How to choose dog boarding or day care in Preston
Sixteen dog boarders, day cares and kennels are listed for Preston, spread across five council areas: Preston city centre and Fulwood (Preston City Council), Penwortham & Lostock Hall and Bamber Bridge & Leyland (South Ribble Borough Council), Chorley, Kirkham & Wesham (Fylde Borough Council) and Garstang (which spans Preston City Council, Wyre Council and Ribble Valley Borough Council depending on the address). Six are home boarders, six hold a day care licence and six hold a kennels licence, with Danielle's Home Boarding and Joanna's Animal Care each licensed for both home boarding and day care. Penwortham & Lostock Hall is the thinnest area, with a single listed business, Danielle's Home Boarding and Doggie Day Care, because South Ribble Borough Council publishes no register to help find others.
Home boarding, day care or kennels
Six businesses board dogs in the boarder's own home: Mill House and We Love Pets Preston in Preston city centre, Danielle's Home Boarding and Doggie Day Care in Penwortham & Lostock Hall, Digs for Dogs - Leyland in Bamber Bridge & Leyland, We Love Pets Lytham in Kirkham & Wesham, and Joanna's Animal Care in Garstang. A home boarder usually takes far fewer dogs at a time than a kennels, so ask how many other dogs will be in the house during your dates and whether they are all from one household. Six day care centres run from a dedicated site or a home: Frankies Doggy Daycare and both Auntie's Doggie Day Care branches (Preston and Bamber Bridge), Danielle's, Joanna's, and Willows Country Friends, a rural day care near Barton capped at ten dogs a day. Six kennels take dogs overnight in individual runs: Cow Hill Kennels in Fulwood, High Heyes Farm in Chorley, Landorn Kennels and Fur Cottage Kennels in Kirkham & Wesham, and Barton Boarding Kennels and Badgerswood Boarding Kennels in Garstang; four of these six also board cats.
The council licence in this area
Every one of the sixteen is a licensed activity in England, but how much of that can actually be checked varies sharply by council. Preston City Council publishes annual register pages and is the only council covering this page that could be checked directly: eight Preston-licensed businesses are shown here, but four of them — Cow Hill Kennels, We Love Pets Lytham, Willows Country Friends and Joanna's Animal Care — have a licence whose published expiry has already passed with no newer renewal found on the council's site, so their licence panel is not shown and their listing says so; ask to see current licensing before booking any of these four. The other four Preston-licensed businesses — Mill House, Frankies Doggy Daycare, Landorn Kennels and Barton Boarding Kennels — carry a current licence panel with the council's own star rating. South Ribble Borough Council, Chorley Council and Wyre Council publish no public register at all, and Fylde Borough Council's register could not be read within budget, so the remaining eight businesses on this page — Auntie's Doggie Day Care (Preston and Bamber Bridge), We Love Pets Preston, Danielle's Home Boarding, Digs for Dogs - Leyland, High Heyes Farm, Fur Cottage Kennels and Badgerswood Boarding Kennels — are shown as self-stated, with no licence panel, whatever a business's own site claims about its rating. A star rating, where one is shown, is the council's own inspection score, not a customer review, and is not the same thing as a business quoting its own rating on its website.
Questions worth asking
- Which council licensed you, and what is the licence number? Look it up yourself rather than taking a website's word for it.
- 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 many other dogs, and from how many households, will be there during my dates?
- What happens if my dog needs a vet while in your care?
None of the businesses listed here publish a vaccination schedule or a stated insurance position beyond what appears on their own site, so these are all questions to put directly to the business, not answers this directory can give on its behalf. See our Preston prices guide for what the three businesses that publish a price charge.