How to choose dog boarding or day care in Liverpool
Twenty dog boarders, day cares and kennels are listed for Liverpool, spread across three licensing authorities: Liverpool City Council, Sefton Council, which covers the Crosby & Bootle area, and Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council, which covers Huyton & Prescot. Fourteen are home boarders, five run day care from a dedicated site, and one, Nursery Farm Boarding Kennels in Prescot, runs boarding kennels; The Collar Club in Huyton & Prescot holds both a boarding licence and a home boarding licence. What matters most when choosing depends on which of these you need.
Home boarding, day care or kennels
A home boarder takes your dog into their own house, usually alongside far fewer other dogs than a kennels or day care would hold at once: Liverpool's fourteen are A Place4Paws, Allerton Dog Minders, Happy Dog Liverpool, Happy Doggy Home Boarding, The Collar Club, Canine Care, Cath's Pet Care, Crosby Dog Care, Doggy Days Crosby, Crosby Cozy Paws, Petpals Sefton, The Dog Parents, Diamond Doggycare and PetStay Liverpool & Knowsley. Ask how many other dogs, and from how many other households, will be in the house during your dates. Baileys Doggy Daycare, Faye's Doggy Boutique, Tails in the City, Woof Wonderland and Yappy Days run day care from a dedicated unit rather than a home, for a dog that needs looking after through a working day rather than overnight. Nursery Farm Boarding Kennels, on Knowsley Lane in Prescot, is the only business here running purpose-built boarding kennels.
The council licence in this area
Every dog boarder, home boarder and day care in England needs a council licence; it is a legal requirement, not something a business chooses to display. Seventeen of Liverpool's twenty listed businesses have a licence confirmed on their council's register, ten with Liverpool City Council, five with Sefton Council and two with Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council. Liverpool City Council's own register lists a business's name and licence type only, with the star rating, expiry date and licence number found instead on that business's own page on the animal-licensing.uk platform; Sefton's and Knowsley's registers work the same way. Three of the seventeen confirmed licences — Allerton Dog Minders, Happy Doggy Home Boarding and Crosby Cozy Paws — carried an expiry date that had already passed by the time this was researched, so no licence panel is shown on those three listings; ask to see a current, valid licence directly before booking any of them. Two further businesses, Diamond Doggycare and Nursery Farm Boarding Kennels, advertise boarding but could not be matched to a named register entry, and PetStay Liverpool & Knowsley states its individual carers are licensed without naming one to check; ask all three to show you their own current licence before you book.
Liverpool city centre is thin
The Liverpool city centre area itself has only two businesses listed: Woof Wonderland, a day care just north of the centre on Pumpfields Road, and PetStay Liverpool & Knowsley, whose carer network is recorded here but which does not board at one fixed city-centre address. No home boarder or kennels was found licensed with a base inside the city centre itself at the time of research; if you live centrally, it is worth widening your search to the neighbouring areas on this site or calling a council directly for its current list.
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 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 in your care, and who decides and pays?
None of the businesses listed here publish a vaccination schedule or a breed policy, so these are all worth putting to the business directly rather than assuming an answer either way. See our Liverpool prices guide for what the two businesses that publish a figure charge.