Day care or boarding in Oxford?
Day care and overnight boarding are two different licensed activities, and most of Oxford's twenty-four listed businesses offer one, the other, or both. Sixteen of them offer day care and twenty-one offer some form of overnight boarding, whether home boarding or boarding kennels. See our day care and overnight boarding service pages for the wider national picture.
When day care fits
Day care suits a dog that would otherwise be alone through a working day: it goes in after breakfast and comes home at teatime rather than staying overnight. Hot Diggity Dawg, on the southern edge of Oxford, runs day care Monday to Thursday 8am-5pm and Friday 8am-4pm from a 2.5-acre secured field, and only takes overnight boarders once they have been day-care customers for more than three months — a useful example of how the two services can be linked rather than kept entirely separate. Cumnor Dog Lodge in the Botley area and Woofy Walks and Daycare, covering Kidlington and Yarnton, both offer day care without any overnight boarding at all.
When boarding fits
Overnight boarding covers a single night away or a fortnight's holiday, and in Oxford it splits between home boarding, where your dog stays in someone's house, and boarding kennels, where it has its own run on a purpose-built site. Barnewood Boarding Kennels and Gamegoer Kennels, both near Kidlington, offer overnight boarding only, with no day-care option; Archway Kennels near Cowley, Acremead Kennels near Abingdon and Witney Dog Boarding and Grooming near North Leigh all run boarding kennels alongside day care from the same site.
Businesses offering both
A number of Oxford's home boarders offer day care and overnight home boarding side by side, which can suit a dog that already knows the carer and the house from a day visit before its first overnight stay: Blu Collar Boarding, Happy Tails Oxford, Pet Care 4U Oxford and K9 and Equine Care Oxfordshire, plus Pugs and Kisses Doggy Daycare & Home Boarding and Muddy Paws Dog Walking and Boarding in Witney, all fall into this group. Ask any of them whether a day-care visit first is possible before committing your dog to its first night away.
What to ask either way
Whichever service you choose, ask how the day or night is timed and charged — a "day" and a "24 hours" are not always counted the same way — what a stay includes, and how many other dogs will be there at the same time. Ask, too, whether a second dog from your own household is charged at the same rate, and whether bank holidays carry a higher price than a normal day, since both are common extras that are easy to miss when comparing two businesses on price alone. See our Oxford prices guide for what the eleven businesses that publish a price actually charge for each service.