Waukee Bark Avenue

"I took my Mini schnauzer here to get groomed by Maggie. I forgot some papers at home, and they were very patient when it was being forwarded to them via email. This was his first groom. It took about three hours for him to get groomed. She let me know when he was done, and charged me an affordable price. I expected it to be in the upper 100s but it wasn't even $100. He came out all nice and clean. He had a full groom. He didn't look like he had any discomfort, and was very happy. I would 100% recommend this place!"

"Easily one of the worst groomings my dogs have ever received. My wife and I just recently moved to Iowa from another state and we were immediately in the search to find a new groomer for our Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. I decided to try this place seeing it had a good star average and the person I spoke with on the phone while making the appointment was genuinely very nice. However, things changed very quickly after my wife picked our dogs up and immediately called me at work to express her opinions on the dogs. At no point would I consider this to be a professional establishment, despite them boasting that they have “award winning groomers”, considering the state that my dogs were returned to me in. There is no sign at all that they were groomed properly. They went in with some mats and came out with all the same mats. One dog still has tiny twigs stuck in his fur that he went in with. They hardly looked bathed and it looks like they were wet down and left to air dry for 4 hours until they gave us the call to have them picked up. One dog’s hind feet toenails looked to be unclipped. I also asked to have the inside of their ears cleaned and the hair trimmed down which they were not. Their hair besides for their back(where they spritz a vanilla smell) smells dirty still. I can lightly brush my hand across their backs and pull out a whole handful of hair. They were not brushed at all after their hair was dry. They definitely just bathed them (not well) and let them air dry because they looked like they were outside in the rain."

"This place is incredible. We had an emergency and needed to leave town quickly for 5 days and they got our dog in for boarding and let us check out the place with one days notice. They have literally thought of everything when it comes to your dog. They even will have him groomed by the time we pick him up. He took a tour and they observed how he was with other dogs so when we came to drop him off, he nearly pulled my boyfriend’s arm off trying to get in the door! He was so excited to play with the other dogs again, which made it easy on us leaving him for the first time! While on vacation, we received a report card with pictures and he’s smiling in every one of them! I’ve never seen him smile so much! He has horrible separation anxiety so I thought he’d be so sad but getting to play with the other dogs three times a day clearly distracted him from that anxiety! After picking him up, he was looking like he had a spa weekend! He was happy and their groomer did an incredible job! He clearly loved the staff and they clearly did a great job picking out friends for him! He came home and was so tired and relaxed, which was great for me just having spent all morning and afternoon on airplanes! He clearly enjoyed his time there and that truly is just priceless having that peace of mind while I’m half a country away. I would have thought it would cost an arm and a leg for this kind of boarding/daycare, but their prices are so very fair and impressively inexpensive. To top everything off, we got half off boarding for his first time, one free report card, a free day of daycare, AND a bath was free with his sanitary trim. My bf and I were trying to guess how much 5 days boarding, gold package, upgraded room size, teeth brushing, sanitary trim, nail grinding, and anal gland expression would be… and let’s just say we were off by about $200! I'm so in love with them right now. I’m excited to try out their daycare next!"

"We have been taking our dog, Oliver, to Waukee Bark Ave since February 2022. He loves it! We utilize regular daycare as well as overnight boarding. The staff are friendly and welcoming, Oliver practically runs in the building, excited to play! We feel very reassured that Oliver is getting excellent care and attention when he is there, and he comes home tired after his days of doggy daycare! The theme-party days, complete with professional photos and fun treats are enjoyed as well. Highly recommend Waukee Bark Ave!"

"Have been using this place for both of our dogs for a few months. Pretty neutral on it, not great not terrible, but some things that have influenced this review: 1. Their pricing for boarding honestly makes no sense. They advertise a $35/night rate that is not true. They make you pay for an "activity package" on top of that, so it comes out to over $60/night per dog. Most boarding places that do daycare include that with the overnight cost. 2. My dog has come home injured multiple times. The injury itself I'm not mad about, I'm sure it was his own fault and they offered to pay vet costs when I brought it up to them. The fact that no one has ever noticed the wound is what concerns me. It isn't obscure, it's on top of his head 3. This is from the Ankeny location, but we boarded there once and had one of my dogs in daycare with a gold activity package or whatever. I ended up calling and asking if we could get photos of the dogs every day for the rest of their stay. About 5 minutes after calling, they called back to inform me that my dog was actually kicked out of daycare- I didn't really receive any additional information on this and the Waukee location continues to put him in daycare so I'm still unsure what happened. I find it suspicious that he had been there for a full day and they only thought to inform me once I asked for pictures :/ 4. the last time we boarded one of my dogs here it was for one single night, not even 24 hours. When my partner picked him up at 10am the next morning he said that he immediately had the longest pee he has ever seen and also pooped. This is uncharacteristic for my dog, leading us to believe that he had not been taken out since the previous night."