DON’T I KNOW YOU?

It’s a long-running joke that in the service industry, the staff tends to know people by their orders. For example, if you’re a regular at a coffee house, they may know you as “Medium Skinny Vanilla Latte” instead of Jane.

When I worked at a postal store years ago, I knew people by their mailbox number rather than their name, i.e., “that’s 234” instead of “that’s Scott”. This is true in a dog daycare setting as well. We may recognize our dogs’ humans, but it’s not uncommon to hear, “Oh, that’s one of Digby’s Dads” instead of “that’s Rob or Wes”. Because of this, we encourage everyone to upload a clear photo of themselves to their Paw Partner profile.

YOUR DOG

We always ensure that all the dogs in Paw Partner have an image in their profile. This allows us to make certain we know who our furry friend is - it’s also the reason we use photos for our leash bins. In the early days of operating at the Delridge Way location, we used to cover the front desk quite a bit as we worked to grow the business.

One day I had a customer come in and tell me he was here to pick up Baker. So, I went in the back and grabbed an adorable long-haired Dachshund named Baker, and took him to the lobby. My customer said, he’s cute, but that’s not my dog. I was mortified, apologized, and promptly returned to the back to get the Redbone Coonhound he came to pick up. We immediately started using photos for leash bins and matching them to their Paw Partner profiles to help alleviate confusion - this became even more important as we grew and had more dogs coming through the door. It’s also the reason we check out our customers before we go back and get their dog, that allows for another step to ensure we’re getting the right dog.

Several customers upload photos of their dog for the dog’s profile and that’s helpful, but we occasionally replace those photos with shots that are more easily recognizable for our staff. To that end, some customers upload photos of their dog for their own profile, but using a face shot of the human would be much more beneficial.

YOUR FACE

The main benefit of using a photo of yourself in your Paw Partner profile is that it helps us know to whom we’re speaking and to whom we’re handing off the dog. The profile photo you associate with your Paw Partner account should be a good representation of you - one that we can look at and compare with the person in front of us and know that we’re handing off a dog to the correct person.

PICK-UPS

Since you may need to occasionally have someone else drop off or pick up your dog, we ask that you let us know. It’s simple to do so, send a message via Paw Partner or email us with the person’s name. Be sure to let us know if they’re always authorized to pick up and drop off or if it’s a one-time arrangement.

Our goal in encouraging the use of profile photos and drop-off and pick-up information is to ensure the safe handling of all the good dogs that come to Good Dog!