Home boarding or kennels in York?
Of the 14 dog boarders, day cares and kennels listed for York, six are individually licensed home boarders and five run boarding kennels; the remaining three are two dedicated day-care sites and one franchise that arranges home boarding through a network of carers rather than boarding dogs itself.
What a home boarder gives you
A home boarder means your dog lives in somebody's house rather than a kennel block, usually alongside only one household's own dogs at a time; the address is given once you book, not published here. York's six home boarders are Golden Paws of York in Acomb, Good Boy Pet Services and YORPAWS in the Haxby & Wigginton area, Waggy Tails / Heather's Lavender Dog Hotel also in Haxby & Wigginton, and White Daisy Home Boarding & Pet Sitting and Paws in the Countryside, both near Tadcaster.
What a boarding kennels gives you
A boarding kennels means purpose-built accommodation with more than one household's dogs on site at once. York's five kennels are Rose Cottage Farm Kennels & Cattery in Haxby and Foss Bank Kennels in Earswick, both within the city boundary, plus Rose Farm Boarding Kennels, Dunholme Grange Boarding Kennels & Cattery and Ackerley Park Kennels & Cattery, all further out towards Tadcaster, Boroughbridge and Nun Monkton respectively and licensed by North Yorkshire Council.
Day care and the one franchise
Stud Farm Country Club for Dogs and Peach's Pals both run day care from a dedicated site rather than a home or a kennels. Petpals York is a different case again: it is the local franchise of the national Petpals network, run by named owners Emma Read and Nigel Ham, and arranges home boarding through a network of carers across York and its suburbs rather than boarding dogs at one fixed address of its own.
Which suits your dog
A home boarder tends to suit a dog that finds a kennels environment or a large group stressful, or one used to living in a house; Good Boy Pet Services, for example, limits its home boarding to one household's dogs at a time. A boarding kennels tends to suit a dog that is happy with its own space and a set routine, and there is often more room at a kennels during a busy week simply because it takes more dogs at once. Neither type is licensed to a higher standard than the other by default: home boarding and boarding kennels sit under the same regulations, so asking to see the current certificate is the same question either way, whichever council issued it.
A specialist example
Rose Cottage Farm Kennels & Cattery and several of the other kennels listed here also board cats, so if you keep more than one kind of pet it's worth asking whether one booking can cover both rather than assuming a dog-only business will take a cat too.