HMD “How’s My Dog”

There are all kinds of dog owners. Some people want to check in and get reports on their dogs as often as possible. Other people just want to know that their dog is doing well, then enjoy their trip and not check in on any videos or pictures for a week or two. If we need to get in touch about health or behavior, we’ll be in touch.

Keeping dog families up to date with their dogs when they are apart is a job here, an assignment, called HMD (“How’s My Dog?”). It’s a shift, clock in and work. The best people to do this job are the same people who are also caretakers working with the dogs in the barn. Anyone who is not on site every day will have a hard time figuring out which dog is which and what the notes from the caretakers really mean.

We don’t always have the time and personnel available to do a full HMD shift. It’s not that we don’t want to give out more personal reports individually. For example, do I know if Sasha’s family saw this nice photo from yesterday? Dexter and Charlie: did the owner see these?

Keeping people updated on their dogs is a challenge. One problem is that people working with the dogs directly — like Julia, Ashlie, John, Bryan, etc. — don’t always have time to also respond to messages. Other people can’t really give you much detail. The same kennel managers would be best at finding a direct link to a photo or video of your dog but, again, they are busy with dogs.

Also, when everything is fine, they don’t reach out. If you haven’t heard from the team in the barn, that’s a good sign. If your dog is eating well, playing with others nicely, etc. – you aren’t going to hear from us. If your asking for an update and everything is fine, from the kennel manager’s point of view, they might be surprised or not expecting to be in touch: your dog is just happy and healthy and fine. They would normally pay more attention to a dog that might have an actual issue that needs some kind of intervention.

We post new blog entries regularly. There is a “main gallery” almost every day. You have to click and load images, then click and load again, and file through a lot of pictures to see your dog. It’s a bit tedious, but it is the best way to catch a glimpse of your dog. We also post videos from YouTube linked on the blog as well, usually, a couple of minutes of edited video and most dogs are in there somewhere ( a few seconds). It should only take a few minutes to check. We do live IG videos and link those to the blog as well.

Lastly, we send out weigh-in videos from time to time. Weighing dogs is not only a chance to check to see if they are losing or gaining weight, since we might not notice by observation but also a chance for the kennel managers to check over a dog for scratches, cuts, hotspots, etc. These short videos are shot in kind of a corner of the barn and aren’t as pretty as the pictures out by the pond, but we also provide these images, just to keep in touch again about dog health.

So, if you haven’t heard from us and are waiting for a “HMD” message… hold tight.

We’re working on making HMD flow better and getting more reports out. In the meantime, while you’re waiting for us to push some pictures and reports to you, you can always scroll through the pictures on the blog.