Home boarding or kennels in Plymouth?
Home boarding and boarding kennels both mean an overnight stay for your dog, but the setting is genuinely different, and Plymouth has a lot more of one than the other: eighteen of the 24 listed businesses are home boarders, and four run purpose-built boarding kennels.
Home boarding
A home boarder takes your dog into their own house, usually alongside far fewer other dogs at a time than a kennels would hold, and often lets it share their routine — the sofa, the garden, a family walk. Plymouth's eighteen home boarders are spread across every area of the city: Central Bark, Man's Best Friend, The Whippet House, Burnsbys Walkies and Beagles and Buddies in St Budeaux and Saltash; Beach Buddies and Cadleigh Tails in Ivybridge; Barking Mad in Tavistock; Little Fluffs, Happy Paws Plymouth and Claire's Pet Care in the Plymouth city centre and Stonehouse area; J9's K9's and Hartley Hounds in Mutley and Peverell; Mister Paws and DW Dog Walkers in Plymstock; Wet Noses & Muddy Paws in Crownhill and Derriford; and Mutts About Dogs and Personal Pet & Home Care in Plympton. This site shows a home boarder by area and town only, never a street address; the address itself is theirs to give you once you book directly.
Boarding kennels
A boarding kennels is purpose-built: an individual kennel with a bed and a run, set feeding and exercise times, and staff on site rather than in their own living room. Plymouth's four are Tri-Acre Kennels & Cattery and Grove Nurseries Boarding Kennels & Cattery, both near Saltash with a cattery alongside the dog kennels, and Orestocks Boarding Kennels and Longford Chase Boarding Kennels & Cattery, both near Tavistock. A kennels usually takes more dogs at once than a home boarder, which can mean more room left in a busy school holiday, and can suit a dog that would rather have its own space than join a strange household.
What each actually looks like day to day
In a home boarder's house, your dog usually joins the boarder's own routine: their walks, their mealtimes, whoever else is in the house that week. In a kennels, your dog has its own space and a set daily pattern of feeding and exercise runs by staff rather than a single family. Neither is inherently better; they simply suit different dogs and different owners' preferences for how closely a stay resembles home.
Which suits your dog
A nervous dog, or one used to a lot of household company, often does better with a home boarder's smaller numbers and family setting. A dog that guards its space, or one that simply prefers routine kennel exercise to a stranger's sofa, may be more settled in a kennels. Ask either type of business how many other dogs will be there during your dates, and how it manages dogs that don't get on.
See our area-by-area guide to find whichever type is closest to you.
Cost is worth asking about too: only Central Bark, a home boarder in St Budeaux and Saltash, publishes an overnight price for Plymouth, so get a quote from either type before you decide on setting alone.