How to choose dog boarding or day care in Guildford

This directory covers ten dog boarders and day cares across Guildford town centre, Burpham & Merrow, Godalming and Cranleigh. Every one of them needs a council licence to operate in England, whether it boards dogs in a kennel block, in someone's own home, or offers day care by the day. Read this before you pick one.

Check the licence, not just a review

A licensed premises or home boarder in Guildford or Godalming is checked by Guildford Borough Council or Waverley Borough Council, and gets a 1-to-5 star inspection rating tied to how long the licence runs. Where a star rating was found on the register, it is a council inspection score, not a customer review: Croft Doggy Daycare and Surrey and Sussex Dog Trainer are both rated 4 stars, and Doggy Digs Cranleigh, We Love Pets Cranleigh, Tazmanian Tails, Burntwood Kennels and both of K9 Development Centre's licences are rated 5 stars. Paws4aWalk is rated 3 stars. Hound and About and Simone's Doggy Creche appear on the register but with no star rating recorded in the source checked. Ask any business for its licence number and check it against the relevant council's own public register before booking.

Home boarding is the norm here

Eight of the ten businesses in this directory are home boarders, meaning your dog would stay in the boarder's own house rather than a kennel block. Burntwood Kennels is the one purpose-built boarding kennels in this batch, and We Love Pets Cranleigh arranges home boarding through a network of approved carers rather than boarding dogs at a single address of its own. For every home boarder listed here, only the area and town are shown; the street address is given once you book, in line with how a home boarder's own house is treated as their premises.

Burpham & Merrow and Godalming are thin

No business is currently published for the Burpham & Merrow area: a home boarder was found on the council register there, but with no confirmed phone number it is not listed. Godalming has only one published option, Burntwood Kennels, since most of the Waverley-licensed businesses checked for this area turned out to be based in Farnham or Haslemere instead, or could not be placed with confidence. If neither area has what you need, it is worth calling Guildford Borough Council or Waverley Borough Council directly and asking for their current list of licensed boarders.

What to ask about vaccinations, breed rules and insurance

• Ask what vaccinations the business requires before a stay, and how long before drop-off they need to be done.
• If your dog is a breed with any legal restriction, including an XL Bully with a valid exemption certificate, ask whether the business will take the booking and what conditions it sets.
• Ask whether the business holds public liability insurance, and ask to see evidence of it rather than take a website claim on trust.
• Ask what happens if your dog needs a vet while it is in their care, and who is responsible for deciding and paying.
• Ask how many other dogs will be there at the same time, and whether yours would have its own space or share one.

Check how well the business is documented

Of the ten businesses in this directory, six were confirmed from the business's own working website or Facebook page alongside the council register, and are marked high confidence: Paws4aWalk, Simone's Doggy Creche, Croft Doggy Daycare, We Love Pets Cranleigh, Doggy Digs Cranleigh and K9 Development Centre. The other four are medium confidence, meaning either no independently confirmed phone or address beyond a register or directory entry, a website that could not be checked, or a phone number seen on only one source: Hound and About, Tazmanian Tails, Burntwood Kennels and Surrey and Sussex Dog Trainer. None is listed here without at least a confirmed phone number, but for the medium-confidence group it is worth confirming the details again when you call.