Dogwood Cottage Melrose, Massachusetts

My doggo loves going here. Always excited to arrive and super content when I pick him up.

Our Luna visited Dogwood about twice a week for a year before we moved. We loved the community there and the staff. Luna always came home exhausted, and she would try to pull us in the Dogwood direction when we’d leave home for a walk. Loved it!

Our chocolate lab Samson has been attending Dogwood Cottage for over a year now and we couldn’t be happier. He loves going there and they seem to love having him as well. He’s obviously getting a workout as he falls asleep almost as soon as he gets home. Also he’s clean with no order after playing there all day. We cannot say the same about other places he has attended when he would come home smelling of urine. We are very pleased with our Dogwood Cottage experience and heartily recommend them to anyone looking for a great experience for their dog. Brian D.

My dog lives for a day at Dogwood. We love the great daycare, boarding, grooming and the awesome van service!!

Dogwood Cottage in Melrose is simply the best doggy daycare/boarding in the area. We moved to North Reading in May but still make the drive twice a week as we are that sure nobody else will do nearly as good a job in taking care of our boy Tucker. He loves all of the staff, in particular "Aunty" who goes out of her way to ensure he is well loved and exhausted at the end of the day. Omar helped train our dog when he was a puppy and continues to help him as he gets older. Annie who handles more of the operations is extremely organized. She responds in minutes on any request. I am missing out many others who take care of him, some who I see all the time but have yet to ask for their names as our dog goes crazy out of pure excitement on arrival. Highly recommend anybody in the area to check them or Riverdog (Peabody) out.

I have been taking my 1.5 year old Golden Doodle to Dogwood for the past year and I cannot say enough great things about the staff and family there. They treat Bingley as though he is their dog and I know he is always safe. He is so well cared for and I never worry about him being there. The staff members give me a run down of his day when I pick him up, letting me know what he did and who he played with. Bingley has some separation anxiety issues, but with how wonderful everyone here is, he never has an issue going in to play. Everyone cares so deeply for the dogs and puts them first. Additionally, their prices are reasonable, the location is always clean, and they are always available to talk if needed.

We have been taking our active Chocolate Lab to Dogwood for almost two years. The staff is always courteous and professional, and they show that they love the dogs almost as much as we do. Our pup always comes home happy and exhausted from her days at Dogwood! We have boarded our dog at Dogwood many times, and (during the pandemic) once at Riverdog's site in Peabody. We highly recommend this service. There are no crates, unless the dog prefers to sleep in one, and the 24x7 staff is kind and caring. Our pup views Dogwood as a second home.

Oscar has been going to Dogwood for more than 4 years and is just as excited to arrive now as then. Staff is very friendly and professional, and they communicate well. They have always been accommodating and even picked him up when I had to leave too early for work. I always feel confident he is in good hands. Thanks Dogwood!

My family and I LOVE Dogwood! My Fiance and I have been taking our Tito to Dogwood for the past couple months after having a bad experience with another doogie day care place and we have been so happy since our switch. Dogwood is so good about giving us updates at pickup as well as posting images on Facebook so we can see our buddy having a good time. Tito runs right in with his tail wagging every morning and is pooped after a long day of playing, which is great! The staff is so friendly and it shows that they all really care about the dogs in their care. We love Annie & Omar, they are always so helpful and friendly. I would recommend Dogwood to anyone!

Awful experience -- the staff is very disorganized, erratic, misleading in their claims about dogs and completely unsympathetic to owners' needs. Don't waste your time (or money).

Excellent care for your dog

This is our go-to for high quality boarding and care. We enjoy how they allow or encourage us to present all of the dogs words and training so they can function the best and keep the dog in a familiar rhythm. We needed extra care for our English bulldog so this is the place we finally found that would take all of the high maintenance requests and return the dog in the same condition we left her. Been using them since 2012 and will continue as a customer. Flexible staff and easy to pick up and drop off. No issues. Thnx

A wonderful Doggy Daycare COMET LOVES IT THERE!!!!!!

Happy helpful staff, very well organized and clean. I felt very comfortable leaving my two buddies there!!! Bruschi and Duke!! ????

