McHenry Sniffspot

06/15/2023

The last week has been extremely difficult, by far the most challenging time I've ever faced. It's been a pleasure meeting all of our guests, several of which have become close friends of mine since we first opened last July. Walking away from everything was devastating; my heart is broken and this will have a lasting impact on me for many years. I want to thank you all for your support; the emails, calls and posts on the site truly mean a lot to me. It amazes me that I still get new followers, views and activity on the page. I just got a notification last week that I was now eligible for "stars"?, apparently pages are able to get monetized with certain criteria met, likes, followers, etc.

I never would have imagined the popularity of our Sniffspot site. It was addicting; I loved the challenge of finding something new to add and reading reviews indicating we had thought of everything. Boxes were piling up last week with items for the photo booths; wigs, hats, etc for dogs of all sizes. It bums me out that we never got photos.

Those that are still owed money for their hour bank, I have not forgotten about you. It took me far longer than I expected to pick up the pieces and move forward. I just got internet where I'm staying today; progress is happening.

Please give your dogs a pat on the head from me. Cherish your time with them, nothing is harder than losing your dogs.

06/07/2023

I don't know how to say this, but everything is being shut down. McHenry Sniffspot, Zoomie Zones, everything. If you're a member who is owed money from the membership hour bank transfer, please contact me at 847-257-9994 or [email protected]. I'm in the process of cancelling the new reservations on Zoomie Zones. I'm so very sorry, I've lost everything.

06/03/2023

ZoomieZones.com Known Bugs -
I'm going to post a list of bugs that have been brought to my attention on the new site since we're starting to see purchases and reservations being made. I'm going to try and resolve them all by EOD tomorrow. Anything functionality I cannot correct by then may be taken offline until it's ready to go.

2 pm 6/3 - User being asked for CC when booking time after purchasing Zoomies 10 pack **Fixed 3:30 pm 6/3**

06/03/2023

Finished one of the photo booths yesterday, hope to have the Bob Ross photo booth completed by next weekend.

06/03/2023

New Website Update -

The current version of Zoomie Zones utilizes a 3rd party website to schedule appointments and accept payments. Out of the dozen or so I tested, this was as good as I could find. It lacks flexibility with more than 1 hour and 1 dog; which requires me to calculate and add each scenario (i.e., 1 dog for 1 hour, 1 dog for 1.5 hours, 1 dog for 2 hours, etc.) in order to have similar functionality as Sniffspot. This is why I lumped multiples of dogs together; as it would take me hours to list each possible combination.

The developers I met with yesterday proposed a solution that will be seamless with the web hosting tools. It's still expensive, but not as much as the first 2 developers I spoke with. It sounds like they could get something ready for me by the first week of July.

Working on this site has been challenging; it's the busiest time of year for my day job, which meant working 15-20 hours per day for the last week. I cannot guarantee that I'll be able to find the time to list every combination of dogs and time options, so for now more than 1 dog is going to remain grouped together.

06/01/2023

I'm still working on options for pricing, but the calendar and reservations appear to be working properly. If anybody finds a bug or something that seems off, please IM me so I can correct it.

Thank you all for your patience, we're almost there.

05/31/2023

5/31/23 Facility Update - New Website functionality; existing memberships

We're getting very close here, I appreciate everyone being patient as I work through getting out reservations back online. After countless hours of research and tinkering, I'm almost at a place where I'm comfortable publishing the new site.

New website functionality - The new site is going to have its limitations, but overall it should work for the short term. I'll continue to refine the site over the next month, but for now we're able to offer online booking with and without the pool access, with guests being able to add on additional dogs and time (base options are for 1 hour with 1 dog).

However, I'm not so optimistic that we're going to be able to offer memberships this year. I've been in contact with several developers regarding custom coding, but we're looking at thousands of dollars to make this happen.

Existing memberships - If you have a current membership, I would suggest that you cancel with Sniffspot by midnight today, otherwise you're going to continue to be charged indefinitely.

Those members that have hours remaining in their hour bank will not lose anything. I ask that you please send me receipts for your membership purchases so that I can reconcile the balance. I'm going to have to manually block time for individuals looking to deplete their hours; please reach out to me directly to reserve time.

