camp counselor

dog daycare attendant

kennel assistant

pet groomer

pet sitter

Camp-Bow-Wow

Pros:
-Get to wake up and go see dogs
-SOME people are nice
-Watch and take care of dogs 
-See all kinds of unique dog breeds
-Nice pet owners
-The “Interview” process: Good way to have a new dog interact with others and see if they’re not a threat to other dogs 
-Learning different dog behaviors
-Cameras in the play yards so the owners can see how their pets are doing outside of Camp Bow Wow
-Use good chemicals for cleaning and when dogs are sick
-hard to be sad or emotional in this job because of the dogs/puppies 
Cons:
-Drama: the environment will remind you of high school all over again, as well as employees and staff talk badly behind your back
-horrible management 
-After only working an hour into your morning 6am-1pm shift you get a lunch an hour into your shift
-smells
-dogs barking ALL THE TIME
-located in a weird area 
-Managers are never around, they’re always hidden in their office 
-Back of house leads and managers are Hippocrates about the rules in regards to the company 
-People NEVER cover your shifts and you end up getting introduce if you don’t come in, no matter the circumstances you’re in
-Can’t leave the play yards use the bathroom or other needs
-Even with the interviewing process there have been dogs that viciously attack other dogs and in order to stop them you have to use your hands (no gloves) or body: end up getting injuries
-Have equipment (gloves, blow horns, whistles, etc) for extended interactions, yet the staff never let you use them when needed
-Don’t wear gloves, have to do everything by hand
-Can’t let you take pictures of the dogs (Yet management and others can)
-Can’t kneel down, can only stand
-Gets boring watching the dogs after a while with no entertainment. Some days can be slow with not a lot of dogs, so there’s minimal things to do.
-Don’t have toys to play around with the puppies/big dogs
-Not the best welcoming environment 
-After a couple weeks you see the staff’s true colors 
-Take to long of an interviewing process
-A lot of cleaning
-Not getting recognized from the hard work
-Conflicting personalities
-Some staff allow dogs to get treated poorly
-Very disorganized of a place 
As you can see from above that the cons outweigh the pros. It should be the other way around though, shouldn’t it?
 I’ve never felt so disliked and so put down when I worked for this job. I only worked there for a couple of weeks and I already felt un-welcomed by many of the staff members. The only thing that kept me going in the job were the dogs, not the staff. I would always hear not only the employees, but the management gossiping about staff members (including yourself) behind your back and then denying it in front of your face. As well as, Back of house leads picked favorites and if you weren’t one of them you’d get picked on everything you do.  The environment reminded me so much of high school.
Throughout the day of watching up to 15 dogs in your yard with VERY minimal rotations of new ones, sometimes you’ll have to remove difficult dogs and ring the bell or call for assistance that isn’t around, but sometimes only to be greeted by an annoyed manager, who pretty much tells you to deal with it and then walks away. Then, as you're trying to do just that, they watch you from the cameras and critique you through the pupdates. "Take this dog out, do this, do that" and yet I've never seen any one of those girls enter the yard.
This was the type of job where I went to work, worked in silence and focused only on the dogs happiness and then headed back home right afterwards. I don’t know about you but, this place just wasn’t right to me.

Working here, for the most part, was not so bad. Most of the dogs were pretty great. You do have the occasional ones that misbehave, but that just comes with the job unfortunately. This is a good job if you love dogs, but do expect it to be difficult sometimes. You're usually in a yard by yourself with about 15 dogs. Sometimes you may have more, but when you have more than 15 dogs, there will be someone else with you. But working with dogs is fun all the same, and seeing their happy faces every day is worth it.

Most of the employees there are pretty nice. Do expect to use teamwork there every day. I wouldn't recommend applying for this job if you do not like teamwork and if you prefer to work alone.  

The worst part about the job is the management. The manager is often moody and will yell at the employees a lot. The manager is often rude to the employees and isn't very understanding. The manager is even sometimes rude to customers, if she is in a bad mood. She shows her emotions a lot more than she should, as a manager.

The best part of the job is of course, the dogs. The worst part about the dogs is when they fight. But they're usually pretty well behaved, and most of the dogs listen really well. If a dog is misbehaving, unfortunately the manager and front staff don't typically give the dogs breaks out of the yard (unless absolutely needed), so you kind of just have to deal with the dog and give them time outs in the yard. You unfortunately cannot pick up the dogs, sit with them, or hold them. You can pet them sometimes, but you are encouraged to keep moving around the yard and not stay in one place for too long.

If you do not like working overtime, then you probably won't like closing here. There are a lot of closing tasks to do, and you often have to stay much later than scheduled. 

