Home boarding or kennels in Doncaster?
Of the nine dog boarding, day-care and home-boarding businesses listed for Doncaster, three are home boarders, licensed to keep dogs in their own house, and six run boarding kennels on a business site.
What a boarding kennels gives you
A boarding kennels means your dog has its own kennel and run on a site built for it, with set feeding and exercise times and more than one household’s dogs on site at once. Doncaster’s six kennels are Oakwood Boarding Kennels & Cattery in Toll Bar, Mayflower Boarding Kennels and Cattery in Bawtry, Bryce Boarding Kennels, and AD ASTRA Kennels and Cattery, Longmeadow Pet Hotel and Chaiquinta Pet Hotel & Grooming Salon, all three in the Thorne & Hatfield area. Four of the six also board cats.
What a home boarder gives you
A home boarder means your dog lives in somebody’s house instead, usually alongside far fewer other dogs at a time than a kennels holds; the carer’s address is given once you book, not published here. Doncaster’s three home boarders are Hannah’s Happy Hounds, a town-wide network of separately licensed carers rather than one address, Paws 4 A Break, run by Jane and Martyn in the Mexborough area, and Jake’s Adventures Pet Care, based in the Doncaster area.
Which suits your dog
A kennels tends to suit a dog that is happy with its own space and a set routine, and there is often more room left during a busy school-holiday week simply because a kennels takes more dogs at once. A home boarder tends to suit a dog that finds a group of strange dogs stressful, or one that is used to living in a house rather than a run. Neither type is licensed to a higher standard than the other by default: City of Doncaster Council licenses both boarding kennels and home boarding under the same regulations, so asking to see the certificate is the same question either way. Four of Doncaster’s six kennels, Oakwood, Mayflower, AD ASTRA and Chaiquinta, also take cats alongside dogs, which is worth asking about directly if you have more than one type of pet needing cover over the same dates.
A network rather than one address
Hannah’s Happy Hounds is a slightly different shape from a typical home boarder: City of Doncaster Council’s own register lists several other home boarders trading under the same name, each separately licensed, alongside Hannah Martin’s own licence. If you book through Hannah’s Happy Hounds, ask which carer and area would actually look after your dog, since it may not be the person named on the website.
Where each type sits
Doncaster’s home boarders and kennels are not evenly spread across the town’s seven areas: Thorne & Hatfield has three kennels and no home boarder listed, while Bentley & Scawthorpe has one of each. See our area-by-area guide for the full breakdown.