Day care or boarding in Ashford and Tenterden?
Of the ten dog boarding, day-care and home-boarding businesses listed for Ashford and Tenterden, two run a dedicated day-care site, four are boarding kennels, and four are home boarders; a couple of the home boarders also offer day care alongside overnight stays.
Where day care is available
Tails of the Lake, in Woodchurch in the Tenterden area, and Lizzie's Dog School and Daycare, in Bilsington in the Ashford Villages and Wye area, are both licensed for dog day care as their main activity, rather than as an add-on to boarding. Tails of the Lake takes up to 20 dogs around its own private lake and exercise arenas; Lizzie's combines day care with one-to-one dog training, specialising in reactive and high-energy dogs.
Day care alongside home boarding
Brook Farm Home Boarding, on a 30-acre farm in the Ashford Villages and Wye area, is licensed by Ashford Borough Council for both home boarding and day care, so a dog can move between a day visit and an overnight stay with the same business. We Love Pets Ashford lists doggy day care among its services too, though its council licence is recorded only under dog home boarding; that's a difference in how the licence happens to be categorised, not necessarily in what the business actually offers, so ask directly what a day visit involves.
When day care fits
Day care suits a dog that would otherwise be alone through a working day rather than one that needs to stay overnight. Ask any of the three day-care options here what a typical day looks like, how many other dogs are usually there, and whether collection or drop-off is available, since none of their websites set out full details.
When overnight boarding fits
The other seven businesses on this page offer overnight boarding or home boarding without day care as a listed service: four run boarding kennels — The Dog Lodge in Bethersden, Haven Boarding Kennels & Cattery and Ransley House Kennels and Cattery, both near Ashford, and Courtfield Kennels & Cattery in Great Chart — and three are home boarders taking dogs into their own house overnight, in Ashford and Ashford North and Kennington. See the companion guide on home boarding or kennels for what separates the two.
Cats and other pets
Three of the kennels double as a cattery — Haven Boarding Kennels & Cattery, Ransley House Kennels and Cattery and Courtfield Kennels & Cattery — and Haven also boards small animals such as rabbits. If you have more than one type of pet needing cover at the same time, ask directly whether a business can take both under one booking.
Prices for day care
Neither Tails of the Lake nor Lizzie's Dog School and Daycare publishes a day-care price online, so call or ask at a consultation what a day actually costs. We Love Pets Ashford is the exception: it publishes a home-boarding rate from £45 per 24 hours and a dog-walk rate from £17 an hour, which gives some sense of the going rate locally even though it isn't a day-care price as such.