The training here is not so good. There were a lot of things that I learned on my own, and there were some rules I was never told about until later on.

The rules about absences are pretty strict here. So, if there is ever a day where you're feeling really sick or even if you get hurt, you have to come in anyway. If you call in, the manager will often be very rude to you, no matter what your situation is. Also, if you call in, even if it's for an emergency, you have to bring in a note and find a cover for your shift. If you cannot do both of those things, you get written up and yelled at.

Also, expect there to be lots of cleaning. There may be some days that you're not in the yard with the dogs at all, and instead you might be cleaning outside of the yards. I definitely would not recommend this job to anyone who doesn't like cleaning, or to anyone who doesn't have a strong stomach.

I really, really wanted to enjoy working here. I will start by saying that the saving grace of this location is that the staff (those that I worked with, that is) really do truly care for and want the best for the dogs. I can at least tell pet parents that their animals will be cared for when they are boarding their dogs here. With that being said, I truly cannot describe the absolute chaos that is working at Bow Wow. There is no order or structure, and training is so minimal that half the time you aren’t sure exactly what is expected of you. They send you links to hours of training of videos that you are meant to watch at home *off the clock* and are expected to retain all of the information. That’s it, that’s your training. The retention is rate is insane. The amount of people I saw come and go in the two months that I worked there was absolutely wild, and most of them quit or walked out because of how fed up they were. You are CONSISTENTLY spoken down to and micromanaged. I actually found it more difficult to get anything done while management was there because you’re told you are doing everything wrong with no correction or true coaching. It is clear there is zero trust between management and employees. I have never ever, prior to working here, been in a situation where I felt that I was going to get in a verbal confrontation with management solely because I was being spoken to like an idiot and I was absolutely not going to sit there an take it. You are constantly talked over and interrupted when trying to discuss how to improve or make things better. I understand this is an animal focused job, but to manage a business full of human employees I do think it’s important to have people skills. I tried so hard to enjoy my time here and make it better but it consistently just grew worse the longer I gave more chances. All of this for minimum wage. Not to mention the amount of hard physical labor. For minimum. Wage. They also expect you to be 20 minutes early to every shift, but if you are not needed for whatever reason they will have you clock out for an unknown amount of time, frequently an hour or MORE, but you can’t leave so they can have you clock back in when you are needed. They will do anything and everything to benefit themselves with absolutely no respect for your time or effort all while paying you a completely (in my opinion) unfair wage that is not livable even if you are working full time. Stay away.

This job isn't at all worth it; everyone is under payed and overworked. Management doesn't really care about what happens to both the employees and the dogs, they'll accept EVERY SINGLE dog that comes through, because they "don't feel like dealing with an annoyed pet parent" -Management 2k19. This has lead us, the camp counselors, to then deal with large groups of these problematic dogs. I've been bit multiple times, scratched, and sustained a fairly serious injury that has put me out of school for a semester. When you're hired, you're told that you'll spend, at most, half of your shift in yard, and that if a dog is giving you any trouble, they'll be taken out no problem. I spent a MONTH straight of being stuck in yard anywhere from 4-6 hours at a time, only to be given my lunch before being thrown right back in again. 6 hours out in yard, 6 hours of CONSTANT moving and maneuvering, it's tiring. So, you try to make it easier for yourself. You remove a couple of difficult dogs and ring the bell, only to be greeted by an annoyed manager, who pretty much tells you to deal with it and then walks away. Then, as you're trying to do just that, they watch you from the cameras and critique you through the pupdates. "Take this dog out, do this, do that" and yet I've never seen any one of those girls enter the yard. And, if they do? The yards calm down so much, because since the dogs are now bothering them, they must be removed ASAP. The workplace drama can be a bit ridiculous, if you so much as look at anyone the wrong way and it's reported to a manager, expect an hour long meeting about "feefees", one woman was FIRED for simply telling a manager to leave her alone, how do I know? I witnessed the whole thing. You shouldn't work here if you're someone who every gets sick, either, because that's your problem, after all, it's your schedule (who cares if you're throwing up?) That's 2 points out of 6 on the new attendance policy, you should've had a fellow miserable staff member come in to work you 8 hour shift on their only day off. And, don't even get me STARTED in the blatant favoritism. I could go on and on about the issues at this place, it's never ending. Save yourself the trouble and apply for that retail job, the stress, both physical and mental, are not worth the, get this... 11 dollars an hour.

