and easy access to indoor climate-controlled areas (you know how LA can get!)
- Canine grass – soft and antibacterial – for your dog’s comfort, traction, and cleanliness
- Aromatherapy scents: lavender and chamomile organic, therapeutic-grade essential oils fill the air of all of our dog boarding and daycare
- Canine relaxation music to help dogs wind down in their Zen spa environments
- A trove of dog agility equipment and enrichment devices
- Our fully fenced-in 5-acre dog behavior ranch has multiple enrichment areas, and double-gated independently operated car entry/exit ways meant to provide extra layers of safety. Your dog gets the VIP treatment but can come and go without fanfare and the Pawparazzi.
With Fun Pare Care you do NOT need to worry about:
- Your dog’s boredom or loneliness when home alone
- Your dog’s mischief when home alone (barking, chewing, counter-surfing, house-soiling, separation anxiety, etc.)
- Your dog practicing bad behaviors
- Needing to choose between your work hours, your non-work hours, and caring for your dog
- Your dog’s socialization
- Your socialization with other dog parents (to the extent you want it)
- Interacting with people who use inhumane equipment on their dogs (shock collars/electric collars/vibrating collars, choke chains, pronged collars, etc.)
- Your dog’s interacting with poorly-behaved dogs – dogs with problems resulting from punitive equipment, being untrained, undertrained, or poorly trained
- Your dog’s interacting with unsupervised or under-supervised dogs, often in the “care” of an “expert” or someone mindlessly occupied by his or her phone
- Sick, unhealthy, or unvaccinated dogs
- All the dangers in taking your pet to a dog park
- Intact, unaltered dogs – who often alter the energy and composition of playgroups
- Large or energetic dogs trampling and injuring smaller or older dogs
- Older or calmer dogs forced to be surrounded by and harassed by younger, more-hyper dogs
- Ticks, fleas, bacteria, and parasites on the streets and in dog parks
- Behaviors like leash-pulling, scavenging, foraging on walks or eating random things off the floor
- Cleaning up poop
- Stopping dogfights
- Stopping off-leash dogs running up to you
- Worrying about your dog being bullied, harassed or ganged up on
- Ruining pre-established dog training or behavior modification protocols
- Door charging / bum-rushing behaviors
- Proper formulated hydrating, eating, and playing schedules
- Dog indigestion, which can cause bloat or other illnesses
- Hiring an unprofessional pet sitter or dog walker who is not up-to-date, intimate, fluent, and well-versed in dog body language, ethology, cognitive ethology, and applied behavior analysis – or who just doesn’t love dogs the way Fun Paw Care loves dogs
Typical dog boarding and dog kennels vs. dog daycare Fun Paw Care-style
Russel is a longtime Certified Dog Trainer, Dog Behaviorist expert and Nutritionist. Most dog daycare centers, dog boarding facilities, and dog kennels are run, owned, and operated by people with very little (if any) background, experience, and expertise in applied behavior analysis (ABA). They see their main responsibilities as feeding, supervising, cleaning, and possibly walking or playing. Of course, those creature comforts and other duties matter, but often they’re complicated by behavioral issues, and there’s more to your dog’s life and well-being than just the essentials.
Dog behavior is the most critical area of expertise (by far) for anyone who works with dogs. Without an intimate working knowledge and application of ethology (non-human animal behavior) and applied behavior analysis, your dog cannot be understood, nor communicate. Without understanding and communication, your dog is at great risk.
Some of the many physical, emotional, psychological and physiological health issues that may come about from a lack of communication and misunderstanding of a dog’s subtle behaviors are increased stress, anxiety, fear, phobia, fights, disease, depression, immunological diseases, overexcitement, aggression, and even death.
The very first question a dog parent should ask of a doggie daycare, pet boarding or any dog trainer is: “Exactly who will supervise and care for my dog, and what is their background in dog behavior and canine ethology?”
