How Horsham's council licenses dog boarders
Dog boarding, home boarding and day care are all licensed activities under the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018, and every business on this page falls under a single authority, Horsham District Council, unlike some towns this directory covers that span two or three councils.
The council publishes its own register
Horsham District Council publishes its own register of licensed animal businesses on its website, with a star rating for each boarding licence; the page blocks automated tools, so we read it by hand on 3 August 2026 and every licence fact on this page comes from that copy. This page therefore treats that register as the council's own, not a third-party mirror of unrelated origin, and every licence number, star rating and expiry date shown across Horsham and Billingshurst's fifteen listings comes from it.
Star ratings
Thirteen of the fifteen businesses listed hold a 5-star licence: Bluebell Countryside Kennels, Penny Paws Kennels, Springfield Dog Boarding Kennels, Club K9, Daily Dog Digs, Benji's K9 Holidays and Day Care, Fine & Dandy Pet Services, Sussex Home Dog Boarding, Horsham Pet Care, Harry's Hounds, Paws Aplenty Pet Care, We Love Pets Crawley and Doggie Rambles Horsham. Two hold a 4-star licence: Little Rowfold and Cottage Farm Dog Training & Boarding. A star rating comes from a risk-based inspection and is tied to how long a licence runs, not to anything this directory measured itself, so it is a council licence rating rather than a customer review.
Licence types
The register licenses three separate activities, each under its own part of the 2018 regulations: boarding kennels (Bluebell Countryside Kennels, Penny Paws Kennels and Springfield Dog Boarding Kennels), day care (Club K9 and Daily Dog Digs), and home boarding (the remaining ten businesses, including Little Rowfold, which holds a day care licence and a separate, newer home boarding licence at the same Billingshurst address). A licence for one activity does not automatically cover another, so a business offering both day care and overnight boarding, such as Benji's K9 Holidays and Day Care, needs a licence for each.
Why this town reads as one council, not several
Several towns this directory covers sit across two or three licensing authorities, so a business's council can change from one street to the next. Horsham and Billingshurst do not have that problem: the whole area covered here, from Horsham town out to Henfield, sits inside Horsham District Council's boundary, so every licence number, star and expiry on this page comes from the same register rather than several different ones with different formats.
What to check yourself
Licence expiry dates on this register run from later in 2026 through to 2029, so a certificate you are shown should carry a date that has not already passed. Ask any business here for its current licence number and compare it with the register on the council's own website if you want to check it yourself, since a licence can be reissued, expire or change hands between when this page was checked and when you book.