Day care or boarding in Newbury and West Berkshire?
Day care and overnight boarding solve two different problems: day care is for a dog that would otherwise be alone through a working day, going in after breakfast and coming home at teatime, while overnight boarding means your dog stays away from home for one or more nights. All nine of Newbury and West Berkshire's listed businesses are home boarders rather than kennels, but they split unevenly between the two services.
Day care alongside home boarding
Six of the nine offer day care as well as overnight home boarding: A Dog's Retreat and LK Doggy Day Care and Boarding in the Thatcham area, Doggy Day Care Thatcham and Newbury, also based in Thatcham, Fluffy Friends in the Newbury area, and both We Love Pets branches, in Newbury and Hungerford. A Dog's Retreat is the only one of the six to publish set hours, 7am to 5pm with later pickups available for a fee; the rest do not publish a day-care timetable, so ask what a full or half day covers, and what time drop-off and collection actually work out at, before booking. Only the two We Love Pets branches publish a day-rate figure for boarding itself, so see the prices guide below for what that covers and what the other four ask you to discuss directly.
Overnight home boarding only
Two businesses offer overnight home boarding without a day-care service: Wessex Dog Boarding, which matches your dog with one of a network of home carers across West Berkshire, north Hampshire and Wiltshire rather than running a single site, and Woodland Waggy Walks, which pairs home boarding with dog walking and dog training rather than day care. Both are based in the Newbury area and both hold a West Berkshire Council home boarding licence, so if your dog only ever needs an overnight stay rather than daytime cover, either is worth a call.
Neither, currently
Treasured Pets Pet Care Services holds a home boarding licence on West Berkshire Council's register, but its own current website advertises dog walking, pet sitting, drop-in visits and puppy play rather than day care or boarding. If you are specifically after day care or boarding from this business, ask directly what it currently offers rather than assuming the licence means the service is still running.
Which to choose
If your dog needs looking after during a working day and will sleep at home every night, look to one of the six day-care listings above. If you are going away and need overnight cover, all nine businesses bar Treasured Pets are worth asking, either as a home boarder you deal with directly or, with Wessex Dog Boarding, as a network matched to a carer for your dates. See our Newbury and West Berkshire prices guide for the two published price lists, and our home boarding or kennels guide for why no boarding kennels are currently listed for this town.