If you love your pets, please avoid. Please continue reading...
Please avoid. Our pet, Cody, has visited Pet Paradise Charlotte (PP) several times before his last two horrific visits. We have boarded with PP since 2018. Be warned, he has returned home sick TWICE from his last two stays. Once with HGE (hemorrhagic gastroenteritis), a serious illness caused by dangerous bacteria in the intestines. Having had no other prior issues with boarding at PP, it was not fair for me to assume his HGE was picked up at PP (although he was dropped off there healthy). We picked Cody up from PP after a short weekend stay & drove to the mountains. He had diarrhea in his car seat on the way up & was panting non-stop. We figured it could be stress-related from being away from us. But later that night everything changed. Vomiting & diarrhea continued into the next day. And then the bloody diarrhea started. We panicked, found a vet in Boone, & visited immediately. He was severely dehydrated, given IV meds, & we were told "he will either get past the HGE, or he won't". That the next couple of days were critical and he survived. Fast forward several months. We aired on giving PP the benefit of the doubt & were so incredibly stupid to do so. We were leaving the country for over a week & our regular pet sitter was unavailable over Labor Day weekend but said she could pick him up from PP on Sunday. Cody spent there a total of 3-nights there. She picked him up & it was almost an exact REPEAT OF OUR LAST EXPERIENCE. He started vomiting, panting, & had diarrhea almost immediately after he was picked up. We were out of the country & she was panicked as to what to do. His regular vet was closed on the Monday holiday. I called PP for two reasons; 1) to let them know our pup was sick again with what seemed like another case of HGE, & 2) what were they going to do about since I was calling from 6 time-zones away, my pet sitter was panicked, his regular vet was closed -&- if they could help me remedy the situation from afar that they had caused from apparent unsanitary conditions. I spoke with Sarah (one of many staffers I spoke with over several days), but I first emailed Eddie, the GM (who never responded after asking for him to call me by email & phone several times). Sarah was nice, said she wanted to help, & mentioned they had an onsite vet working over Labor Day. She said she would setup the appointment with our dog sitter. I was grateful. He was seen, given meds, was dehydrated, & sent home. The vet or vet tech told our dog sitter "that he got into something or ate something at PP that he wasn't supposed to". 2 sleepless nights & 3 days of diarrhea, constant check-ins with the pet sitter from 6 time zones away, & he got better. Thank goodness. To add insult to injury, PP not only charged me (again) ~$200.00 for a stay but ~$300.00 for a vet visit! When Sarah said, "they wanted to help". He got sick there & they should be responsible for his treatment the SECOND TIME! I tried to call them from France, I spoke with several employees, received broken promises of return calls & now, silence. I would really like to understand the number of animals in their care that have returned home sick, or later died, from their neglect. I plan to contact Axios & the local news bureaus to make them aware of my experiences because others may have shared with them similar experiences. I do not want another pet parent who loves their animals like their own children to risk a stay at this place. I did receive a call from the onsite vet to ask how Cody was recovering. I told her, like I told the others, that I was really concerned with how we were being treated by PP about the entire situration. She listened to me & then shockingly said "that Cody got sick because he is an old dog & not a candidate for boarding". That's it. Completely different than what was told to my dog sitter when he was seen there a couple of days prior. Stay away, please. We got lucky twice & I'm thankful. The areas we can't see past the lobby drop off area must be unclean & the animals neglected by staff. The whole situation is tragic.