Home boarding or kennels in Northampton?
Of the 19 dog boarders, day cares and kennels listed for Northampton, 13 are licensed home boarders, three run purpose-built boarding kennels near Daventry, and the remaining three — Teddy's Dog Care and Scoobys Doggy Day Care & Spa in Wootton, and Doggies Friend Daycare Centre in Daventry — run day care from their own premises rather than either a home or a kennels.
What a boarding kennels gives you
A boarding kennels means your dog has its own kennel and run on a site built for it, with set feeding and exercise times and more than one household's dogs on site at once. Northampton's three kennels are all near Daventry: Stone House Boarding Kennels, set across 14 acres of paddocks and woodland near Eydon with heated indoor kennels and individual connected runs; Hazel Tree Country Boarding Kennels & Cattery, on 3.5 acres near Great Brington with 42 individual kennels each with its own outdoor courtyard; and Cottage Garden Cattery & Kennels, at Little Houghton, which offers a pre-booked out-of-hours drop-off and collection service for an extra fee. Hazel Tree and Cottage Garden both also board cats.
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. Northampton's 13 home boarders are Hound Dogs and Andrea's Animals in the town centre area; 4-Paws and Northampton Dog Walker in Kingsthorpe; Dennylini's Dog Hotel, The Little Pooch House and Parklands Pooches in Weston Favell; Maddie's Home from Home, Pearson Paws and Hunsbury Dog Services in Wootton; and Paws for a Break and Barking Mad – Towcester and West Northants around Towcester. Happy Hounds Towcester also offers home boarding, but only to its existing day-care customers, and runs it from its Towcester premises rather than a private house.
Which suits your dog
A kennels tends to suit a dog that is happy with its own space and a set routine, and there is often more room left during a busy school-holiday week simply because a kennels takes more dogs at once. 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: home boarding and boarding kennels are both licensed activities under the same England-wide regulations, and asking to see the certificate is the same question either way.
Specialist care
A few of Northampton's home boarders focus on a particular kind of dog: Maddie's Home from Home is marketed as a bespoke service for small dogs, and The Little Pooch House focuses on small and medium breeds. If your dog is a specific size or breed that you think needs particular handling, a specialist may suit better than a general home boarder or kennels, but ask what that specialism means in practice for that business.