The Downtown Dog Resort & Spa

I take my dog here almost everyday when I am at work as well as boarding when I need to go out of town. He loves it here! The staff is awesome, always accommodating and know me as soon as I walk in, sometimes even getting Oliver before I even make it inside. I’ve never had a problem here and they even do great grooming since my dog DESPISES baths. He is always tired and looks happy running around with all of his friends in the pictures they put up everyday. I just got a new puppy and will be bringing him in as well. The staff is so excited to take care of him as well and I trust them every bit. This place is great because they have so much space OUTSIDE (unlike some other places) for the dogs to play and separate areas for different dog sizes and demeanors. Every time I pick up my dog he is happy, excited, and most importantly, exhausted. Take your furbabies here!

I absolutely love this place. My dogs were well taken care of. The staff is very polite and helpful. All the employees show loving care as if the dogs are part of their own family .The facility is very clean. I wouldn’t leave my family members anywhere else ! I would definitely recommend Downtown Dog Resort if you want you dogs taken care of !!!

This place needs to be shut down. I took my dog here last month using the Groupon and it was the worst mistake ever. It smelled horrible — and I was always taught that people should not walk in your house and ‘smell’ your dogs. The dogs are obviously not walked enough for potty breaks. My dog was also dying of thirst, he looked like he had been to hell and back. He was clearly CAGED with larger dogs who had apparently drunk all the water up from him (I have a Yorkie). I started crying when I saw him because he looked just that bad. I asked them what happened to him and they said maybe he was rough-​playing with other dogs. I still feel bad for leaving him there, Groupon or not! I don’t care if they offer free doggie care or not, I would never bring my dog back here.
I also lodged a formal complaint with Mayor’s Anti-​Animal Abuse Advisory Commission. It looks like all the employees are just there for a paycheck and must live close by. I did not sense a genuine love or care for the animals. Staff was abrupt, aloof and condescending at best. This place needs to be shut down and I am convinced that all of the ‘good’ ratings are from their employees because no one in their right mind would ever leave their pet here. I beg you to please go see for yourself, spend 5 mins in this place and you will agree with me. I was given a refund after speaking with the Manager.

Great people who go out of their way to make your life easier. They are so helpful, always sweet. Throughout my pregnancy they came to my car to get my three huge dogs — a lab, a mastiff, and a German shepherd — and their food to help me. Once I had my son, they kept doing it so he didn’t have to get out of the car seat! So sweet.
They always accommodate us, and often because we are last minute and disorganized. Truly great folks. Most importantly, my dogs love it.

I absolutely love DDR. Some places won’t deal with pits at all, but DDR didn’t discriminate against my baby because of her breed. Although my baby is a sweetheart, she can definitely be a handful with strangers and certain dogs. But even when she showed her other, not so sweet side, they adjusted accordingly, worked with her and today she’s a different person when she’s there. She’s no longer nervous when we pull up, i see her excitement in interacting with the staff, most of the staff knows most if not all of the dogs by name and recognize the dogs parent right away, and she is exhausted at the end of the day, which i absolutely love! Their job is far from easy, dealing with all the personalities of these non-​talking kids, but they do it with care and smiles. Thank yoy so much for your wonderful work with CeCe. We appreciate it!

I’m giving this place three stars because I’m glad my dog had a safe place to stay while I was away and even had play time with other dogs, but upon my arrival to retrieve him, I was told by the vet that he seemed to be suffering from an allergic reaction. She described some irritation around his neck area. She even said that someone had called or emailed me about this. I told her I had received one call after the vet gave him the flu shot to see if I wanted to pay over the phone or upon pickup. Then I received one email reminding me that the dog would need follow up for other vaccinations but no one mentioned any allergic reactions. Once I got my dog, I took him out to pee before getting in the car. That’s when I noticed open sores on his neck, a huge series of bumps covering his right hip area and several bumps throughout his body. Well, this is no simple allergic reaction, I thought. Now, I had only adopted the dog from a shelter about 3 weeks before this so I’m only still getting familiar with the dog. I don’t know if he’s prone to such breakouts, but it was a bit surprising to see it so widespread. I’ll be checking with a vet of my choosing soon to have him tested and to get everything up to date. What a surprise after being gone for only a week. Maybe it was the flu shot. I can’t lay blame anywhere without knowing more about the dog’s health in general. I used a groupon for a discount on three nights, which came in handy. The group play is extra $ 10 per day and the flu shot was required. That, alone, ran me an additional $ 73 for exam and shot. Everyone said he did well while there and played hard. He seemed happy to see me and was tired.

