Home boarding or kennels in Sutton Coldfield?

Nine of the twelve businesses on this page take dogs overnight, split between two different kinds of premises. Four are home boarders, licensed or listed to keep dogs in the carer's own house rather than a kennel block: Boldmere Home Dog Boarding and PetStay – West Midlands North & South Staffordshire in Sutton Coldfield, Walk & Wagg in Four Oaks & Streetly, and The Paw Club in Walmley & Minworth. Five run from a kennels or another premises-based site: Old Barn Kennels and Pawpounders Doggy Day Care in Four Oaks & Streetly, Nine Stones Boarding Kennels and Curdworth Kennels in Walmley & Minworth, and Erdington Pet Centre, a pet shop with an on-site kennel, in Erdington. As with any home boarder, this page shows only the area and town for the four listed here, never a full address, even where a council register happens to hold one.

What actually differs

A home boarder takes your dog into a house rather than a purpose-built enclosure, so it shares a family's routine and, often, its own resident dogs; Boldmere Home Dog Boarding, for instance, is licensed for up to four dogs at a time including any dog the carers own themselves. PetStay is a different kind of set-up again: rather than one address boarding every dog itself, it coordinates a panel of carers in the wider area, so the practical question to ask is which named carer your dog would actually stay with and where that carer is based. A kennels business such as Old Barn Kennels, Nine Stones Boarding Kennels, Curdworth Kennels or Erdington Pet Centre instead gives your dog its own run or pen alongside other dogs on the same site, an arrangement that can suit a dog uneasy about settling into someone else's household, and kennels sometimes have room to spare over school holidays even once the home boarders nearby have filled up. Neither kind of premises is automatically the better choice; a nervous dog might settle faster in a quiet house, while a boisterous one might prefer a kennels with other dogs and its own outdoor run to use as it pleases.

Questions to ask either kind of business

• If it's a home boarder, will my dog share the house with any dogs that live there permanently, and how many in total at once?
• If it's a kennels business, is my dog walked and exercised alone or alongside other dogs, and can I see where it would actually stay?
• Either way, who would take my dog to a vet if it needed one while boarding, and how soon would I be told?
• Has your licence been checked against today's register, or only against an older list?

See our day care or boarding guide if a daytime-only booking would suit better than an overnight stay, and our council licences guide for what each of these nine businesses' licence position actually is.