what do you look for in good boarding kennels?

leadinglady

Im looking for opinions on what people really would like to see in a good boarding kennels. What can I do differently or better that the rest? All suggestions welcome!

Spica

I would love a boarding kennel where they have live webcam in each individual room/kennel so the owners can check on the internet 24 hours a day what their dogs are doing. As a dog owner, that would definitely give me a great peace of mind! It might be expensive but I never came across anything similar here in Ireland so it is something that would differentiate you in the market.

kerrysgold

Spica's idea is very good! People would love that I'd say.

In general, perfectly clean kennels (nice to walk in and not smell pee!) heated, dogs taken out regularly for exersize, secure building (to put owners minds at ease in case they think their dog might get stolen, like me!)

the_syco

Big grassy lawn (for walks), cells well ventilated. Heating at "room temp": not too hot, but not too cold.

iguana

I like the idea of a kennel with a secure area the dogs can run about in. It doesn't need to be the biggest area, and the dog might just get 20 minutes twice a day to run about. But active dogs need to leap about a bit and a leaded walk just won't give them the opportunity to stretch their legs enough.

We normally leave our dogs with pet-sitters, but we couldn't get ones to take them over xmas. I found a kennel which advertised itself as having a secure acre of exercise area and I asked them if that meant the dogs could run about off-lead and was told yes. However when I collected them the dogs were manic and I asked how they'd been exercised and was told they only lead walk the dogs. I was really annoyed as we had gone miles out of our way to use these kennels specifically as I was told they'd get to run 3 times a day.:( We had to walk them for hours the next day to take that manic edge off them.

I also like the idea of kennels that are flexible with regard to drop off and collection times. The first kennels we used wouldn't allow us to collect our dogs at 5.30pm because their office closed at 5pm. I felt that was so unreasonable. Fair enough if by going over-time I had to pay for an extra day, but if someone is on site to keep a check on the dogs I can't understand why they couldn't give me the dogs back.

MissC

The Happy Hound in Cavan are supposed to be implementing the webcam idea but its been in the process for a very long time now as far as I can tell from their website.

Lauragoesmad

As a petsitter I'm finding people are less likely to put their dogs into kennels due to lack of interaction with them. I think not getting enough attention everyday can be as upsetting to a dog as not getting enough exercise. Maybe if you can guarantee to spend more time with dogs per day than the average kennels.
I'm going to try and get a webcam for my dog room if I can. I was already chatting to one of the ladies I petsit for about it and she said she would really love to see it happen.

sambuka41

Wow the pet cam idea is fantastic!!!!!!! I would love that!! :D

ISDW

The pet cam idea is great, its something I thought of when I first set up - would still like it to happen. Security would need to be good on it, have a password that you give to clients, and maybe change it every month or so. There are a lot of dogs that get stolen, so for a dog thief, it would be great to be able to see which pedigree dogs are at a kennels and then go and get them:eek: