Doggie Daycare For Dogs Who Reach Sexual Maturity


San Francisco recently released its guide to safe sex during the Covid-19 Pandemic. The City has a list of suggestions including “maybe you’d like to watch” and “quicker can be better.” The guide includes a risk chart that provides the relative safety of various things with virtual sex, masturbation, watching porn and outdoor sex at the low end of the risk spectrum while sex with more people in a poorly ventilated area is at the high-risk end of the spectrum (as if you needed an official City guide to tell you this).  So, what does any of this have to do with Pet Camp?

Some of you might be thinking – nothing! You might be thinking this was just too hard for us to pass up and we had to write something or maybe this was just another excuse for us to ridicule the City for the way it spends our tax money. Both of these answers are correct, but really, we found a tie to Pet Camp.

We recently got a call from a potential doggie day care client who had been 86’d from their current doggie day care facility because their dog was over 6-months old, not yet neutered, and had started to display “adult tendencies.” “Adult tendencies” is how the other doggie day care referred to his behavior – we’re really not sure about the specifics (which may or may not be listed in the City guide). But just as the City of San Francisco recognizes that “[s]ex is a normal part of life for many people,” reaching sexual maturity is a normal part of dog maturation. There is no bright line age when dogs become sexually mature, equally there is no “correct” age by which a dog must be spayed or neutered.

Absolutely a dog’s behavior may change when it reaches sexual maturity. This change may require that the doggie day care and pet parent discuss new options for the dog, but it doesn’t mean that the dog must be spayed or neutered, nor does it mean that the dog needs to be 86’d from doggie day care. Frankly, the standard doggie day care response was one of the reasons we developed our K9 Enrichment Program. If you have a dog that has begun to display “adult tendencies” and you, after a conversation with your breeder and/or veterinarian, have decided that the time is not right to alter your dog, our K9 Enrichment Program may be the perfect way for your dog to enjoy doggie day care.
Thanks for reading, and all kidding aside – please stay healthy.


Pet Camp has been providing award winning pet care for over 20 years.  From doggie day care to overnight care for your dog and cat, Pet Camp is proud to San Francisco’s largest family owned and operated pet care facility offering a range of options for dogs and cats of every shape, size, and age.  Being neutered or spayed is not a requirement to come to Pet Camp.

Want more stories like this? Sign Up for our Newsletter!