How Portsmouth's council licenses dog boarders
All nineteen dog boarders, day cares and kennels listed for Portsmouth need a licence to operate in England, but Portsmouth is a genuinely harder town than most on this site to check one in, because its two councils publish very different amounts of information.
Portsmouth City Council: no public register
Portsmouth City Council covers four of the town's six areas — Portsmouth centre, Southsea, Fratton, Baffins & North End, and Cosham, Drayton & Port Solent — and publishes no public register of animal-boarding licences at all. Its general public-registers page lists only taxi and alcohol licences, and its licensing search portal could not be reached to check individual businesses against. This is a genuine gap in what the council makes available, not a mark against any business licensed under it; the twelve businesses in those four areas are shown here without a licence block for that reason, and any licence number or star rating a business quotes about itself, such as Haven4Hounds, is that business's own claim rather than something this directory has checked.
Havant Borough Council: a register with no star rating field
Havant Borough Council covers Waterlooville & Denmead and Havant, and does publish a public register, as a downloadable PDF list of licensee names and licence numbers. Eight of the ten businesses in those two areas are confirmed against it: DoggieVille Pet Services, The Doggy Centre, All Pawz, Barney and Sam's Pet Services, Pooch & Co, Semley Dogs, All Weather Walkies and Bourner Boarding. Havant's register does not include a star rating column or an expiry date for any listing, so neither is shown here for these eight either — that is a gap in what the register publishes, not a mark against any of them.
The two businesses shown without a licence block in Havant's area
Muirburn Holiday Boarding for Dogs & Cats, near Horndean, states its own East Hampshire District Council licence number and a star rating on its own site, but this has not been checked against East Hampshire's register, so no licence block is shown for it here. A Dogs Day Pet Services could not be matched by name to an entry on Havant's list at all.
What this means for a council star rating
No business listed for Portsmouth carries a confirmed council licence rating on this site, because neither council's own register makes one available to check against — not because any business has a poor rating. A council licence rating, where it appears elsewhere on this site, is always the council's own inspection score, shown separately from customer reviews, never the business's own claim about itself. If a business here quotes its own star rating or licence number, treat it the same way you would any other unverified claim, and ask to see the current certificate rather than take the figure on trust.
See our Portsmouth choosing guide for which of the nineteen listed businesses sit under which council.