How to choose dog boarding or day care in Peterborough

Nineteen dog boarders, day cares and kennels are listed for Peterborough, spread across three council areas: Peterborough City Council covers the town centre and Orton; Fenland District Council covers Whittlesey and its neighbouring villages of Turves and Coates; and Huntingdonshire District Council covers Yaxley and Chesterton. Eleven are home boarders, eight offer day care and five run boarding kennels, with some businesses covering more than one of these.

Home boarding, day care or kennels

Eleven businesses board dogs in the boarder's own home rather than a kennel block: Barkingham Palace and Uncle Geoffrey's Vizsla Boarding in the Whittlesey area; FurBuddy Pet Services and Woodies Walkies in the Yaxley area; Dixon's Dog Sitters, We Love Pets Peterborough, Wagging Tails Peterborough, Top Dog Boarding, Barking Mad Peterborough and Your Pet's Paradise in Peterborough itself; and Dogs Delight Boarding and Day Care in the Orton area. Four of these — We Love Pets, Wagging Tails, Barking Mad and Your Pet's Paradise — are local branches of national home-boarding franchises: each matches your dog to an individually vetted host family rather than boarding at one fixed address itself, so ask who the actual host will be and where they are based. Five businesses run boarding kennels from a dedicated site: Little Acre Boarding Kennels & Cattery, Partridge Farm Boarding Kennels and Riverside Boarding Kennels in the Whittlesey area, Dixans Boarding Kennels & Cattery in the Yaxley area, and Amblewood Kennels & Cattery near Peterborough, which also runs day care. Eight businesses offer day care, either on its own (Green Wheel Dogs in Whittlesey, Doggy Paws in Peterborough, All About Your Dog Day Care in Orton) or alongside boarding or home boarding (Uncle Geoffrey's, Amblewood, Dixon's Dog Sitters, We Love Pets and Dogs Delight). Bretton, Werrington and Hampton have no dog boarder, day care or kennels listed at the time of research.

What the council licence tells you here

All three councils require a licence for boarding, home boarding and day care, but the registers behave differently. Fenland District Council's register (Whittlesey and its villages) and Huntingdonshire District Council's register (Yaxley and Chesterton) can both be checked business by business through the animal-licensing.uk platform, which gives a licence number and, for the Fenland businesses, a star rating and expiry date; the three Huntingdonshire-licensed businesses here show a licence type on that platform but no star rating or expiry. Peterborough City Council, which covers the town centre and Orton, publishes a general licensing register that can only be searched by an applicant's name, not by licence category, so none of the ten Peterborough-area and Orton-area businesses here could be checked against it directly. Where one of them quotes its own licence number or rating — Dixon's Dog Sitters (119691), All About Your Dog Day Care (078011, a stated 5 stars) and Amblewood Kennels & Cattery (stated to be "licensed and accredited") — this directory records it as the business's own claim, not as a fact confirmed against a register, and no licence block is shown for any of these ten businesses. Ask any Peterborough-area business to see its current licence certificate rather than relying on a number quoted on a website.

Questions worth asking about vaccinations, breed rules and insurance

None of these are things this directory can answer on a business's behalf; they are worth putting to the business directly before you book.

• 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?
• Are you insured, and can you show evidence of current cover?
• 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?
• If you are contacting a franchise branch, who is the actual host family and where are they based?

None of the businesses listed here publish a vaccination schedule or a stated insurance position beyond what appears on their own licence or website, so ask rather than assume an answer either way.

Prices and extras

Five of the nineteen businesses listed publish a price; see our Peterborough prices guide for the published figures and what they cover. Whichever type of boarding or day care you choose, ask what a second dog from the same household costs, whether bank holidays are charged at a higher rate, and whether collection is included or priced separately.