Home Boarding for Dogs Licensing: Statutory Guidance for Local Authorities
Right. This is the big one.
If there is one document you're going to get very familiar with while preparing for your licence, it's the statutory guidance.
It takes the licence conditions and starts to explain what they actually mean in practice.
Records, staffing, your home environment, feeding, behaviour, handling, emergencies, disease control, owner consents... it's all in there.
Open the current GOV.UK home boarding statutory guidance
Don't try to tackle it all in one sitting
The first time you open it, it can feel like a lot.
My advice is to read it once without trying to solve anything.
Don't start writing policies. Don't start making enormous lists. And definitely don't convince yourself that everybody else understands it perfectly and you're the only one wondering what on earth you've taken on. 😂
Just read it through and get a feel for what's being asked of you.
Then come back to it section by section.... That's when it starts becoming much more manageable.
Read it with your own business in mind
As you go through the guidance again, start asking yourself:
What would this actually look like in my home?
If it talks about separating dogs, where could you physically do that?
If it talks about monitoring behaviour, what will that look like day to day?
If there's an emergency, who could help you?
What will you record? What will you ask owners? What will you do if a dog becomes ill?
You don't need all the answers immediately.
At this stage you're starting to turn the guidance from “rules on a screen” into a picture of how your own home boarding business might actually work.
And that thinking will eventually become the basis of your Operating Manual, policies, procedures and forms.
If you're wondering how to turn all of that into an actual Operating Manual...
This was one of the biggest jobs when I was preparing for my own licence.
It's one thing to read a requirement and understand what it says. It's quite another to work out what that means for your own business, make the decisions, and then document them in a way that makes sense.
That's why the Home Boarding Operating Manual I've created follows the licensing requirements section by section.
It gives you the structure and core wording to start from, with prompts showing you where you need to stop, think and personalise it for the way your home boarding service will actually operate. I have linked to it below.
You don't need it to use this Resource Hub. It's simply there if you'd rather have a framework to work from than start with a blank page.
Keep an eye out for the higher standards
As you're reading, you'll also see higher standards identified within the guidance.
They're worth noticing now, not when you've finished setting everything up.
Some of them may affect decisions you make about your business or home, so knowing what they are early gives you the opportunity to build towards them from the beginning if that's what you want to do.
Read the statutory guidance and higher standards here