Downtown Dog Resort and Spa has been my saving grace!
I have been taking my dog Opie for over 6 months now. I take him at least 3 times a week for daycare and training with Daf, and board him on occasion when I have to go out of town.
I was given a tour of the facilities without even a request, which are clean and spacious (not to mention the puppy pool! My pup loves to swim). Daf invited me on several occasions to come back and observe his training sessions so that I feel comfortable and understand his methods. It was of the utmost importance to him that I understand my dogs temperament and learn how to train him on my own in order to prevent giving him mixed signals. These actions spoke volumes to me and I feel confident leaving my dog in the care of the professionals here.
When we pull up to the building, Opie could not be more thrilled to arrive. We are greeted by a friendly staff who knows us by name and Opie can hardly wait to be rid of me and taken back to the play room. In addition, the owner is almost always there and happy to answer any questions. He obviously appreciates that these pups are our babies and treats them as such.
My ONLY reservation was when I first started training, there was a bit of confusion about payment methods and exact costs for Daf’s services. However, I believe this was a misunderstanding on both ends and they were happy to work with me to avoid issues in the future. Opie has come a long way since working with Daf and coming home to a tired, happy puppy after a full day of training and fun is worth every penny. The rates and packages in general are much cheaper than any other you’ll find in the area, and their weekend hours even allowed me to get him in daycare for special events and weekend shifts when I worked in a restaurant.
I would suggest that they start to use webcam’s as many other places do, but I certainly don’t need them to know that Opie is being taken care of. I highly recommend all of their services, including their veterinary hospital.

If we did not hear complains from my partner, then you did all right. Thank you making my dogs safe and clean for 3 days I was away.

We board our dog here whenever we go out of town! The place is very clean and the staff is great.

Picked my dog (9yo lab mix) up around 5:00pm and the front dest attendant was complaining about having to wait for owners to come and pick up their dogs, I asked again when they closed because I thought it was 7:00pm and she replied «Ya, the last few hours of the day just drags».
I retrieved my dog, and the minute we got out side, he had to go to the bathroom as if he had not been out ALL DAY! When we got home he had terrible diarrhea — for hours, and was severely dehydrated. I felt so awful for him. I will never go back there.

For the most part, my experience with The Downtown Dog Resort & Spa has been ok. The front desk staff is always very friendly and most that work there seem to genuinely care about the dogs. My dog is small and I most often board him in the ‘mini dog’ suites as I find that it’s a little quieter there and less chaotic for him. I also like that it includes the half day of group play which is nice. It is, however, fairly expensive.
Honestly, i hate to board him at all, and try to avoid it. I’ve been taking him here for a few years on those occasions when i do need to board him, and truthfully have been becoming less pleased with the services provided. As I mentioned before, it’s often quite chaotic when I’m checking him in, which may be fine for some but i find that this stresses my dog out. He’s become more anxious and clingy now anytime we pull in the lot there, and this makes me less comfortable leaving him. Perhaps i’m just a crazy ‘pet parent’ but when I take him to the groomers or my vet, he is excited and runs inside and wants to go there but he does not act that way here.
The most recent time I boarded him, I had purchased a groupon which was supposed to be good for three nights of boarding for dogs up to 100 lbs. I carefully read the fine print to make sure that i could use the groupon as an existing customer and that there was nothing that would prevent me from taking advantage of what appeared to be a great deal. However, when i attempted to redeem the groupon, they would not honor it because he was staying in the mini-​suites. It did not say anywhere on the groupon that boarding him on the small dog side was excluded– it just said three nights of boarding. When i questioned why they would not let me redeem it, I was told that they were just doing what their manager had told them to do. I understand that this was not the choice of the people at the front desk, but the manager was there and did not come out to speak with me about it, instead choosing to stay in the back office. Essentially they took the value i paid for the groupon off what i would have to pay for the three nights. Which was not any kind of compromise as that was money i would have had to pay regardless. The unwillingness to work with me on it or speak to me about it was not appreciated.
I followed up with Groupon and after investigating they reimbursed me my money and acknowledged the frustrating experience I’d had in this particular incidence. In the future, if Downtown Dog should do this groupon i would recommend that they include in the fine print that this excludes the small dog side if they are not going to honor it for that particular boarding area. It will lead to less frustrations for their customers.
I’ve heard good things about just the doggie daycare options and the facility is kept clean (at least the parts I’ve seen). I’m just a little hesitant to take him back for boarding again based on some of my more recent experiences with them.

