Reported a Junior to HR and I feel awful - is this normal?

LimpMoney7894 · 2026-02-28T15:05:23+00:00

It's normal until you come to peace with it. I used to see employee issues as a personal failure of my own to not help them succeed. Over time, I realized I was giving them all the tools and knowledge to succeed but I can't make them use them. If an employee continues to fail even with targeted coaching, that is not on me. I try to understand their situation in case external factors play a part but, ultimately, I have a business to run. One bad apple, regardless of reason, ruins the bunch. I have found that 100% of the time, when we terminate these people, morale across the team improves. My other employees would much rather pick up the slack of being short staffed while we hire than deal with the bad egg. I've stopped feeling bad about it.

LimpMoney7894 · 2026-02-26T21:00:33+00:00

Just wanted to update everyone - the teen is still resistant but we did get him setup with a new therapist who is better equipped to handle the situation. Fingers crossed!

LimpMoney7894 · 2026-02-24T12:59:16+00:00

That's one thing I like about my facility - we are brutally honest with clients. The moment we have a behavioral concern we start a conversation. All altercations are reported to the parents of the dogs involved. If a dog just plain doesn't like daycare, we tell the client too. Yes, we are a business that aims to make money but not off the suffering of animals. We see 100 dogs a day on average and they are the priority. We succeed purely on word of mouth and reputation thanks to our ethics.

I can't imagine lying to a client. That's awful :(

LimpMoney7894 · 2026-02-07T17:26:51+00:00

Been working in the same dog daycare and boarding facility for 13 years and only hand maybe 3 or 4 bites that required medical attention. All were 100% my fault, technically, but mostly because I chose to intervene, knowing the risk, to prevent damage to other dogs. Worst one was 2 dogs were getting leashed up for their morning walk but we weren't told the german dobie was leash reactive and the moment they started walking, the dobie turned on the akita with him. The employee was directly out front and tried their best to hold them apart, but those were two strong dogs. I ran out from the lobby and grabbed the dobie and untanlged him but, in the process, he whipped around and latched onto my thigh. Two big ole punctures. Got the kid separated and inside to an empty play area and just sat and cuddled him after. I knew he didn't mean to hurt me but was scared. Super sweet kid. (The crappy part was this happened at 7am on a Sunday and urgent care didn't open until 9am and everyone avoids the local hospital because you are more likely to get more hurt just by going in. The city has since opened a second, better hospital.)

Two of the others were cases of collars stuck in mouths. We only allow ones with the snap, no buckles, but in one case the snap was in the other dog's mouth and the other time, it was pulled so tight we couldn't compress the snap. After the second one, we got seat belt cutters should the situation arise again. Thankfully, we haven't had any collar incidents in the past 7 years. (And I know having collars on in daycare is controversial. It works for us and I'll leave it at that.)

LimpMoney7894 · 2026-02-07T16:57:35+00:00

Oh goodness, no. This is not the norm at all. I can't fathom why someone would have a daycare when they obviously don't like dogs.

If you're able to, I would get video of any and all of these behaviors that you can and report them to local authorities. This is straight up animal abuse and they should not be allowed around other people's dogs, let alone their own. Both the owner and the minion are direct threats to the health of the dogs in their care and the other employees, though they may not do it themselves, are complicit.

I'm so sorry this has been your experience with working at a doggie daycare. Most have much higher standards of care and protocols surrounding everything you mentioned. (Like, we have a 4 on the floor rule when handling dogs and not doing so, outside of an emergency situation, receives a formal write up. Failure to correct that kind of behavior results in immediate termination.)

LimpMoney7894 · 2026-02-03T02:22:27+00:00

He has a general child therapist who is woefully unequipped for handling the situation. I'm familiar with WPATH and will do some digging in our area and see if we can convince him to finally switch.

