How to choose dog boarding or day care in Burnley, Nelson and Colne

Ten dog boarders, day cares and kennels are listed across Burnley, Nelson and Colne, split between two licensing councils: Burnley Borough Council, which covers the Burnley area itself, and Pendle Borough Council, which covers Nelson & Brierfield and Colne & Barnoldswick. Four run boarding kennels, one runs a dedicated day care, and five are home boarders. What matters most in choosing between them depends on which of the three you need.

Home boarding, kennels or day care

Five home boarders are listed: Pacey Pooches and Paws For A Walk, both based in Nelson & Brierfield; Happy Trails and We Love Pets Pendle (Colne), both shown under Colne & Barnoldswick; and PetStay East Lancs & Bury, whose two individually licensed hosts between them cover Barnoldswick and Colne. A home boarder takes your dog into their own house rather than a kennel block, usually alongside far fewer other dogs at a time, so ask how many dogs will be there during your dates and whether they are all from one household. Four boarding kennels are listed: New Forge Pet Hotel, Nutshaw Kennels and Cattery and Burnley Pet Boarding Centre in the Burnley area, and Stainthwaite Boarding Kennels in Nelson & Brierfield, which also offers grooming and training alongside boarding. A kennel usually has more space than a home boarder and set feeding and exercise times run by staff on site. Barka Lounge Doggy Daycare, in Colne & Barnoldswick, is the only business here offering day care as its main service, though three of the home boarders — Happy Trails, Paws For A Walk and We Love Pets Pendle (Colne) — also take dogs for the day rather than overnight.

Gaps on this page

Padiham & Great Harwood and Bacup have no business listed here with a confirmed phone number, so this page is thin in both areas. Part of Padiham & Great Harwood falls under Hyndburn Borough Council, whose own licensing register returned no data on every attempt made while researching this page; that looks like a fault with the council's system on the day it was checked rather than a genuine absence of licensed businesses, so the area may fill in once the register is working again. Bacup's home boarders on Rossendale Borough Council's own register could not be reached with a verified phone number and are not published as a result. If you are in either area, it is worth asking further afield: Pacey Pooches and Happy Trails both say they travel into Padiham, Colne and the surrounding villages.

The council licence

Every business on this page holds a current dog boarding, home boarding or day care licence, a legal requirement in England rather than a badge a business chooses to have. The four Burnley-area businesses are licensed by Burnley Borough Council, whose own online register does not carry a star rating for any licence type. The businesses in Nelson & Brierfield and Colne & Barnoldswick are licensed by Pendle Borough Council; Pendle publishes no register of its own, so the licence numbers and expiry dates shown for these businesses come from the animal-licensing.uk mirror site rather than the council directly, and no star rating from that mirror is shown on this page. Where a licence number and an expiry date are given, they can be checked against the relevant council's own contact details if you want to confirm them yourself.

Questions to ask before you book

• Can I see your current licence and the council that issued it?
• How many other dogs will be there during my dates, and are they all from one household or several?
• What vaccinations do you require, and do you need proof before the stay starts?
• Are there breeds or sizes you don't take, and is my dog one of them?
• What happens if my dog needs a vet while I'm away?
• What's included in the price, and what costs extra?