05/28/2023

5/28/23 Facility Update - Temporary reservation hold, Changes to McHenry Sniffspot

Temporary reservation hold - As some of you are aware, we've struggled through a number of challenges since listing our home on Sniffspot last July. Most recently we've become overwhelmed with problems associated the the membership program we offered in 2023. A majority of our members weren't prorated after joining, resulting in them being charged another full month of fees shortly after joining. Additionally, Sniffspot has been underpaying us by roughly 30% on every member transaction this year. Once you add in their base fee of 25%, we found ourselves providing many of our services for mere pennies on the dollar. After countless attempts to have this corrected. we felt it would be best to temporarily pause any future online reservations.

Changes to McHenry Sniffspot- Moving to another platform would be the obvious solution, but unfortunately there aren't competitors to Sniffspot. We've invested far too much time and energy to simply close shop, and there's absolutely no way we're going to agree to continue paying Sniffspot $0.55 on every dollar earned. This has left us with only one feasible alternative, to create our own website. We've been working with a web developer on our site, ZoomieZones.com, which we hope to release sometime in the 3rd or 4th week in June.

Estimated downtime/temporary fixes - While we're waiting for the first release of our new site, I've been tinkering with the the free developer tools offered by godaddy.com. I feel as though I should be able to release a very rudimentary site capable of our most basic needs in the next day or so. Some elements may need to be manually refined on my side, but online booking and payments are definitely available. We'll post another update when it's ready for service. In the meantime:

*Please reach out to me directly for any current or future reservations

*Any prepaid member hours will be honored by us during the transition period. Please retain all documents pertaining to your charges, as I only have records of what was used.

*If you're a current member, I would strongly encourage you to cancel your membership. Please contact me so we can continue to reserve time from your hour bank.

*Please disregard the ZoomieZones site in it's current form. I've created a couple of test areas and have linked online banking, but I'm still working through member/non-member options.

Thank you for your patience and understanding, please don't hesitate to reach out to me with any questions or concerns.

05/26/2023

Major changes incoming for the next Facility Update to be released this weekend. All online reservations are being temporarily paused, estimated downtime is 24-48 hours.

In the meantime, please reach out to us directly at 847-257-9994 to check on availability, reserve a spot, or to get your name on the current wait list.

05/24/2023

Looking to visit us but can't find any available time slots? We only allow guests to book 2 weeks in advance, so we're either booked solid or you're trying to reserve time outside of the 2 week threshold.

Feel free to reach out to us if you're unable to find an opening and we'll put you on our wait list in case of any last minute reservation changes.

05/23/2023

As a reminder, Holiday weekends during the summer are reserved for members only (Memorial Day, 4th of July and Labor Day).

Friday 5/26, through Monday 5/29 is closed to non-members, normal hours will resume Tuesday 5/30.

05/23/2023

The latest addition to our family, Laverne. Her and Tuco are getting along great, but Stanley is still being a little stinker about it.

She’s just the sweetest little girl; Stanley will have no choice but to cave in to her cuteness by the weekend.

05/17/2023

New LED light installed; now just need the weather to cooperate. Shorts one day, jacket the next 😕

05/15/2023

Flirt pole and puppy puzzle arrived yesterday from Amazon; new addition to the Golden Chest of Toys!

05/14/2023

05/12/2023

The weather is calling for rain most of the day tomorrow. Those with reservations tomorrow need to cancel your reservation within 2 hours of your scheduled time, otherwise Sniffspot will charge you for the visit (members will have draws against their hour bank).

If you were thinking about making reservations but missed the required notification timeframe (12 hours for members, 24 for non-members), reach out to me directly and I'll notify you of any cancellations or other potential opportunities to fit you in.

05/12/2023

5/11/23 Facility update - Calendar and agility course availability, Holiday weekends reminder:

Those that may have tried to book time with us today and tomorrow may have noticed that no time was available, even for members. I had Hernia surgery this morning, which is why there were no openings. I was hoping that we could work in a few guests tomorrow, but unfortunately the recovery on this is far worse than I was anticipating.

We'll be open Saturday 5/13, but closed again 5/14 for Mothers Day. Aside from that, the only possible interruption this week being the agility course. I have to break the course down every week for the landscapers and I can't promise that we'll have everything reconfigured by Saturday morning. The A Frame and teeter are always available; the landscapers mow around them.

As a reminder, summer Holiday weekend reservations at McHenry Sniffspot are only open to our members. The entire weekend is blocked, not just the Holiday. This applies to Memorial Day, 4th of July and Labor Day weekends.

Lastly I wanted to remind everyone that all reservations (member and non-members) are only available 2 weeks in advance. This prevents individuals from booking excessive key times and dates far into the future, only to cancel last minute.