When you think about working with dogs, you think that it would be relatively fun and somewhat easy. I was completely wrong. It started off okay, the training was decent. I got the hang of things because in all honesty it's pretty straight forward, however it's the workload that's put on top of you (ONE person) at a time. The ratio of dogs to humans that corporate allows is inappropriate, unsafe and too overwhelming. There was always at LEAST 1 dog that had behavioral issues that were a safety issue to other dogs and the humans working (ideally shouldn't of even been in that kind of environment to begin with) that NEVER got dismissed. Employees frequently got bit and nothing was done about it. If boarders took up all the cabins (typically around holidays) there would be no place for the dogs that needed a break, so ultimately these dogs with behavioral issues were stuck in the yard which was unacceptable. It was almost impossible some days to have a fun yet safe yard. On top of making sure your yard was safe, you had to take pictures of the dogs, write report cards for each and every single one of the dogs- which were completely unnecessary to be doing DAILY. The priority was to keep your yard safe and clean but for whatever reason these needed to be done.  Not only these were issues, but management not listening to our concerns and issues. We gave multiple ideas for ways to make Camp run smoother, safer and more enjoyable- yet they were all ignored and swept under the rug. The dishwasher was always breaking so not only do you have to clean cabins by yourself, but you also now have to clean water/food bowls by hand because they don't want to get a new dishwasher that continues to break. The clients were very entitled and most of the time if they gave you a hard time, management would not step in to help you with them, you were on your own. Camp also raised prices, had gotten a LOT of new clients, but no raise was given for the employees that worked hard to keep the place running. Overall, I really wish it would've been a better experience, because I genuinely met a lot of dogs that I love and still think about till this day, but the stress was not worth it for me. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
Kind co-workers and interacting with the dogs

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Excessive workload with constant distractions.
High employee turnover.
Chronic understaffing, seemingly to reduce labor costs.
Unclear job responsibilities, with additional tasks frequently added over time.
Communication overload:  must monitor 15+ chat channels,  phone line, email, and a customer chat platform, all while managing an already heavy workload.
Lack of safety procedures, leading to frequent injuries.
Loud work environment, often causing headaches.
Physically demanding work: constant walking on concrete floors, bending, pulling, handling multiple doors and latches, and constant bruises from dogs jumping and biting.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Employees are overworked, under-supported, and undervalued.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
If you’re looking for a typical receptionist job, this is not it. Receptionists here are expected to manage an overwhelming variety of tasks. Responsibilities include prepping and serving dog meals, administering medications, checking dogs in and out (including walking them to and from holding and play areas), assisting with laundry, cleaning up waste frequently, maintaining the lobby (yay you get to mop), changing out mop buckets, and constantly being pulled from the front desk to manage dogs—all while handling regular front office duties.
Management by the owner tends to be highly micromanaging and frequently critical, creating a tense and discouraging environment. Communication is handled through approximately 15 separate WhatsApp group chats that must be constantly monitored alongside daily responsibilities, making it difficult to focus and work efficiently.
Prospective employees should carefully consider whether they are prepared for a fast-paced, high-stress environment with limited support. Overall, many employees leave feeling overworked, undervalued, and definitely underpaid.

Getting to care for the dogs and interact with them was the best part of the job. My coworkers were also really nice, and they were super supportive as well as hard workers. It is a lot of physical and mental work for just minimum wage; I have a Bachelor's degree and 5+ years of customer service experience so I was definitely underpaid, but I let it go because I truly enjoyed the work.

Training is subpar at best and consists of simply shadowing someone and learning by observation - for the most part. After about a week or two, you're tossed into the environment by yourself. Despite that, I felt like I had been doing well despite being relatively new to the job. Like all people who are new at a job, I naturally made mistakes and learned as I went.

However, I got terminated out of nowhere after just three months on the job. I had not been formally spoken to about any performance issues, just a somewhat casual conversation framed as checking in on how I'm doing. There were a few brief conversations in passing with guidance on certain procedures, but none of them were framed as disciplinary conversations. I didn't receive any write-ups either. Nobody had mentioned any issues about my performance in the back of house to me, and I was frequently asking questions to supervisors about my struggling to get the hang of front of house without proper training.  My manager fired me via phone call an hour and a half after my shift ended without speaking to me much beforehand, and without really giving me the chance to explain anything.

At the end of the day, it's clear that I dodged a bullet. It was a disappointment for the job to end like this for me, but I suppose the world did me a huge favor. I can't work in an environment where even the most minor mistake puts my job on the line, simply because one customer got upset and blew things out of proportion. I can't function at a job being uncomfortable bringing problems to management for support in fear of them getting upset with me.

