Home boarding or kennels in Gloucester?
Home boarding and boarding kennels both cover an overnight stay, but the setting is genuinely different, and Gloucester's supply is fairly evenly split: twelve of the nineteen businesses listed here are home boarders, against three dedicated boarding kennels, two combined kennels-and-day-care sites, and two day-care-only businesses.
What a home boarder actually is
A home boarder is licensed to board dogs in their own house, so your dog joins their household rather than an individual run. Regorlien & K9 Walkabouts, in Quedgeley, has boarding dogs live inside the family home alongside the owners' own dog, cat and parrot; Perkins Paws and Harkins Hounds also board from Quedgeley this way, as do Special Friends Retreat for Dogs, Doggylicious in Churchdown (which also offers specialist grooming for puppies and nervous dogs), House Of Paws, Brockwoof Dog Boarding and 4 Legged Friends in Hucclecote, and Happy Hounds Boarding and Daycare and The Pet Nana in Tewkesbury. Several, including 4 Legged Friends, have been trading for well over a decade under the same owner. Because a home boarder's premises is their own house, we show these listings by area and town only, never a street address; the business gives you that when you book, as it would to any new client.
What a kennels or a site-based business is
A kennels is purpose-built accommodation with individual runs and staff working set hours rather than living alongside the dogs. Country Kennels & Cattery in Quedgeley, Churchdown Cattery & Kennels (set up by Yvonne and Andy Laverton at Parton Farm in 2018) and Henley Bank Kennels, built in 1999, are the three dedicated kennels here. BJ's Pet Resort & Spa in Churchdown, run by Billy and Gill Dean since 2000, combines a purpose-built kennels, cattery and day-care site with a dog swimming pool and agility centre; Sunnyside Boarding Kennels & Cattery is the other combined site, though it could not be matched to a council register during our research. Barkeley Barks and DFor Day Care run day care from a fixed site without an overnight stay at all.
Which suits your dog
A dog that is anxious in a group, or would rather have the run of a house, often does better with a home boarder; a dog that is highly sociable, or an owner who would rather their dog had its own dedicated kennel space, might suit a kennels better. Neither is objectively better — it depends on the individual dog.
- How many other dogs will be in the house, or the kennels, during my dates?
- If it's a home boarder, will my dog have its own space to retreat to?
- What happens if my dog doesn't settle in the first day or two?
See our day care or boarding guide if what you actually need is a booked day rather than an overnight stay.