About our Prices at Glencadia Dog Camp – no nightly increase, no delivery fee and still the best bargain in NYC dog care

In this essay, I will explain our new $50 per reservation fee, after explaining a bunch of other stuff you need to know (although you didn’t exactly ASK).

Glencadia the most authentic dog camp experience available and we have great prices. We don’t charge for delivery in the city for many of our NYC customers. Our overnight fees are 50% less than some of our competitors. I gag at some of the prices people charge! Sharpen your Google tools and go look! YIKES!

If you factor in the costs of delivery, there is no comparison. And yet, our fee van is the most convenient option, coming after work twice a week right to your home – again, free. Cheapest, and clearly the best and most convenient option. Don’t take my word for it, go look.

No one can touch what we do: great staff with decades of experience, Mercedes free van, ETA updates by text, gorgeous luxury building with incredible amenities, huge spaces to run and lots of time outside playing in packs, beautiful landscapes or woods, fields and ponds, no cages, online reservation system, cinematic videos, contests, excellent safety record, real fun – and the rock bottom best prices. You can’t beat that with a bat!

We’re efficient, not greedy and love dogs – that’s our secret. We want to provide a great service at a cost that is not ridiculous. However, if people aren’t here to care for dogs, help people with the logistics of reservations, drive the van, and maintain and extend the space available for dogs, the experience can’t be good.

In 2018 and 2019 we have vastly expanded the staff, vehicle costs, interior space and acres of fenced fields. We now have 6000sf of interior space, including a vast interior playground for bad weather days, AC and central heat, hot water, grooming space. We added acres of fencing. When I get a chance to make a proper tour video people will love our beautiful new building. Come up and check it out: Gary and the guys did something spectacular and the dogs (and people) love it.

The quality of the experience for the dogs has improved. We have spent money to make our deliveries better – route planning, GPS trackers, individual water bottles, music, humidifier with essential oils, and text-based ETA updates.

Yet, we have not raised prices in all that time. This year, 2019, we did add one new fee: $35 per reservation in addition to the nightly rate. Essentially, this fee is meant to mostly increase the cost of short stays without affecting longer stays as much so that these long stays remain affordable.

We also need to cover the initial costs of each stay and reservation: Every new dog usually needs to settle in, will need extra attention, we will need to monitor the social scene for every new arrival, set up feeding and medicine instructions, put on a Glencadia collar (which cost money) and make a new dog tag (which cost money). Every reservation includes a first day of the stay. We have to figure out the new arrivals and how to keep them safe and happy – as every dog does not have the same experience here.

Every reservation has some kind of management of our time – and the people who work here have to be paid for their time. For example, if a customer needs help making a reservation, or if the customer wants to modify a reservation, that takes time. Every time we go to the city, we have to plan the route. We sent out ETAs. We have to check the vehicle for maintenance issues, fill the water bottles, make sure the rugs are clean. Then the driver has to be paid.

We don’t charge for pick up or drop off in NYC on our regular nights. For a long stay – say a week or longer – the cost of delivery and pick up is folded into the overnight fee and that works fine. For shorter stays, however, we do need to make sure the costs of these trips are covered.

Even if you bring your dog to camp, there are expenses. We have to put your arrival on the calendar. Someone has to be here to work with your dog as they settle in. Indeed, the logistics of helping one new arrival to settle in mean that people bringing their dogs to camp is not easier for us than picking up in the city – since we’re going to the city anyway.

Here at Glencadia we change per night, basically, from day to day or evening to evening. If your dog is here for only 8 hours, however, that’s a “stay” or a full night. The longer your dog stays, the less you pay per night. The price you pay is the same per night whether you get pick up or drop off in the city on one of our regular Monday and Thursday trips or if you come to camp. However, obviously, the expenses to Glencadia of maintaining and running a van and driver are significant.

We haven’t changed much in terms of pricing. We simply added a fee per reservation. This fee would be a trivial increase for a long stay – less than 1% in many cases – but more of an increase for a short four-day stay – about 7% more.

So, you might have noticed a new $35 fee per reservation. We are trying to keep costs down while still expanding. Given that others charge so much more, I don’t think this new fee is too much to ask to allow us to continue to improve.

Thank you for sending your dog to camp. We are going have more great stuff all the time – new building, maybe some technological improvements you might love, t-shirts with matching dog fashion, more contests and videos. Lots of fun. Stay tuned!