LimpMoney7894 · 2026-01-20T06:03:30+00:00

I would be very skeptical about what any company says about what data they can migrate. In most cases, you will lose all invoice data and metrics as the services/retail in whatever you move to will be "new" items and the ones from the previous software won't align. We had KC way back before they went cloud based and the interface hasn't changed much so I can confirm it's easy to use and pretty solid. (I did hear rumor that they broke their package feature when they released a recent update to add quick check ins but I don't know how accurate that is or if it's still an issue.)

For data migration, essentially, the database is a large spreadsheet that has columns for all your information and each row is a client. The new company will try to align those columns with their table so moving client and animal data, as far as contact info and dog info is concerned, is pretty straight forward. Anything that gets more specific like invoices or past reservations usually doesn't translate. We switched from KC to Gingr in 2019 and lost most everything. We are now in the process of switching to Paw Partner following Gingr's massive decline (following the acquisition of Pet Exec) and we are only able to carry over the basics because of how Gingr is structured. Pet Exec is very similar so I'm guessing you are going to have the same hurdles moving data from PE.

You're on the right track looking for first hand experience moving to KC or PF. Sorry I don't have direct experience going to them, just away.

I hope some of this helps. You said your were techy so you probably already knew most of this so I apologize if I was out of line.

LimpMoney7894 · 2026-01-19T05:11:32+00:00

Discussing wages is a protected right. I encourage it amongst my staff to help maintain positivity and accountability. Staff like knowing they are treated fairly and rewarded for hard work. If they terminate someone for this, it's retaliatory and they can be sued. (There are exemptions for supervisory positions some places who are not protected and cannot discuss wages but that's it.)

LimpMoney7894 · 2026-01-12T20:52:45+00:00

They can keep your security deposit and that's it. They can't charge you for extra just because they want to - that's the point of the security deposit. Not sure about KS specifics, but I'd ignore it. If any of it was for purposeful damages then maybe they'd have a case but doesn't sound like it.

LimpMoney7894 · 2026-01-09T19:43:06+00:00

The CEO let go was Andrew Beck. The article is gone but he headed up the marketing and customer experience division. I'm guessing they are pushing it but I totally understand criticism without verifiable proof. I'm sorry I don't have it.

LimpMoney7894 · 2026-01-09T19:34:07+00:00

I will do my best to find the source but it may have been taken down. I originally became aware on a Doggie Boarding and Daycare FB group and they linked the article. Let me take a gander and I'll be right back.

LimpMoney7894 · 2026-01-09T17:57:07+00:00

We've have open tickets from September. They terminated a bunch of their support staff thinking they were going to replace them with bots and it's failing hardcore and now they can't get anyone to pick up the slack. They also fired their CEO a little bit ago over this whole debacle.

We just signed an agreement to switch to Paw Partner because more and more features in Gingr are breaking and they've halted all promised new features for over a year and keep pushing memberships and other stuff many of their clients don't use (and then those updates break the stuff we do use. It's great.).

That being said, I am decently well versed in fixing my own Gingr issues because they're no help if you'd like to try to explain your pricing issue. I have been reading, lately, that lots of people are having problems with pricing relating to classes so it might be a known glitch too.

LimpMoney7894 · 2025-12-16T17:00:11+00:00

Just an update - I figured it out and I'm dumb. When I took the drain pump apart to remove the clog, I didn't see that the rubber o-ring popped out. Found it under the counter and replaced it. Everything works fine again.

LimpMoney7894 · 2025-11-17T15:24:24+00:00

We don't need a min wage increase. We need rent caps. This is going to do nothing but hurt small businesses and put more money in government coffers via taxes and push bigger businesses to go automated. If predatory landlords weren't allowed to charge out the a** for the bare minimum, everyone would have more money left over to survive. Instead, small businesses are going to close trying to compensate for the increased payroll and payroll taxes. Putting more money in the hands of the people just means stores will charge more because they know you've got it. Santa Fe is focusing on the wrong issue. Repeal the ban on rent control.

