Day care or boarding in Milton Keynes?
Day care and overnight boarding are two different licensed activities, and most of Milton Keynes's twenty-one listed businesses offer one, the other, or both. Fifteen offer day care and nineteen offer some form of overnight boarding, whether home boarding or boarding kennels. See our day care and overnight boarding service pages for the wider national picture.
When day care fits
Day care suits a dog that would otherwise be alone through a working day: it goes in after breakfast and comes home at teatime rather than staying the night. The Dog Retreat MK, at Linford Lakes Nature Reserve in Great Linford, runs day care only, with four paddocks split by dog size and its own on-site coffee shop, and has no overnight boarding option at all.
When boarding fits
Overnight boarding in Milton Keynes splits between home boarding, where your dog stays in someone's house, and boarding kennels, where it has its own run on a purpose-built site. Villiers Farm Boarding Kennels & Cattery near Stoke Hammond is the only one of the four kennels businesses here with no day-care option; Village Pets at Rookery Farm, Hunters Lodge Country Boarding Kennels & Cattery and Crossroads Resort all run boarding kennels alongside day care from the same site.
Businesses offering both
Most of Milton Keynes's home boarders offer day care and overnight boarding side by side, which can suit a dog that already knows the carer from a day visit before its first overnight stay: Bark in the Park MK, Comfy Paws Canine Care, Lenny's Friends Home Dog Boarding & Day Care Services, Adorable Paws MK, MK Paw Patrol, Dog Wiggles Sitters, Dogz Boardz, Olney Doggy Day Care, Jog My Dog, Pawtography MK and Drayton Parslow Dog Boarding & Daycare all fall into this group. Ask any of them whether a day-care visit first is possible before committing your dog to its first night away.
A cattery alongside the dog side
Three of Milton Keynes's kennels businesses, Village Pets at Rookery Farm, Hunters Lodge Country Boarding Kennels & Cattery and Villiers Farm Boarding Kennels & Cattery, run a cattery alongside their dog boarding and day care, which is worth knowing if you also need to board a cat at the same time, or would rather avoid a site that keeps both.
What to ask either way
Whichever service you choose, ask how the day or night is timed and charged — a "day" and "24 hours" are not always counted the same way — what a stay includes, and how many other dogs will be there at the same time. Ask, too, whether a second dog from your own household costs less than a first, and whether bank holidays are charged at a higher rate. See our Milton Keynes prices guide for what the five businesses that publish a price actually charge.