Home boarding or kennels in Stevenage?
Of the nine dog boarding, day-care and home-boarding businesses listed for Stevenage, seven are home boarders, licensed to keep dogs in their own house: Little Dave and Charlie and We Love Pets Stevenage in Chells & Great Ashby, TopDog in Shephall, Longmeadow & Manor, K9 Interaction and Happy Waggy Tails near Baldock, and We Love Pets Hitchin and Wagalot Dogs in Hitchin. The remaining two, Country Boarding Kennels and Sentabarcs, both near Baldock, run boarding kennels and day care from a dedicated site rather than a private home.
What a boarding kennels gives you
A boarding kennels means your dog has its own space on a site built for it, with set feeding and exercise times and potentially more dogs on site at once than a home boarder would take. Country Boarding Kennels, on Gannock Lane near Baldock, is a long-established site combining kennels, a day-care programme called Playdays, a cattery, grooming, hydrotherapy and physiotherapy and a secure dog park, open seven days a week. Sentabarcs, also near Baldock, is a dog adventure park combining day care and boarding with a play park of climbing frames, tunnels, ball pits and a splash pool, and describes itself as solar-powered.
What a home boarder gives you
A home boarder means your dog lives in somebody's house instead, usually alongside only one household's own dogs at a time; the address is given once you book, not published here. Little Dave and Charlie, in Chells, specialises in small, lap-companion breeds and requires a paid trial stay before a holiday booking. TopDog, in Shephall, runs from a house with a secure garden rather than kennel-style runs and builds a customised enrichment plan for each dog. We Love Pets Stevenage and We Love Pets Hitchin are branches of the same national franchise and currently share one contact number, so either branch can answer when you call. K9 Interaction, near Baldock, has combined home boarding with dog training since 2008. Happy Waggy Tails covers villages around Baldock towards the Bedfordshire border. Wagalot Dogs, in Hitchin, takes bookings by appointment only and also offers 'freework' sessions.
Which suits your dog
A kennels tends to suit a dog that is happy with its own space and a set routine; a home boarder tends to suit a dog that finds a kennels environment stressful, or one that is used to living in a house rather than a run. Neither type is licensed to a higher standard than the other by default: whichever council covers a business, home boarding and kennels are both licensed under the same 2018 regulations, so asking to see the certificate is the same question either way. See our council licences guide for which of the nine have a star rating confirmed directly.