What is the difference?

The use of words like ‘hotel’, ‘luxury’, ‘deluxe’ and even ’state-of-the-art’ are used by standard kennels, and even by the most dreadful of kennels.

Naturally, this makes life very confusing for dog owners looking for better kennels via the web. Not only do you have to look through a lot more websites, but just finding something that meets the highest standards can be time-consuming.

We make it easy for you to tell the difference for yourself!

Dog Hotels have Suites/Rooms

Dog Hotels have large, light ROOMS or SUITES mimicking the home environment and:

  • Size: over 8ft x 8ft (2.4m x 2.4m) for both sleep and exercise areas.
  • Full-height walls (to the ceiling): Solid-built walls (brick/block/stone) at full height to the ceiling provide privacy, a quieter, safe/secure feeling, and a reduction in noise/smells/transmission between rooms.
  • Human height doors into sleep and run: Full/part glass doors into the sleep area and into the outer area, meaning staff can interact with the dog in both sleep and run areas, turning it into a play area especially on wet/cold days. The doors need to be human height as you can’t play or move with a dog into both areas when there is only a dog hatch to crawl through).Even more luxurious rooms will also have windows (providing much more light and a connection to the outside world).

This creates a quiet, calm, balanced environment, feels secure, is spacious, and lets in lots of natural light.

Rooms: have one sleep area room + 1 exercise area room.
Suites: have at least 1 sleep area room + 1 exercise area room + 1 external exercise area.

Dog hotels are likely to have fewer dogs (perhaps just 5 – 15 rooms), and therefore providing a more tailored and personal service.

If a dog hotel has 15 or less rooms, you will have the benefits of more tailored and personal services, special requests and even quirks can be catered for. The lower number of dogs means much more one-to-one attention that your dog will receive (both inside and outside, perhaps with other dogs if your dog is sociable) and the atmosphere will be calm and quiet.

Larger rooms mean more personal comforting items can be brought from home to help your dog settle in quickly and feel much more at home.

Rooms can also be called Suites, when they have more than two ‘sleep’ areas plus an ‘exercise’ (toileting) area. These are usually in the largest, most spacious accommodation,where the main building roof extends over the attached exercise area to insulate, protect and enclose it as another room (rather than an open run without a roof covering).

Rooms/Suites are the closest to a home environment.

Kennels have Pens

Kennels have partially open PENS of over 4ft x 5ft (1.2m x 1.5m) built with partial walls or panels, with mesh/bars above, and mesh/bar doors.

This creates an open environment where dogs can see, smell and hear everything, which can lead to higher stress and noise.

The higher the walls, the more secure a feeling is created. Active, healthy and confident dogs will fare better in kennels than nervous and more sensitive dogs – who should be boarded separately, ideally in a building or section with similar dogs in smaller numbers, or a separate kennel.

Kennels with no walls should be completely avoided (i.e open chain link, wire, mesh or bars between kennels where dogs can touch or injure each other, and the risk of injury, disease and stress-induced illnesses will dramatically increase provide no privacy). Extremely stressful and dangerous as the nose-to-nose contact can easily spread disease.

The fewer kennels there are, the lower the stress/noise should be.

Fewer kennels (for example less than 20 kennels) means your dog will receive much more attention than larger facilities (unless they are exceptionally well staffed). We would recommend you choose suitable facilities with fewer kennels whenever possible.