Been taking our pup here for the past 4+ years. Love that there are not crates used. The owners are great - really dedicated to making this more than just daycare and boarding.

We’ve been sending our 2 year old to Dogwood since she was 16 weeks old, and we couldn’t be happier! The amount of care and love Winnie receives gives us such comfort and reassurance that she’s in the best hands while we’re at work. She starts wagging and wiggling with excitement as soon as we pull up to drop her off in the morning, and can’t wait to see her friends! And when we take her home, she’s usually so exhausted from playing all day that she’s perfectly content snuggling with her dad and I on the couch. And I love seeing the photos of our girl on Facebook and Instagram, she always looks so happy. We absolutely love Dogwood Cottage!

I am very happy to recommend Dogwood Cottage to anyone that wishes to board their dog. I find my dog is excited to go and excited to come home and shows no sign of being neglected by their staff. They are extremely accomodating to my needs.

My dog loves it here, always happy to go. Staff are very helpful and friendly

“Things are not always what they seem.” I would like to review Dogwood Cottage based on this quote and tell you our (husband and wife) three-year adventure with our Portuguese Water Dog, Darwin at Dogwood Cottage. Darwin is a four-year-old PWD; full of love, fun, energy, and anxiety. We sent him to Dogwood for daycare twice a week for the last three years, ever since he was one. What’s not to like? The owners seemed nice, people who worked there appeared to be happy, and our dog comes home every time exhausted. However, we did notice there was a really high employee turnover rate the past couple of years. That should have been a larger "red flag" than we personally allowed it to be. Why do the employees keep leaving? How does this ultimately correlate with how our dogs are being treated and handled? Up until this past September we had a great relationship with the staff and owners of Dogwood Cottage. Upon every pick-up and drop-off we were told Darwin was great and everyone appeared to be happy to see him. At this past September's Melrose Victorian Fair we stopped by the Dogwood Cottage booth and were once again told how great Darwin has been. Literally, a few days later, we get a call from the owner, “Darwin has been super anxious, not listening to commands and policing other dogs for a while (as in several weeks), he needs to take a break from here.” No amount of shock can describe what we heard. Why weren’t we told this earlier? Why have we been misled and essentially lied to for the past several weeks when telling us that our dog has been great? Is this how all long time customers are treated? Per the owner, “We try to manage and train the dogs here, so we don’t tell the owners.” We highly disagree with this policy as it does not allow the owner the opportunity to address and fix the situation until it is too late. Until the dog has been kicked out of daycare. We have since learned on average, only 2 employees are assigned to the "large dog room" which is continuously booked to full capacity of 25 large dogs. That is one person to 12.5 large dogs. We have consulted with multiple professional dog trainers since this incident and they have all agreed that is too many dogs to one person. And sadly, the employees of Dogwood Cottage are not trained dog care professionals. It is no wonder some of them leave and why some issues do arise with dogs like ours. It makes their “don’t tell the parents their dog is misbehaving while we manage it until it’s too late” policy even worse. What about all the stellar five star reviews? Well, we sent Darwin there happily for three years and if this incident didn’t happen, we wouldn’t have known the truth. In hindsight, we realize now there was/is no way for a dog owner to truly know or see what is going on behind closed doors. Owners are only allowed in the front lobby. There is zero visibility into the back play yards and no cameras. Dogwood does post pictures online but like all pictures one can pick and choose what one wants to show. While our dog came home exhausted and physically in the same shape as we left him, we will never know if he was mentally treated well. My advice is buyers be aware. If your dog is perfectly behaved, low stress in large group situations without trained personnel and less than the adequate amount of people caring for the amount of dogs present, you can consider taking your dog there. But if you would like to have at least one trained person per 5-8 dogs, people knowing how to deal with dogs with high energy, anxiety, and stress in group play, not withholding information about your dog, you should not come here. We will never return and will warn all others. Lastly, as an update. We have gotten professional dog training for Darwin to address his anxiety. Within three sessions he is a completely different (in a good and improved way) dog. If we would have been told about his "policing" tendencies we could have nipped that in the bud quickly and not be in this current situation.

Great daycare, our dog loves going and always comes home tired....

Great job with my pooch. Especially accommodating for last minute stays. It helps that they seem to love him....