Home boarding or kennels in Harrogate?
Of the twenty-four dog boarding, day-care and home-boarding businesses listed for Harrogate, twelve run boarding kennels, eight are home boarders licensed to keep dogs in their own house, and four run day care from a dedicated site with no overnight boarding at all. Which of the three suits your dog depends more on temperament than on price.
What a boarding kennels gives you
A boarding kennels means your dog has its own run or kennel on a site built for it, with set feeding and exercise times and more dogs on site at once than a home boarder would take. Harrogate's twelve kennels range from long-established family businesses — Harlow Kennels & Cattery has traded for more than 30 years, Wilderbrook Kennels & Secret Garden Cattery since 1982, and Romanby Kennels since 1986 — to smaller, more recently changed-hands sites like Moor View Kennels & Cattery, under new ownership since January 2024. Seven of the twelve also board cats: Harlow, Mucky Paws, Petties Paws, Sutton Grange, Wilderbrook, Moor View and Romanby.
What a home boarder gives you
A home boarder means your dog lives in somebody's house instead, usually alongside only one household's own dogs at a time; the address is given once you book, not published here. FlowerDown and The Walkabout Company both board in the Harrogate area, Maddie's Retreat is based in Knaresborough and takes small to medium dogs, Harry & Co. Canine Solutions and Cutters Canines & Equines both combine boarding with a background in dog behaviour work, Paws 4 Walkies is based in Malton, and The Easingwold Waggy Dog Walker and Dog Tired both cover Easingwold and the surrounding villages.
Home boarders and privacy
Because a home boarder works from a private house rather than a business premises, this directory shows only the area and town for each of the eight — never a street address — even where a full address appears on the council's own licence record. Call to arrange a visit and get the actual address once you're ready to book.
Day care as a third option
Tatty & Tilly's, CenterBarks Dog Daycare, DogSmith of Thirsk and Just For Dogs Day Care don't fit neatly into either category: none runs overnight boarding at all, so they suit a dog that needs somewhere to go for the day but always comes home at night. All four run from a purpose-built or dedicated site rather than a private home.
Which suits your dog
A kennels tends to suit a dog that is happy with its own space and a set routine among other dogs; 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: North Yorkshire Council licenses both boarding kennels and home boarding under the same 2018 regulations, so asking to see the certificate is the same question either way. See our council licences guide for which of the twenty-four publish their own licence number.
Where each type sits
Harrogate's kennels and home boarders are not evenly spread across the page's five areas: Harrogate town centre & Knaresborough has three kennels and three home boarders, Ripon & Pateley Bridge has four kennels, one home boarder and one day-care-only business, Malton & Pickering has two home boarders and no kennels at all, Thirsk & Northallerton has one kennels and three day-care-only sites, and Easingwold & Boroughbridge has four kennels and two home boarders. See our area-by-area guide for the full breakdown.