How to choose dog boarding or day care in Eastbourne

Eight dog boarders, day cares and kennels are listed for Eastbourne, spread across a town split between two licensing councils. Five are home boarders, two run boarding kennels (one of them also a cattery), and one runs day care. What matters most when choosing depends on which of the three you need, and where in the town you are.

Home boarding, kennels or day care

Five businesses board dogs in the boarder's own home rather than a kennel block: The Sussex Dog Retreat and We Love Pets Eastbourne & Polegate in the Eastbourne centre area; Dingo's Rest and Salty Seadogs Seaford in Seaford; and Active Animal Pet Care in Hailsham, whose own contact page currently says it is not accepting new dogs as it is full. A home boarder usually takes far fewer dogs at a time than a kennel, so ask how many other dogs will be in the house during your dates, and whether they are all from one family or several. Nightingale Boarding Kennels, in Polegate, and Linden Lodge Kennels & Cattery, near Hailsham, run purpose-built boarding kennels; Linden Lodge also boards cats in a separate cattery alongside its dog kennels. Eastbourne Doggy Daycare, in the Pevensey area despite its name, is the only listed day care, taking puppies from 12 weeks and running a four-hour taster session before a first booking.

Hampden Park and Langney have no published listing

No dog boarder, home boarder or day care was found for either the Hampden Park & Willingdon or the Langney & Sovereign Harbour area with a phone number that could be confirmed. This may be a gap in what could be found rather than a sign nothing operates there at all; if you are in either area, it is worth calling a nearby listing in Eastbourne centre or Pevensey to ask whether it covers your postcode, or contacting the relevant council directly for its current list of licensed operators.

The council licence in this area

Every business here except Eastbourne Doggy Daycare holds a licence confirmed on a council register, and a licence is a legal requirement in England for dog boarding, home boarding and day care, not an optional extra. Two councils cover Eastbourne's area list: Lewes & Eastbourne Councils licenses The Sussex Dog Retreat, Dingo's Rest and Salty Seadogs Seaford (covering the Eastbourne centre, Hampden Park, Langney and Seaford areas), and Wealden District Council licenses We Love Pets Eastbourne & Polegate, Nightingale Boarding Kennels, Linden Lodge Kennels & Cattery and Active Animal Pet Care (covering Pevensey, Polegate and Hailsham). Both registers were read for this listing only through the animal-licensing.uk mirror site, because each council's own published register blocked an automated visit; the mirror gives a licence number and an expiry date for every business above, but no star rating could be confirmed directly from either council's own register, so no star is shown for any Eastbourne listing. Eastbourne Doggy Daycare's own site states it holds a Wealden licence, but this could not be matched on the register read for this file, so no licence block is shown for it at all; treat that claim as unconfirmed rather than as a licence fact.

Questions worth asking

None of these are things this directory can answer on a business's behalf; they are worth putting to the business directly before you book.

• What vaccinations do you require, and how long before the stay do you need to see proof of them?
• Do you have a policy on kennel cough, and what is it?
• Do you have any breed restrictions or conditions, including for an XL Bully with a valid exemption certificate?
• Are you insured, and can you show evidence of current cover?
• How many other dogs, and from how many other households, will be there during my dates?
• What happens if my dog needs a vet while in your care?

None of the businesses listed here publish a vaccination schedule or a stated insurance position, so ask rather than assume an answer either way. Four of the eight businesses listed publish a price; see our Eastbourne prices guide for the published figures and what they cover.