Choosing where to board your pet when you’re away
Hotel reservation? Check. Airline tickets? Check. List of must-sees and must-eats? Check. All systems are go for vacation.
Except, what about your faithful pet? You can take your loyal companion along. Or ask a friend to host your animal or to house-sit. Hire a pet sitter.
Or you can book a stay at a kennel. But not just any kennel — you want to be sure Fido will get the proper care. Fortunately, you’ve some good choices. Bay Area Consumers’ Checkbook and Checkbook.org surveyed its members and Consumer Reports subscribers about their experiences with area boarding spots. Several kennels rated by consumers received superior ratings overall from almost all of their surveyed customers. But choose carefully — the ratings for some kennels were substantially worse.
If you decide a kennel is the best option, do some price shopping. In addition to its reviews for service quality, Checkbook also rates them for price, finding big price differences among Bay Area kennels. For example, boarding a 35-pound springer spaniel for a week would cost $126 at one kennel or $525 at another that Checkbook shopped.
Ask about what basic boarding covers. At some kennels, the extras can add up fast: Additional exercise can cost an extra $10 or more per day; administering a pill might cost $3 per day. Also, some kennels’ extremely limited dropoff and pickup periods make it difficult to avoid paying for an extra day.
It can all add up to a substantial chunk of your vacation budget. Fortunately, some of the higher-rated kennels charge below-average prices.
Carefully check out any kennel you are considering:
Be wary of a kennel that won’t let you inspect its facilities unannounced during regular operating hours. Some kennels insist that letting strangers walk through the entire facility needlessly agitates the dogs, but Checkbook argues that’s a price worth paying for the benefits of openness.
Check whether dogs have their own indoor and outdoor runs — large enough and with protection from sun, rain, cold and heat.
Make sure animals are protected from one another and that there is proper fencing to keep your pet in and other animals out.
If you are boarding a cat, does the facility have a separate space for it? Dog kennels can be extremely noisy and may traumatize a cat.
Inspect for proper health protections — check to make sure the facility is clean and not excessively smelly, that there’s adequate ventilation
and indoor spaces are kept at a reasonable temperature, that all admitted pets are required to have proof of proper vaccinations, that pets are carefully examined for signs of disease or parasites at check-in, and that there’s an isolation room for sick animals.
Size up staff members. Do they answer your questions? Do they show affection for the animals? Are they available 24 hours per day?
Determine when the kennel is open for dropoff and pickup. A common complaint is that facilities don’t have convenient hours, particularly on weekends.
Ask about arrangements for veterinary care, in case your pet gets sick. If you have a regular veterinarian, check whether the kennel will use him or her. (Expect to pay for transportation and vet fees.) If your pet takes regular medications, will the kennel administer shots or pills?
Can you check in on your pet while away? Many kennels have webcams that let customers monitor their pets.
Another option is to hire a pet-sitting service to come to your home two or three times per day. Pet sitters’ daily fees are usually more expensive than stays for a single pet at a kennel — pet sitters generally charge between $50 and $60 per day for one pet. But most services offer discounts for additional pets, and some charge by the visit, regardless of the number of pets they care for. So if you have more than one pet, a pet-sitting service might cost less than a kennel.