Day care or boarding in Worcester?

Worcester's nineteen listed dog boarders, day cares and kennels are licensed for a mix of activities, and knowing which is which changes which of them suits your dog.

Day care: for a working day

Five of the nineteen listed businesses hold a day care licence: The Dog House, The DogFather Worcester, Top Paws And Claws, Coco & Yogi's Doggy Daycare and Hillview Canine Centre. The dog goes in for the day and comes home in the evening rather than staying overnight, which suits a dog that would otherwise be alone through a working day. St Johns Walkies also offers occasional day care, though only to its existing walking and boarding customers rather than as a stand-alone booking.

An overnight stay: home boarding or kennels

Seventeen of the nineteen listed businesses are licensed for an overnight stay, either as home boarding or in a boarding kennels. Eleven hold a home boarding licence and eight hold a boarding kennels licence, with Hillview Canine Centre and Archbridge Farm Boarding Kennels holding both. See our home boarding or kennels guide for what the difference means in practice.

Two businesses cover day care only

The Dog House and Coco & Yogi's Doggy Daycare are licensed for day care alone, with no home boarding or kennels licence recorded, so neither is an option for an overnight stay.

Several cover more than one activity

The DogFather Worcester, Top Paws And Claws and Hillview Canine Centre all hold a day care licence alongside home boarding or kennels, which suits a dog you might need day cover for on some occasions and an overnight stay for on others without changing provider. Ask each directly whether the same rate and terms apply to both.

Where day care and overnight stays are found

Day-care-licensed businesses sit in three of Worcester's seven areas: Warndon & Blackpole, St John's & Dines Green and St Peter's & Kempsey, which alone accounts for three of the five. Worcester city centre, Malvern, Droitwich Spa and Evesham & Pershore currently have no day-care-licensed business listed, only home boarding, kennels, or both.

Comparing on more than the label

A day-care or home-boarding licence is a legal category, not a guarantee of exactly how many hours a day runs or how many dogs share a space overnight, so ask the same practical questions of a day care as you would of an overnight stay: group size, whether dogs are walked individually or together, and what a typical day or night actually looks like. See our vaccinations, licences and what to ask guide for the fuller list of questions worth putting to any of the nineteen.

See our Worcester prices guide for what the four businesses that publish a rate actually charge.