Home boarding or kennels in Slough and Windsor?

Overnight boarding in Slough and Windsor comes in different shapes: a home boarder, who takes your dog into their own house; purpose-built kennels, where dogs stay in individual runs on a dedicated site; or a host-matching service that places your dog with someone else's vetted host family. Six of the eleven listed businesses are home boarders, three run boarding kennels, and one, Barking Mad – Windsor & Staines, matches dogs with host families rather than boarding them directly. Bruce's Doggy Day Care (Cookham) and Claire's Comfy Canines offer day care only, with no overnight stays, so they sit outside this comparison.

Home boarding

Slough and Windsor's six home boarders are Lulu's Home Boarding & Day care, licensed by the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead for up to four dogs at a time; Bertie and Friends, run by Emma since early 2019 and licensed for up to seven dogs, with walks of at least thirty minutes customised to each dog; Hound Love, also licensed for home boarding, though its current website advertises only dog training, so ask directly whether it still boards dogs; Datchet Dog Walking, run by Sarah Stanford in the Langley area and licensed for up to eight dogs, with a daily hour-long walk included in both day care and boarding; and SpeediePAWS, in the Windsor & Eton area, licensed for up to nine dogs alongside dog walking and training. Barking Mad – Windsor & Staines is a different kind of home boarding: rather than boarding your dog itself, it matches you with a vetted host family across Windsor, Eton and Old Windsor, with a published rate from £30 a day for one dog. As with any home boarder, only the area and town are shown on these listings; the address is given once you book.

Boarding kennels

Slough and Windsor's three boarding kennels are Old Beams Kennels and Cattery, at Holyport near Maidenhead, licensed for up to 60 dogs and 43 cats; The Tarbay Centre, at Oakley Green near Windsor, licensed for up to 70 dogs and 53 cats and the only kennels here to publish a price, from £37.50 a night; and Joe's Folly, at Taplow near Maidenhead, which says on its own site it has boarded dogs, cats and small animals in the area for over 50 years, though it could not be matched to the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead's current register despite sitting inside its area. All three also take cats. See our council licences guide for the detail behind each licence.

Which suits your dog

A nervous dog, or one used to a lot of one-to-one attention, may settle better with a home boarder than in a kennel block, while a dog that copes well away from a family home, or an owner who wants a fixed, staffed site with set hours, may prefer purpose-built kennels. A host-matching service such as Barking Mad sits somewhere between the two: your dog still goes into a family home, but one chosen and vetted by the franchise rather than run by the business you first call. Ask any of them how they introduce a new dog to their routine, and see our first stay guide for what a trial visit usually covers.