A typical day at Camp Bow Wow, is loud, crazy, and dirty. I typically would be scheduled to work at 6:30 in the morning or 7:30 to about 1 p.m. From, 6:30-7 A.M. was time for the dogs to be let out of their kennels to use their restroom and get their breakfast. It was a quick process to get done. Because we had to feed the amount of dogs that were boarding the night before. It could have ranged from 15-90 dogs, depending on the time of the year it was. After 7 a.m., camp would open and clients could come in and drop off their dogs for daycare or boarding that day. During 7 to 8:30 the time was designated for completing daily cleaning tasks done among the people on shift. My coworkers and I engaged frequently and communicating all day long. This job is where I learned the most on how to function, learn, and compromise with people in the working industry. Since, I am 24 years old, and started this job when I was 21 I did not have much experience in the working industry.This job aloud me learn and figure things about myself as a person and I react to certain situations. I worked with all types of personalities and dog personalities. This job helped me learn what it is to have a strong work ethic. I believe in order to have a strong work ethic in the working industry, you have to care first about what it is you're doing. With out having the passion for something in a job there is no heart in it and no drive in one self to do the best of their ability. I saw this often at the job. In the sense that, my managers were in charge but I could see right through them that they were just there for the money. They didn't care about  the dogs or if the dogs had water or if the dogs were comfortable in their kennels when we left at night for 12 hours. I am so thankful for this job, because it's the job in college that will always be in my heart. I think the hardest part of the job was seeing dogs I had loved like my own dog passageway. The most enjoyable part of the job was watching the dogs interact and play each other all day long. The funny thing dogs are not that much different than people in every which way.

The real issue with this location isn't the job itself really; I love working with the dogs. It's everything else that makes it suck.

First of all, even the managers seem like they have little to no interest in their job; like it's a disappointment even for them. Not very inspiring or uplifting, and it drags all the other employees down too. I know this job isn't exactly glamorous, but when even the mangers treat it like it's a sucky job, how do you think everyone else feels?

The biggest problem is that there is absolutely zero organization going on. There is no deployment or scheduled positions. You walk in and everyone just sort of wanders around until stumbling across something to do. Four people are supposed to be in the four yards at all times; it's supposed to rotate, and you think they'd have a rotation schedule to ensure people spent equal amounts of time between the yards and other duties. They don't. Sometimes you're back there 15 minutes, sometimes an hour and a half. 

When you're not in the yard, no one is in charge of asking people to take up certain duties or tasks; like I said, everyone is sort of milling around doing nothing until they stumble across something. As a new person, this was exceptionally confusing. No direction given, but then you were treated like you were slacking off if someone found you walking around trying to look for tasks or help.

I was also told my first day that there are no breaks. If you get a second, you can go into the break room for a couple minutes, but breaks aren't scheduled, even for 6+ hour shifts. 

The pay is abysmal. Only $8/hour, but after taxes come through, I did the math and found out what I was taking home was really closer to $6/hour. 

I also saw that two people who constantly are referred to as some of the best employees only just recently got promoted to "pack leaders" (essentially a step below a shift leader)...after two years of being there. Another person who has worked there a while said they were only being paid $8.40 over all that time. Pretty pathetic compensation, if you ask me.

Extremely poor management; no one communicated and when I or others would try to bring up issues we had, it went ignored. Superiors would belittle others, talk behind their backs, and made working there a very toxic experience. Dogs were pushed over, yanked by their collars, kicked away, spritzed in the face with the water sprayer, etc. which was the main issue with working there. Management would try to enforce common rules (such as to not go on your phones unless taking photos, do not leave the yard farther than three cabins, stay engaged, etc) yet did all of those things multiple times a day. The careless, selfish, and despicable behaviors/attitudes of most of the staff is unacceptable. There have been so many incidents that have occurred in the time that I have worked there. In addition, many of us were predictably let go in March due to a cutback from the pandemic with no sick leave payout (although sickleave was displayed on our paychecks we were never paid when we had to call out sick and if you couldn't find a replacement you were threatened with being fired), and no warning. The only financial help offered was to send us a link to file for unemployment. The only other option given was to stay as an employee but we were told that we would not be scheduled until the pandemic was over, so if we had chosen this option we wouldn't have been able to file for unemployment. No warning, no compensation, and no emotional support. The management is cold and heartless and do not care about the counselors nor the dogs that go there. I put my blood, sweat, and many tears into this job, was one of the hardest working employees, and so it was a slap in the face to be let go so quickly. I stuck around to pay my bills and to take care of the dogs. This was the worst working experience I have ever had, and I do not recommend this job to anyone as the fact that it is a franchise makes it easier for people to abuse their positions.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Camp counselor 179 salaries reported	$14.01 per hour
Dog daycare attendant 134 salaries reported	$13.67 per hour
Kennel assistant 49 salaries reported	$13.40 per hour
Pet groomer 21 salaries reported	$44,778 per year
Pet sitter 33 salaries reported	$13.48 per hour

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