How to choose dog boarding or day care in Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft

Thirteen dog boarders, day cares and kennels are listed across Great Yarmouth & Gorleston, Lowestoft and Beccles & Bungay, spanning two councils: Great Yarmouth Borough Council licenses the Great Yarmouth & Gorleston area, and East Suffolk Council licenses both Lowestoft and Beccles & Bungay. Seven of the thirteen are home boarders, five run boarding kennels, and one runs dedicated day care. What matters most in choosing between them depends on which kind of care your dog needs.

Home boarding, kennels or day care

Seven businesses board dogs in the boarder's own home rather than on a dedicated site: PetStay Norfolk in the Great Yarmouth & Gorleston area; Wiggley Walkers Lowestoft, Cases and Canines, Paws of Pakefield and We Love Pets East Coast in Lowestoft; and Beccles Cosy Home Dog Boarding and We Love Pets Beccles in Beccles & Bungay. As with any home boarder, only the area and town are shown on the listing; the street address is given once you book, and a home boarder usually takes far fewer dogs at a time than a kennels, so ask how many other dogs will be in the house during your dates and whether they are from one household or several. Five businesses run boarding kennels on a dedicated site instead: Andrews Holiday Inn and Bondi Petcare near Great Yarmouth, The Doghouse in Great Ormesby, and Noosabay Kennels & Cattery and Pineview Farm Kennels near Beccles and Bungay. The Doghouse also runs day care and grooming alongside its kennels, and Cases and Canines, a home boarder, also offers day care. East Point Paws (Lowestoft Canine Creche) is the only dedicated day care in the area, taking dogs for the working day rather than overnight, with reported capacity for up to 40 dogs.

Two councils, two kinds of register

Great Yarmouth Borough Council does not run its own online register; its licences were read here through the animal-licensing.uk mirror, which gives a licence number and expiry date for each operator but is not the council's own published document, so no star rating is shown for Andrews Holiday Inn, Bondi Petcare, The Doghouse or PetStay Norfolk, even though each holds a current licence there. East Suffolk Council, by contrast, publishes its own PDF registers for kennels, home boarding and day care, so the star rating each East Suffolk-licensed business is awarded is shown here: Wiggley Walkers Lowestoft, Cases and Canines and We Love Pets East Coast at 4 stars, Paws of Pakefield, Noosabay Kennels & Cattery and Pineview Farm Kennels at 5 stars, and Beccles Cosy Home Dog Boarding at 4 stars. A star rating is the council's own inspection score, not a customer review, and is worth reading the way you would a food hygiene rating. Two businesses — East Point Paws and We Love Pets Beccles — could not be matched to either council's own published register when it was checked this round, so no licence block or star is shown for either; ask each one directly to see current proof of licensing before you book.

Questions worth asking

None of these are things this directory can answer on a business's behalf; put them 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 will be there during my dates, and are they from one household or several?
• 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 beyond what appears on their own licence or website, so ask rather than assume an answer either way. See our Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft prices guide for what is actually published, and ask what a quoted price includes before comparing two quotes.