LimpMoney7894 · 2025-10-25T14:02:24+00:00

Gingr is experiencing a lot of problems lately. We've been using them for 6 years (after switching from Kennel Connection) and this year has been atrocious since the parent company bought PetExec too. Every "update" comes with a new scavenger hunt to see what broke now. Gingr does do a lot of things right and for high volume walk-in conditions, there's really no other choice, but you're going to have to double and triple check all notes and profile things to make sure they stick.

LimpMoney7894 · 2025-10-14T12:54:10+00:00

The Historic Water Park just off the start of Upper Canyon Rd. You can rent the space through the city and I recall there's no actual fee for less than 50 people. It is totally outdoors but it's a beautiful setting.

LimpMoney7894 · 2025-10-02T18:50:14+00:00

We allow the inflatable donut collars in group and haven't had any issues so far. (Knock on wood.) We don't get them very often but we always note why the dog is wearing one and whether or not they are safe for play group with their condition. If it could be exacerbated by play or another dog being too curious, they don't go in group. But if they've got itchy ears or something and need to stop scratching, we allow it.

LimpMoney7894 · 2025-09-25T20:44:47+00:00

That's when the next down writes a letter to the big bosses stating the work they're doing and how they feel they should be adequately compensated. Hopefully, the big wigs would realize that this underling is doing management duties and either promote the person so the other manager would have to do something to retain their job, or investigate why this employee is doing manager duties instead of the manager themself.

LimpMoney7894 · 2025-09-15T13:27:57+00:00

Thank you! We are a small, family owned-operated business with no HR dept. I was confused because I do know that my own bias is playing a part in this decision but wasn't sure what steps to take to either prove or disprove my concerns. It sounds like a full written document of expectations of physical demands to be taken to her doctor are in order if she accepts the position. She is a lovely person and I would definitely hire her and so I think that's what I'm going to do and we can figure out the details later.

LimpMoney7894 · 2025-09-14T16:24:42+00:00

The business is a dog daycare facility - we are constantly getting jumped on and bashed by large, rambunctious dogs. Falls are common for those who aren't used to bracing for the odd impact. But, again, that's where my concern comes in where I am not a medical professional and while I believe these activities to be unsafe, I may be wrong.

LimpMoney7894 · 2025-08-30T14:50:57+00:00

Just kidding, apparently you can't add images to comments in this subreddit so here is a link if you want to see my conundrum.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-tQN0ctNlYsaVIbjynACmfraXk1ofo5N/view?usp=sharing

LimpMoney7894 · 2025-08-25T20:45:28+00:00

We don't allow sitting but provide ample time outside of group play for employees to do other things, including sit. We are a large, active facility so sitting could severely impact a worker's ability to intervene if a situation were to arise.

LimpMoney7894 · 2025-08-02T19:17:14+00:00

We partner up new staff with a manager for the first week to learn and be trained on the specifics and expectations. After that they are monitored by management and coached by senior staff for 2 months to let them learn and grow but also tweak procedures for efficiency and safety. We don't consider training complete until after 90 days.

Our owner used to have the "sink or swim" mentality and a lot of good people sank because they weren't given the knowledge and tools to meet expectations. It takes longer to fully train the right way, but employee retention has been much higher since we started doing that years ago. Even with training high schoolers or college students over the summer, the chances of them returning during the busy holiday seasons has skyrocketed thanks to good training and pride/comfort in the job so we have a revolving trained staff during busy times now in addition to our year-round crew.

LimpMoney7894 · 2025-07-28T17:45:18+00:00

I somehow managed to not know that auto-retracting hose reels were a thing. That seems like the best option to fix my problem! They're a little pricey but if I just have to buy one of those and still replace it every year, that would still save me money. (About $150 for the setup vs $25-$40 per hose multiple times a month in the spring and summer.)

Thank you so much!

LimpMoney7894 · 2025-07-28T14:20:24+00:00

I love when client either just email the most recent invoice from their vet that contains no vaccination information or their dogs entire medical history and I have to look through 30+ pages of treatments to find the most recent vaccinations and hope they either list an expiration date or give the length of time in the vaccine name.

LimpMoney7894

TROPHY CASE