You know exactly who will care for your dog: local dog-training expert Russell Hartstein. Fun Paw Care is owned and operated by Russell Hartstein, a world-renowned dog behaviorist and one of fewer than 200 Certified Dog Behavior Consultants (CDBC) worldwide, a Certified Professional Dog Trainer (CPDT), Behaviorist and Canine Nutritionist. Russ has over 30 years of experience in studying and teaching animal behavior in Los Angeles, Miami, and Manhattan (where he’s originally from).
As the personification of Fun Paw Care, Russell overlooks the entire dog boarding, daycare, and dog training five-acre ranch while organizing, maintaining, and monitoring your dog’s comprehensive and integrative well-being and play sessions. Your dog is unique and deserves to be treated as unique. That’s why we are not a volume-based business, unlike other dog kennels, dog daycares, and dog training centers in and near Los Angeles.
We thought of everything, and our doggie daycare has everything. Dogs thrive on properly formulated and structured play partners and conspecific interactions. Those set them up to succeed, learn, be fulfilled, and have fun all day long while in our care. Because dogs are dyadic (play best in twos) volume-based dog daycares and dog kennels are fundamentally flawed, unhealthy, and unsafe for your dog. In many cases, your dog is interacting with 10, 20, or even more dogs at the same time with only one “counselor” to watch everyone! A setup for failure and a very dangerous and stressful situation for your dog.
Dogs are crepuscular animals, meaning they are most naturally active during twilight hours, dawn and dusk. We structure our playgroups around your dog’s natural state and somatosensory preferences. Everything about our Los Angeles doggie daycare/dog training/puppy training facility is carefully designed to encourage your dog to thrive in every aspect of safety and health: mental, physical, emotional, behavioral, and nutritional.
Our doggie daycare is a first-class, private, designed, and structured dog park where well-balanced, well-behaved, social, affable dogs go to socialize, play, exercise, and hang out with their friends. Everything about your dog’s day and night, playgroups, drop off and pick up times, activities, park layout, smells, lighting, tactile surfaces, enrichment, socialization, naps, toys, and nutrition are designed to meet and exceed your dog’s behavioral, exercise and enrichment needs, so that your dog comes homes a well-balanced and completely fulfilled dog. Both of you will feel cared-for throughout the day. You won’t need to leave your dog at home and force him or her to choose between being bored to the bone or bad to the bone.
Our dog daycare is TAILored to your dog’s comfort – physical and emotional. Most doggie daycares and hotel pet boarding facilities are not set up safely and don’t have healthy play sessions. Play sessions aid in social development, exercise, but also very importantly build behavioral flexibility, eustress, and resiliency, while in the process, helping a dog learn to get along with many other dog morphologies, and temperaments. Overly rough, inappropriate play or poor matching of dogs’ energy, size, sex, breed, or age may easily cause traumatic experiences. All of those experiences can lead to emotional, physical, or psychological health problems, and in many cases will lead to aggression or a fight.
Here are just a few of the things an experienced dog behaviorist and trainer watch for to tell how a dog play session is going:
- Dyadic play sessions
- Role reversals
- Self-handicapping
- Play bows
- Willingness of each dogs’ engagement vs. disengagement
- Play one-sidedness
- Hackle piloerection
- Shaking or rough or hard mouthing
- Noises? Growling? Snarling? Barking? Mounting/humping
- Intensity levels
- No winners or losers and healthy for both animals
All of those are contextual signs that only a skilled Certified Behaviorist and Trainer can make sense of.
Doggie Daycare Los Angeles Services
Our exclusive curated dyadic dog daycare service is limited to Members only, offered on a case-by-case basis.
Dogs must be:
- People and dog-friendly
- Up to date on vaccinations, shots, flea and tick prevention (we require that you provide proof)
- Freshly bathed, groomed and flea and tick free
- Potty-trained
- Trained by Fun Paw Care
- Separation anxiety-free
Dog Daycare Los Angeles Prerequisite:
- Completed at least one week of Boot Camp
- Enrolled in Russell’s exclusive Members-only Club
