If you are in the process of finding a location to board your dog(s) or read our article on Dog Boarding In Sherman Oaks Or Nearby Cities – Part I, where we compiled a list to help with your search, in this article we discuss the next steps to take to help determine if a boarding business will be the right fit for you and your dog(s). Once you find a location where you are considering leaving your dog(s) while you are away, we feel it is important to take additional steps before making a commitment or reservation to leave your precious fur-baby. We suggest always visiting the location you are considering, checking reviews and references, and asking a lot of questions to make sure your pup(s) will get the best care. Below is a list of questions we put together that we would want to ask to help decide where to board our own pets with another business or person.
22 questions to ask to help decide if a dog boarding location is right for your dogs
- Is there 24 hour supervision?
- How will my dog(s) spend their days?
- Where will my dog(s) sleep at night?
- Will my dog be able to eat his or her own dog food?
- Will my dog be given as much time as needed to eat each meal?
- Where will my dog go potty?
- Will my dog be taken out on walks?
- Will you be able to give medication to my dog(s)?
- What kind of climate control do you offer?
- What kind of screening do you do to ensure all dogs will get along?
- Do I need to show proof of vaccinations?
- Do I need to show proof that my dog is healthy upon the day of arrival for the boarding and isn’t coming over with any infections or illnesses that may be contagious?
- Are there ever any dog fights?
- What is the protocol if dogs do get into a fight and injured?
- Do you work with a specific veterinarian when dogs are injured or will my dog be taken to my veterinarian?
- Do you have webcams we can access to view our dogs 24/7?
- Do you have a disaster plan in place?
- May we call as often as we like to check on our dog(s)?
- Are there any add-on services we can choose from like private walks, grooming before pick up, etc.?
- Do you have references we can call and ask about your boarding services?
- How long have you been in business?
- Do you have all the required business licenses and insurance coverage?
If you board your own dogs, what questions would you add to this list to make sure you are making the best choice on where to board them and what will be the best fit for you and your pups?
It is incredible that a dog sitting/walking service would post an article on boarding your pets. What it says to me is that the people at Rufus and Delilah care deeply about animals. Sounds like the best place for my baby girl.
Samantha
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment on our article. We get phone calls and emails regularly from pet parents looking to board to their dogs. When we let them know we do not offer boarding, they usually ask if we can recommend a place for them to board their dogs. Since we haven’t used a boarding location for our own dogs, we are not comfortable recommending another business. However, we thought we could still be helpful by writing an article on local boarding businesses in our area and to include questions we would want to ask to make sure they are they fit for our pets. There is a lot to take into consideration before leaving our pups with another person or business to provide care for them.
These are great questions to ask. Though I don’t board my girls, I use an overnight sitter, there are a lot of questions I can modify to use and ask the sitter. Thanks!
This is a wonderful article with great questions to ask any boarding kennel you’re thinking of entrusting your dog or cat to. Here in Phoenix last summer, we had a horribly sad and tragic situation where dogs were left unsupervised in a boarding kennel over a weekend and the air conditioner went out. Twenty-three dogs lost their lives from heatstroke because there was no one there to notice the problem. It’s definitely important to have 24/7 supervision, and the webcams and disaster plans are important too! Thank you for this valuable checklist of questions!
We are heartbroken reading that 23 dogs left unsupervised in a kennel over a weekend when the a/c went out died. How is that all kennels do not offer 24/7 supervision? We certainly wouldn’t want to leave our own dogs in a kennel without 24/7 supervision. We can only imagine how devastating the loss was for all the families.
How great you can modify our list of questions to help decide if a boarding location would be the right fit to be used for your overnight pet sitter.
GREAT post! We have always been wary about boarding (thankfully, we now have a trusted friend care for our precious pooches). These questions are very important as is asking for a walk through of the boarding facility.
We are so glad you like this article. We don’t board our own dogs either having fabulous pet sitters we can ask to care for them. Yet, if we ever had to board, we would want to ask all the questions we included in this article to help make the best decision on where to leave our precious fur-babies.
I’ve never had to board Henrietta, but we do board Spenser and these are great questions. Some of which we have asked, others we haven’t but I definitely will before we board him next week. Great tips.
Brilliant questions. I always insist on asking as many questions as possible before I trust someone with my fur babies
Similar to leaving children in the care of other people, when leaving our pets with other people, there is an abundance of information we need to find out to make sure our pets will get the care we want and are expecting.
Imagine the person at the boarding facility when being asked so many questions. Hopefully they would take it in stride as there is a lot of information we need to find out in order to ensure we are making the best choices for our fur babies when we cannot be with them.
That is an excellent list of questions. There are some questions there that I might not have thought of asking. It is so important that you know exactly what you are dealing with when you board your dog.
We are glad you found the list of questions useful and that we included things you may not have considered to ask.
Great information. It worries me that people don’t do there research before boarding their pets.
Even we were surprised by some of the answers we got from the local boarding places we called to find out how their services work.
This is really useful! I watched a dog for a month and a half in my house and I was asked similar questions.
We believe when new clients contact us and want to know about our services, there is no such thing as too many questions.