Vaccinations, licences and what to ask in Coventry

Two councils license the 29 dog boarders, day cares and kennels listed for Coventry: Coventry City Council covers every area on this page except Kenilworth, and Warwick District Council covers Kenilworth itself. A licence is not a guarantee about any one stay, but it is the one document worth asking to see before you book, alongside a plain answer on vaccinations and any breed policy.

Vaccinations

Every home boarder, day care and kennels here sets its own vaccination policy, and this varies from one business to the next, so ask what they require and how long before the stay you need to show proof, rather than assuming a fixed rule applies across Coventry. Several also have their own view on kennel-cough cover; practice differs by business, so raise it directly when you call rather than relying on what a previous boarder asked for.

Licences in Coventry and Kenilworth

Coventry City Council's own register page lists trading name, licence holder, home area and phone number for its licensed home boarders, plus the one day-care-only licence, The Dog Den – Day Care; it does not cover the town's five premises kennels — Harvest Hill, Rock Farm, Fox Covert Boarding Kennels and Cattery, West View and Meriroyles Luxury Boarding Kennels — which apply through a separate commercial process with no published list, so none of the five carries a licence block on this site. Asking to see the certificate directly matters more for these five than for any home boarder here. The three Kenilworth businesses on this page, Cosy Home Dog Boarding, Little Paws Kenilworth and Paws and Claws Care, are licensed instead by Warwick District Council; their licence numbers and expiry dates come from animal-licensing.uk, a third-party mirror of that council's own register, since no directly reachable Warwick register was found this round.

Breed policies and insurance

A boarding or day-care business is entitled to ask about a dog's breed and to set its own conditions, including for an XL Bully with a valid exemption certificate, so ask directly rather than assuming either way. None of the businesses listed here states a public liability insurance position on its own site; if one ever does, treat it as something the business says about itself, since Roskosh has no way to check an insurance claim independently.

Questions to ask before you book

• What vaccinations do you need before the stay, and how far in advance?
• Do you have a policy on kennel cough cover?
• Do you have any breed policies I should know about, including for an XL Bully?
• How many other dogs, and from how many households, will be there during my dates?
• What happens if my dog needs a vet while staying with you, and who decides that?
• Can I see your current council licence certificate?

What a licence covers, and what it doesn't

A licence covers premises standards, record-keeping and how many dogs a business may keep at once; it does not fix a price, guarantee a particular room, or promise a certain group size, so ask those questions separately even once you have confirmed the licence. Coventry's licensed home boarders range from Rosie and Friends Pet Services, capped at five dogs including two resident dogs, to Kingswood Small Dog Home Boarding and Day Care, which specialises in small and medium dogs including dachshunds — a small operation is not necessarily under-licensed, and a bigger one is not automatically better matched to your dog.