How Barnsley Council licenses dog boarders
Dog boarding and home boarding are licensed activities under the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018, and the whole of this page sits under a single council, Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council. Its own register is a single PDF covering every animal-activity licence it issues — dog boarding, home boarding, dog breeding, pet shops and more together — giving a licence holder, licence number, premises name, licence type, star rating and expiry date for each entry, though no address.
What the register shows
Ten of the twelve businesses listed for Barnsley carry a star rating currently confirmed against the council's register, running from 1 to 5 (the other two are covered separately below). Six sit at 5 stars, the top of the scale: Noah's Ark Pet Holiday Home, Knuckle Dog Services, Hopwood Hippy, Penistone Pets, Wagnificent Walkies and Klass Dog Services. Four sit at 3 stars: Animal Inn, The Cliffe Kennels, Foxholes Animal Hotel and Rob Royd Boarding Kennels & Cattery.
Two licences that have since lapsed
Paw Power Dog Boarding and Chapel House Hounds both had a licence expiry date of May 2026 in the register read for this page, and that date has now passed. The council's register may simply not yet reflect a renewal, so this is not treated as evidence either business has stopped trading; no star rating is shown for either while the date remains unconfirmed, so ask each business directly whether it has renewed and ask to see the current certificate.
Where the register disagrees with a business's own claim
Foxholes Animal Hotel is shown at a different star rating than a directory quotes elsewhere: some third-party listings mention 5 stars, but Barnsley's current register shows 3. The council's own current figure is used throughout this page, since a business's or a directory's claim about itself is never treated as fact here.
A larger register than is shown here
Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council's PDF lists roughly a hundred home-boarding entries in total, including a seventeen-strong franchise block trading under one name, far more than the twelve shown on this page. Most of the rest are excluded because no phone number or trading presence could be confirmed for an individual business, not because the licence itself is in doubt. If you cannot find a business you know operates locally, it may hold a current Barnsley licence without yet having a confirmed listing here — the council's own PDF register is the place to check directly.
Reading the PDF itself
The council updates the register roughly twice a year rather than continuously, so a licence renewed or a new business licensed since the last update will not yet appear; the version used for this page is dated August 2026. The document covers every animal-activity category the council licenses in one file — dog boarding and home boarding sit alongside dog breeding, pet shops and riding schools — so a reader searching the PDF directly needs to look under "Animal Boarding" or "Home Boarding" specifically rather than assume every row concerns dog care.
Reading a star rating
A star rating shown here is a council licence rating from a risk-based inspection, tied to how often the licence is reinspected; it is not a customer review, so treat it the way you would a food hygiene rating rather than a Google star. All twelve businesses here sit in England, so a star rating is shown for every one; that would not be the case for a Welsh or Scottish licence, where no such scheme exists.