About Wooftopia
Welcome to Wooftopia Dog Training & Recreation Centre, Winnipeg’s premium dog daycamp and training facility. We’re located just six minutes north of Kenaston Boulevard & McGillivray Boulevard, and an easy eighteen minutes from the downtown core. Coming from out of town? Wooftopia is less than fifteen minutes from the Perimeter Highway. Wooftopia offers premium dog care services including: daycamp, training and obedience, grooming, boarding and retail.
What sets us apart from our competitors: our promise to create and sustain a positive human-dog relationship. The Wooftopia team is committed to providing a fun, stimulating and clean environment for your furry family member:
- Qualified daycamp staff provide a structured, well-balanced day to challenge canine clients both mentally and physically through training, socialization and play.
- Positive reinforcement training staff offer a realistic training approach to help you and your pooch reach your training and behaviour goals.
- Experienced grooming staff provide top of the line spaw services for dogs of all sizes.
- Qualified boarding staff provide a safe and comfortable environment for your pup while you are away. What sets us apart? Your pup gets to come home with us!
- Practical retail items are available to assist you in achieving your training goals.
Wooftopia is conscious of our impact to the environment. Green building materials were used during building renovations. We utilize electronic documents where possible. We recycle, use eco-friendly cleaning products and require staff to bring a reusable water bottle to work. Have any green tips for us? Let us know! We are always looking for new ways to reduce our carbon footprint.
Our Philosophy
Here at Wooftopia we believe in positive reinforcement. We want your dogs to listen and learn from us because they want to and because they trust us, not because they are afraid. We are in this business to help dogs be more confident, well mannered, and happy! All of our staff are trained and skilled in working with dogs with behavior issues while in a daycare environment. That doesn’t mean that every dog can attend daycamp, but we will work with owners to make that a possibility.
Our assessment includes a one on one chat with either our owner and head trainer, Dez, or another auntie, and a session with one of our working dogs. This is a complimentary assessment so you can learn more about our facility and what we do while we learn about your dog so we can make sure to take the best care of them possible. What is a working dog, you ask? We have some dogs that come to daycare and help with assessments and training sessions. Generally these pups read other dogs very well and make them feel comfortable. Some of them can even tell us what personality type your dog is!
You may see a dog in a muzzle on our Facebook page. We use a muzzle to help dogs that are nervous around other dogs feel more comfortable and take their mind off of potentially lashing out. Having to wear a muzzle does not mean that dog is a “bad dog”, they may just need help increasing their threshold for interactions with other dogs or people. We make sure to work towards taking the muzzle off whether that takes 2, 5, 10, or 100 visits. These dogs are trained with a muzzle prior to putting one on at daycamp and our aunties are making sure that everyone is having fun and being respectful.
Our way of training differs a little bit from other training/daycare facilities. We use the principles from a program called ‘Behavior Adjustment Training’ or ‘BAT’ to help dogs learn to calm themselves down and make good decisions on their own. We watch for signals that a dog is thinking and we reward for that signal (verbally, eg. ‘GOOD GIRL SCRUFFLES’), to boost their confidence so they can calm down and make a good decision. Some examples of these signals are licking their lips, yawning, sniffing the ground, looking at you and showing the whites of their eyes, and/or a wet dog shake. Our daycare also has a very low staff to dog ratio of 1:10-12, depending on the group. We are all certified in pet CPR and trained in canine body language and behavior. Our aunties are extremely involved with the dogs during the day whether it be making sure play is respectful or doing some basic manners training. This ensures a safe and happy environment for your pooch!
Wondering if daycamp is a good option for your pup or have a question about our philosophies? Contact us today!