Best Friends Pet Care

Write a Review914-200-1100

OPEN NOW - Closes at 5:00pm

We bring our boxer here for three days a week. She can't wait to go and we love it here because they seem to take great care our pet.

We had our dog staying at Best Friends in White Plains for 10 days over the Christmas holiday while we were visiting family out of the country. I've had dogs my entire life and have never once had problems leaving them in a boarding facility back in Pittsburgh where I used to live. This was the first time leaving our dog since we've moved to White Plains and it was by far the worst possible experience I could have imagined.



We took some time out of our vacation to watch the Dog Cam that's available on Best Friend's website and we were mortified at what we saw. The "caretaker" (and I use that word hesitantly) clearly had no experience whatsoever with dogs and had no training on how dogs interact with each other. Every time a dog went up to another dog to smell him/her, the male caretaker that was "supervising" would barge in between the dogs and forcefully push them apart. On multiple occasions, he threw dogs into timeout for smelling other dogs. I say this not only in defense of my dog, but also in defense of the other dogs that were highly mistreated on the videos we watched. On one occasion, we observed this man picking our dog up by the collar and dragging him to the timeout cage with only 2 legs on the ground. It was clear that our dog was not resisting, yet this man was being overly forceful in leading him to the timeout. On top of that, once he put him in timeout, the man went into the cage with him and again lifted him by his collar and repeatedly pushed him into the wall of the back of the cage. He did this for probably 20-30 seconds before he let our dog down and left the cage. We immediately tried calling Best Friends to let them know what was happening, however we were unable to reach anyone after multiple calls (this was around 2-3pm, so we know people were staffing the facility).



This was only one incident and there were many more. There was another incident in which the "caretaker" pushed our dog into the wall again and repeatedly kneed him into the wall. This was all because he tried to mount a dog once. All the dog needed was a simple correction, he did not need to be kneed into the wall. On multiple occasions we witnessed the "caretaker" chasing the dogs around with the mop and broom when it was so very clear that the dogs were afraid and were running around with their tails between their legs.



After unanswered phone calls on different days, we finally emailed the facility and voiced our complaint. In fairness to the facility, our email was answered very promptly and professionally by a woman named Kelly. She had our dog moved to another play room with a different caretaker and did compensate us for a small portion of our dog's stay. However, this does not make up for the abuse that our dog (and the other dogs) endured. Outside of the facility, the way these dogs were treated would be considered abuse and a person would be fined or jailed for his actions. I asked Kelly to review the video of the cameras for the specific times I gave her, but she informed me that they "do not record". So I sent her the video we took on our cellphone and she never responded to us.



I do not expect dog boarding facilities to be like the Trump Plaza, but I do expect that dogs are treated humanely. In the case of Best Friends, we witnessed multiple dogs on multiple occasions being treated inhumanely.



It is in your best interest, as well as your dog's, to pay a little more money and send your dog elsewhere.