Home boarding or kennels in Dudley and Stourbridge?
Seven of Dudley and Stourbridge's twelve listed businesses hold a home boarding licence, and three hold a boarding kennels licence. The remaining two, Wagatails Dog Day Care and Tipton Tails, are licensed for day care only and do not offer an overnight stay of either kind — see our day care or boarding guide for those two. The difference between home boarding and a kennels is worth understanding before you compare two quotes.
Home boarding
A home boarder takes your dog into their own house: your dog sleeps where the family sleeps and shares the routine of one household rather than a rota of staff shifts. Dudley and Stourbridge's seven home boarders — Pet Comforts Hotel in Dudley & Sedgley; Doggy Dayz and Poppy's Pad in Kingswinford; and Mann's Dynamic Dogs, Pauls Pet Minders, Thirlmere House Dog Boarding and Wollaston Dog Walking in Stourbridge — are shown here by area and town only, never by street address; the exact address is theirs to give you once you have booked. A home boarder generally takes far fewer dogs at once than a kennels: Poppy's Pad takes one household's dogs at a time and Doggy Dayz takes a maximum of two, so ask each one how many dogs, and from how many households, will be in the house during your dates.
Boarding kennels
A boarding kennels is purpose-built accommodation away from anyone's living room: individual kennels, set feeding and exercise times, and staff working shifts rather than one family caring for every dog. Long Meadow Pet Resort and Woodfarm Boarding Kennels and Cattery, both near Himley in the Dudley & Sedgley area, and Iverley Lodge Boarding Kennels & Cattery near Kinver in the Stourbridge area, all run this way, and all three also keep a cattery alongside the dog kennels.
Which suits your dog
A dog that finds a strange household stressful, or that guards its space around other dogs, may do better in a kennels with its own space and a fixed routine; a dog that struggles being left in a run, or that is used to living in a house, may do better with a home boarder. Neither is automatically the better choice — ask each business how it handles dogs that are anxious to start with, and trust what you see when you visit.
Two of the three kennels have traded a long time
Long Meadow Pet Resort, near Himley, has been run by the same family, Kelvin and Lindsey Barnes, since 2004, with each kennel having its own covered outdoor run; Woodfarm Boarding Kennels and Cattery, also near Himley, describes itself on its own site as serving Wolverhampton, Stourbridge, Walsall and Dudley rather than one town alone. All three kennels here, including Iverley Lodge near Kinver, also keep a cattery alongside the dog kennels, so ask about a combined dog-and-cat stay if that applies to your household.