PetSmart’s dog policy is published rather than reported, and it puts dogs on the sales floor. The chain’s In-Store Pet Policy lists domestic dogs among the pets “permitted in PetSmart stores provided the pets are appropriately secured (leashed or safely confined) and vaccinated (as appropriate for the particular type of pet).” It applies to every location, this one included. Store #2124 is the Cotswold store, at 206 South Sharon Amity Road.

Leash length isn’t specified. The policy says leashed or safely confined and stops there, so Mecklenburg County’s ordinance is the operative rule: physical restraint anywhere off your own property. Water bowls go unmentioned, on the policy page and on the store page both.

One condition here that doesn’t apply at every PetSmart. This store has a Banfield veterinary hospital inside it, and the chain policy treats vet patients differently from shoppers. Pets arriving for appointments “must be secured in a crate, kennel, or other fastened enclosure to prevent exposure to the public,” and may not come out “until safely sheltered inside a hospital examination room or kennel area.” Walking a dog in on a leash is what the policy describes for shopping, not for a vet visit.

The store page lists grooming, training, a PetsHotel, Doggie Day Camp, adoptions, and curbside pickup alongside the Banfield. Overnight boarding and day care run out of the same building as the retail floor, which makes this one of the larger-format stores in the chain rather than a supply shop with a grooming counter bolted on.

Hours as posted: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 10 to 7 on Sunday. Curbside pickup runs daily from open until 7. The Banfield closes earlier than the store, at 5, and adoptions run until 7.

CARE, the twenty-four-hour emergency and referral hospital, sits about a mile and a quarter north in the same Cotswold pocket. Common Market Oakwold is roughly a mile and a half northeast.