How to choose dog boarding or day care in Kettering, Corby and Wellingborough
Fifteen dog day cares, boarding kennels and home boarders are listed across this page's towns and villages: Kettering, Corby, Wellingborough, Rushden & Higham Ferrers, Market Harborough, Oundle & Thrapston and Irthlingborough & Raunds. Nine run boarding kennels or a day-care site of their own, and six are home boarders working from their own house. Two councils licence them between them: North Northamptonshire Council for everywhere on this page except Market Harborough, and Harborough District Council for Market Harborough itself.
Kennels, day care or home boarding
Seven businesses run boarding kennels away from anyone's living room: Low Farm Dog Kennels and Cattery and The Settle Kennels and Cattery in the Wellingborough area; Denford Edge Boarding Kennels and Highlands Country Kennels and Cattery around Oundle & Thrapston; Four Seasons Boarding Kennels & Cattery in Irthlingborough & Raunds; Harkers Barkers in the Corby area; and Wooden House Kennels near Market Harborough. Four of these also take cats alongside dogs. Two businesses run a day-care site rather than boarding overnight: Cloverleaf Canine Centre in Corby and Dog Days Inn Ltd in Kettering, which also offers a home-boarding option alongside its day-care centre. The remaining six are home boarders, taking dogs into their own house rather than a kennel block: Country Companions Pet Services in the Rushden & Higham Ferrers area, and five around Market Harborough — The Dog Club, Barking Mad Market Harborough, Out and About Dog Walking, Paws 4 Walking and Porter's Paw Patrol. As with any home boarder, only the area and town are shown on the listing; the address is given once you book.
What the council licence means, and where it doesn't match
Every kennels and day care on this page holds a current North Northamptonshire Council licence, read from the council's own online register. Four of the six home boarders also hold a confirmed licence, this time from Harborough District Council's own downloaded register: The Dog Club, Barking Mad Market Harborough, Out and About Dog Walking and Paws 4 Walking. The other two home boarders, Country Companions Pet Services and Porter's Paw Patrol, each state a licence on their own site, but neither number could be matched to the current register: no licence is shown on either listing, and it is worth asking each business directly to confirm its current licence and number before booking. Where a council has issued a star rating, it is the council's own inspection score, not a customer review, so treat it the way you would a food hygiene rating rather than a Google star.
A franchise, named plainly
Barking Mad Market Harborough is the local branch of a national home-boarding matching service, run by franchisee Louise Jones under her own council licence. Rather than boarding your dog at one address, it matches your dog with a vetted host family from its own network for the stay, so ask which family your dog would actually stay with, and about that family's own home and garden, before you book.
Where coverage is thin
Desborough & Rothwell has no business listed at all on this page, and Irthlingborough & Raunds has only one, Four Seasons Boarding Kennels & Cattery in Raunds itself; Irthlingborough has none. Kettering town centre & Barton Seagrave and Rushden & Higham Ferrers also have a single listing each (Dog Days Inn Ltd and Country Companions Pet Services). If you are near any of these areas, it is worth calling North Northamptonshire Council directly and asking for its current list of licensed boarders, since a licence can be issued between one research pass and the next.
Questions worth asking
- 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?
- How many other dogs, and from how many other households, will be there during my dates?
- How is medication given during a stay, and is there an extra charge for it?
- What happens if my dog needs a vet while it is in your care?
None of these are things this directory can answer on a business's behalf, so put them to the business directly rather than assume an answer either way. See our prices guide for what the three businesses that publish a rate charge.