About Play N Stay Pet Camp – WHG

Play N Stay Pet Camp's Elm Grove location is a dog boarding and daycare facility on Peters Run Road in Wheeling, West Virginia, and it is worth being clear up front about what it is: this is primarily a daycare and lodging business that also runs a structured puppy program, not a general obedience school. If you want weeks of adult behavior work, this is not the place. If you want a puppy raised properly while you are at work, it is a serious option.

The puppy program

The training here is aimed squarely at the window that closes early. The company's own framing is that a puppy needs enormous exposure before twelve weeks and that vaccination schedules make that hard for most owners to arrange, so it sells a supervised alternative: "Enroll your puppy into our carefully conducted Puppy Daycare & Development Program", which the site also calls Puppy School.

The day is structured rather than open-ended – "Puppies are dropped off for all day supervision, structured naps, play time and potty training rituals" – and the curriculum is stated in plain terms. Puppies are handled through grooming exercises and mock veterinary exams so that being touched is normal later; they meet new people, other puppies and adult dogs; they work on crate tolerance; and they cover basic manners including sit, wait, leave it, back and off. The site is explicit that house-training is a partnership rather than something it does for you: "We support your house-training efforts, by establishing a good routine!"

It is also honest about what it needs from the owner, which is a good sign. Enrollment requires two distemper and parvo vaccinations with a third scheduled, a bordetella vaccine, and that the puppy has been in your household three weeks. The site asks for commitment to crate manners at home and says plainly that a puppy who cannot relax in a crate is very hard to train and upsetting to the other puppies.

Who is doing the handling

The company's claim here is a specific one rather than a slogan: "Play N Stay Pet Camp is the ONLY interactive play facility that is LOCALLY-OWNED & OPERATED by a TRAINER!" Group staff are put through structured training of their own – "Our staff complete 300+ hours of training and testing before they are certified to run groups at Play N Stay" – and the site describes groups as managed rather than merely supervised, with dogs taught not to bully and worked around what it calls the six words it lives by: sit, back, wait, off, leave it and come. Dogs are assessed before joining group play, matched by size and temperament, and supervised throughout.

Private sessions

Beyond the puppy program, one-to-one work is available as an add-on rather than as a course: the site says you can sign your dog up for a private training session using the Pampered Preferences form on the Express Check-In.

This location specifically

The Elm Grove site is the middle one of the company's three. It has been open since 2012 and is described as laid out in specialized zones so that it works like several smaller facilities under one roof, with a staff of 20. It is at 132 Peters Run Road, just off I-70 exit 5. Drop-off and pick-up run seven days a week but strictly by appointment, in morning and late-afternoon windows, and the lobby closes on all major holidays – boarding guests are still fully staffed on those days, but you cannot collect or drop off. Current bordetella, distemper and parvo, and rabies records are required.

One practical note: the puppy-program enrollment line on the company's site gives the St. Clairsville and Elm Grove numbers to call, so Elm Grove is one of the two locations it directs puppy inquiries to.

The same company, three addresses

Play N Stay Pet Camp runs three facilities and one website between them. Two are in Wheeling, West Virginia, and the third is at 67700 Airport Road in St. Clairsville, Ohio, which is a different state and a different location. If you are calling, use the number for the location you want – they are separate lines, and the site directs inquiries by location rather than through a central desk.