I’ve been taking my dog Boh here for almost two years. She goes about once a week. But maybe 1 out of 5 times will I see a video or picture. Its frustrating BC I’ve paid tons of money on daycare, boarding, and training and I can’t even get a video or message returned when I ask a question. I just want to know if she’s doing OK. And no one responds. When we paid $ 600 for a week of training we were told we would see videos but there was nothing. I go in each time, smile at the people. They all act like they know my dog BUT there’s nothing to prove or show me that she was taken care of /​let outside. I just wish there was more to go off of.

0 stars if I could. We learned that unless you pay extra for «play time» they DO NOT LET YOUR DOG OUT FOR RELIEF. As if that wasn’t bad enough, no where do they say it or even willingly admit it. Our dog always hated it there whenever we took him and I thought it was just because he hated us leaving. But then I found out that they stick him in a tiny cage connected to other tiny cages with other poor dogs and left in there until I return for him. The dogs pee and poop right in their cages, and the people hose the whole room down with the dogs inside. So my dog not only has to deal with his psychological issue of being house trained and going «in the house,» but he’s also bathed with the feces of other dogs as it rolls by him. No wonder he is so happy to see us. When we would pick him up, he would pee for five minutes straight. He’d obviously been holding it.
Never. Again.

This place is really great. My husband and I recently moved back to Baltimore from San Diego. In SD we had a dog place that did training, boarding, day care and had a vet on staff. With 3 dogs– 2 of them pit bulls, we hoped to find a similar place. It was also important to us that our new Dog place understood that Pit Bulls are a great breed, and can be wonderful dogs, but would respect that any breed can have behavioral challenges requiring extra attention. I found Downtown Dog resort and called to get a feel before we even moved. Jim took the time to answer all my questions, and clearly had a respect and love of all dogs– regardless of breed, or special needs.
After 2 months we’ve become loyal patrons and I would recommend Downtown to anyone. Here are some specifics:
The Great:
1. Luxury Suites: I like that they have indoor «luxury suites» and when we board– we usually have our dogs stay in those over the kennels if they are available.
2. «No stress attitude” — I’ve been told by several employees there that their main goal in just about everything is to cause as little stress to the dogs as possible. This is huge. My youngest dog (1 year old pit bull) is a very nervous dog– and takes time to feel comfortable. They spent weeks slowly introducing her to different dogs, and different size ‘packs’ until she started to get more comfortable. They didn’t rush her. She now runs with a pack of up to 20 dogs! On a similar note, they don’t just divide the dogs by «big» and «little” — they divide them based on personality and adjust as need be!
3. The groomer– amazing. handled my grumpy, arthritic, chow-​shelty mix and he came out looking AWESOME. including brushing teeth was also only $ 60! (that’s less than petsmart)
4. The vet is wonderful. Thoughtful, thorough and will take time to discuss all concerns and answer any questions.
The Could-​be-​Improved
1. My only real annoyance is that their vet, (as great as he is) seems to only be there 3 or 4 days a week. It would be ideal if the vet was there every day.
2. The kennels– The regular kennels are not fantastic. Don’t get me wrong– my dogs have stayed in them when the suites are not available, but they are set up in a huge room and are like the kennels in the shelter. It reminds me exactly of being in the shelter. There are dogs barking constantly and seems like a stressful situation for a sensitive dog.

