Dog Grooming, Daycare and Boarding for Medford, NY

If you live in Medford, the useful question isn't which salon has the prettiest website. It's whether one place can handle the haircut, the workday and the week you're away — without you learning three different check-in desks and three different sets of paperwork.

Our full-service location is at 835 Portion Rd in Ronkonkoma: dog grooming, doggy daycare, overnight boarding and a retail shop, all in one building, open seven days a week. For most Medford households that's a short drive and one relationship instead of three. Here's exactly what it costs and what's expected of you, so you can decide before you pick up the phone.

The rules that actually apply to you

Medford, like Ronkonkoma, is in Suffolk County. That matters less than people think for grooming and rather a lot for boarding, because the health rules that govern a boarding kennel are written at the county level, not by the salon.

Two things worth knowing as a Suffolk dog owner:

• New York State requires a dog to be licensed and rabies-vaccinated from four months of age (Agriculture & Markets Law § 109). Your license comes from your own town, not from us. There is no statewide New York licensing or inspection regime for boarding kennels, daycare or grooming — a groomer in this state needs no state license at all, which is worth knowing whoever you use.
• Suffolk County sets the health requirements for boarding — see the warning box further down. They are stricter than most owners expect, and one of them runs on a shorter clock than the rest.

One honest caveat: leash rules, park access and beach access are set town by town on Long Island and they genuinely differ. Whatever you've read about a park in a neighboring town, check your own town's rules before you assume they carry over.

Grooming: what it costs, by weight

Our ranges are published. Where your dog lands inside a range depends mostly on weight, then on coat type and condition.

The exact figure for your dog's weight is on the grooming page, along with online booking. Book there rather than guessing from the range — it takes a minute and you'll see the price before you commit.

Daycare for the days nobody's home

The daycare floor runs 7am to 7pm, seven days a week — wider than our grooming hours, because a dog's day starts before yours does and ends after it. Pricing is straightforward:

• Full day (4+ hours) — $35
• Half day (under 4 hours) — $30

If daycare is going to be a habit rather than an occasional rescue, the passes are cheaper per day and they don't expire:

Passes have no expiration date and are non-refundable. Sales tax of 8.75% applies. Late pickup after 7pm is $5 per 15 minutes — not a penalty so much as the reason our staff can plan their evening. Details and booking are on the daycare page.

And a fair warning in the other direction: if your dog is genuinely content alone all day, sleeps through it and greets you calmly, you don't need daycare. Some dogs don't. Buying a pass for a dog who'd rather be on the couch is money spent on your guilt, not on the dog.

Overnight boarding, seven days a week

Two kennel sizes, both private:

Every boarding stay includes full-day daycare at no extra charge, so your dog isn't sitting in a kennel between meals. Feeding runs at 8am, 1pm and 6pm, and we'll work to a custom schedule for puppies, seniors or medical diets. Bring your own food if you'd rather — or we can provide it at $5 per day, per dog, which also applies to daycare.

Check-in is 2:00pm to 7:00pm and check-out is 7:00am to 11:00am. Plan your travel around those windows; they're the part people forget. Long Island MacArthur Airport is here in Ronkonkoma, which is worth remembering when you're mapping out the morning of a flight. More on the boarding page.

We're also honest about who boards well. In the salon's own words:

Pet must be non-aggressive, comfortable in a kennel, able to socialize, and free from bite history.

One real limitation: medications that must be given outside 7am to 10pm are difficult for us to guarantee. Tell us up front rather than at drop-off, and if we're not the right fit for your dog's schedule we'll say so.

Worth adding, because it gets oversold: bordetella vaccination does not fully prevent kennel cough. What we call kennel cough is properly canine infectious respiratory disease complex, with roughly eleven contributing pathogens according to the AVMA. The vaccine is required and it helps. It is not a force field.

Brush, burrs, and the coat that pays for it

A dog who spends real time outdoors comes home with the outdoors in the coat. Brush and burr seeds work into feathering behind the ears, in the armpits and up the back of the legs. Add a dog who swims or gets hosed off and dries without a full brush-out, and the coat felts — it goes from tangle to mat quietly, close to the skin, where you can't see it from above.

The fix is a comb, not a brush. Run a metal comb down to the skin behind the ears, under the collar, in the armpits and at the base of the tail. Those four spots rub all day, which is why we check them first. If the comb stops, that's a mat, and it will not brush out with a slicker on the surface.

When a coat is matted to the skin, a shave-down is often the humane answer rather than a failure. Dematting a tight, pelted coat means dragging metal through skin that's already inflamed underneath. We'll always talk it through with you before the clippers come out, and we'll show you what we found.

Ticks — and where Suffolk actually stands

Brushing is also tick-checking. The New York State Department of Health tracks deer ticks in two fixed seasonal windows: nymphs from May to September, adults from October to December. In Suffolk County in 2025, nymph density measured 61.04 ticks per 1,000 m², with 26.6% carrying the Lyme bacterium. For adults collected October to December 2025, 52.8% tested positive — roughly double the nymph rate.

Some perspective, because Long Island gets talked about as the worst place in the state and it isn't quite: Suffolk ranked 8th among New York counties for nymphal density in 2025, well behind Orange County. Suffolk does lead the state in raw Lyme case count — 3,152 in 2024 — which is what you'd expect from a county this populated.

Our part in this is simple and limited: hands go over every inch of a dog during a groom, so we find things, and we tell you exactly where we found them. We are groomers, not veterinarians — an embedded tick, anything that looks like a reaction, a lump or a skin infection goes to your vet, not to us.

What to bring the first time you come in

Questions people actually ask