Home boarding or kennels in Newbury and West Berkshire?
Overnight dog boarding usually comes in two shapes: a home boarder, who takes your dog into their own house, or purpose-built kennels, where dogs stay in individual runs or pens on a dedicated site. Every one of Newbury and West Berkshire's nine listed businesses is a home boarder, or in Wessex Dog Boarding's case, a service that matches you with one of a network of home boarders; no boarding kennels are currently listed for this town at all.
Home boarding, area by area
Four of the nine are in the Newbury area: Fluffy Friends, Wessex Dog Boarding, Woodland Waggy Walks and We Love Pets Newbury. Four more are in the Thatcham area: A Dog's Retreat, Doggy Day Care Thatcham and Newbury, LK Doggy Day Care and Boarding and Treasured Pets Pet Care Services. Hungerford has one, We Love Pets Hungerford, a branch of the same franchise as We Love Pets Newbury. As with any home boarder, this site shows only the area and town for each of these nine; the exact address is theirs to give once you have booked.
Why no kennels are listed here
Research for this town found West Berkshire's dog-care market to be dominated by home boarders rather than purpose-built kennels, and no boarding kennels with a confirmed phone number turned up during that research. This does not mean none exists anywhere in West Berkshire, only that none met this site's rule of a confirmed phone number for the businesses checked so far; if that changes, this page will be updated.
One network, working differently again
Wessex Dog Boarding is not quite the same as the other eight: rather than one person boarding your dog in their own home, it matches your dog with one of several vetted and licensed home carers across West Berkshire, north Hampshire and Wiltshire, and states that each carer only ever looks after one customer's dog or dogs at a time. Ask it directly which carer your dog would be matched with, and whether that is likely to be the same carer for a repeat booking.
Which suits your dog
A nervous dog, or one used to a lot of one-to-one attention, is generally the kind of dog home boarding suits best, since it is living in a family home with far fewer other dogs around than a kennels would have. If you would specifically prefer purpose-built kennels rather than a home environment, none of Newbury and West Berkshire's current nine listings offer that, so it is worth checking a neighbouring town on this site or asking West Berkshire Council directly whether it licenses any kennels premises in its area. Since every option currently listed here is a home boarder in some form, the choice in Newbury and West Berkshire is less about home boarding versus kennels and more about which home, or which carer, fits your dog. See our first stay guide for what a trial meeting or visit usually covers.