The Barker Lounge

The Barker Lounge sits at 1719 Montford Drive, on the commercial strip a few blocks off Park Road. It’s a drop-off facility, and the door rule is vaccines. The site names three: rabies, “Canine Distemper/Parvovirus/Parainfluenza,” and bordatella, spelled that way throughout. First rabies shots have to land “at least 28 days prior” to a first visit, first bordatella “no less than two weeks prior.” Titre tests are accepted. An accepted flea and tick medication is required too.

Two more gates before a first day. Dogs must be “at least 16 WEEKS of age,” and “Dogs 7 months and older must be SPAYED/NEUTERED.” Then the Meet & Greet, free and running the whole day, during which a dog is “very slowly and carefully introduced to a variety of selected doggies” and stays with that small group until pickup. A completed registration form and proof of vaccines have to be on file before any of it, along with a credit card.

No breed list appears anywhere on the site. Size shows up in grouping instead. “All dogs are grouped only with friends of similar size, temperament, and play style,” with groups held to “10 to 15 at the most.”

The Charlotte page puts the facility at “Over 9,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor cage-less play area,” climate controlled, under 24-hour recorded surveillance. Daycare dogs take a mandatory midday nap in private suites. Boarding guests spend the day in that same cage-less daycare and return to kennels in the evening, in “Standard and Luxury sized private boarding suites.”

Money. Daycare is $40 a day, down to $32 on a fifty-day package, and packages expire after a year with no refunds. Boarding runs $58 a night off-season and $63 peak, daycare included, plus $20 if a boarding dog checks out after noon. Grooming has no posted rates. Training is listed as a service and isn’t running: “At this time we are not offering training classes.”

Doors are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days, closed on the major holidays. Boarding check-in is before noon. Brawley’s Beverage is about a third of a mile southwest, in Park Road Shopping Center.