My five month old puppy stayed at Downtown Dog Resort over Christmas, and went to day care every day. While he was there I called every day to see how he was doing and was told he was «doing great!», and «making lots of friends». When we picked him up I immediately knew something was wrong. He was visibly thinner, filthy, and appeared very lethargic, laying down on my feet regularly. We immediately took him to our vet and discovered a severe infection in his paws and discovered he had lost seven pounds in a week.
When we confronted Downtown Dog Resort they explained that the stones in the day care facility can irritate and cut the dog’s feet, especially puppies who had not been there before. So, not only were we lied to daily by staff about his condition (it would be impossible to not notice his weight loss), but the staff knew there was a risk of the facility hurting our dog and did not warn us, did not check him for injuries they could reasonably expect him to have, or pay attention to the warning signs he wasn’t doing well.
We dropped off a happy, rambunctious five month old puppy and got back a very sick animal. Murphy now has bandages on his feet, an e-​collar, and is on several different medications to curb the infection and help with his pain. Naturally, his disposition has significantly changed as well. We have received a full refund for his boarding and day care costs, but it is obviously of very little consolation when our puppy is so miserable.
DO NOT BRING YOUR PET TO THIS PLACE.

I love Downtown Dog Resort and so does my dog Maddie. Maddie goes to day care twice a week. It is in a super convenient location, about five minutes from my office, and I love that it is open until 7pm. The staff is very friendly, and the best part is that you don’t need to make reservations for day care — you can drop off and pick up whenever, on any day. They know Maddie by name and they know me too. I’ve also occasionally gotten her baths from DDR and they do a great job. We highly recommend DDR for doggie day care!

I brought my pit/​hound mix there for a few daycare days while we were moving into an apartment in Baltimore. Never had any issues, he was exhausted, healthy and relaxed at the end of each work day. Maybe its a better environment for more energetic dogs, I don’t understand the negative reviews. We now have two dogs and have them staying in the ‘luxury suite’ boarding facility while we are on vacation. Its a nice alternative over places like Sobo, who just puts them in a crate in a big room with other dogs overnight.

I previously wrote a review about the awful experience I had with the Groomer here, but would like to clarify, while I had a very poor experience with this one individual there, I still bring my dogs there for baths and very much like all of the other employees there. When I had the initial concern the owner did call me to apologize and try to make things right which was very nice.
While I would probably not ever let the one groomer work on my girls again, I very much love how the dog bather Rhianon bathes and handles my girls! I will continue to bring my dogs to the Downtown Pet Resort as long as she is there!

Boarding– 5 stars. My dog seems happy and doesn’t get upset when we pull up or when he’s taken back into the kennel. The videos they post onto YouTube are an added bonus. I love looking for Nantucket to see what he did after I left.
There’s a new groomer and I had her groom Tuck today. He looks great! She said that he wasn’t a problem and he was done in an hour and a half.

I hear great things about this place, enter living social deal and SCORE!!! I was so very excited to see that I could try this place out for my Duchie at a discounted rate. The deal came with a wellness exam, pawdicure, bath, and day care. I wanted a grooming too, I mean why not, right? So I called to schedule my appointment, initially the gentleman tried to talk me out of the wellness exam… not sure why, I mean I did pay for it…
Next, I was told that there was one groomer who only worked on Mondays and that if I wanted the wellness exam I needed to schedule that with the vet and then schedule the appointment with the groomer. I guess a red flag should have been raised then. I wish I could have just talked to one person, to do this but it wasn’t that easy. Oh yea I called the second week in May and was told that the first available grooming appointment wasn’t until 6/11…I still scheduled the appointment and was told to come on in. ;o)
Anywho, fast forward to my appointment day I got there when they opened (7A)and spoke to the receptionist who had no record of my appointment with the groomer!!! Grrr! Furthermore, there was no way for her to access the vets appointment book so there was no record of that either!!! Why me?! The receptionist was really helpful, she called the groomer who was able to squeeze Duchess in. YES! All is well, everything is solved, right? WRONG
Fast forward to 11A I received a phone call stating that the groomer would not be able to see my dog, I was asked if I would be willing to bring her back the following Monday as a «priority.» Furthermore, I was asked if I would prefer to do the entire Living Social deal on another day because of the confusion. Nope, if I pick up my dog today, I will not be returning and will request a refund through Living Social. I thought it was kind of tacky that a lot of the blame was being placed on the gentleman that initially took my call. It was stressed to me that I should have called to confirm the appointment or that I should have called during specific times to ensure that things would have been scheduled properly. How would I know that? This was my first experience with this place.
Overall, I was quite frustrated with this process. There was no communication between staff, and it just turned out to be a giant waste of time. I’m quite annoyed.
I’ll give it two stars for the cleanliness and the fact the staff seemed to enjoy their jobs and know the pets. Perhaps I’ll return to try their boarding once my annoyance passes.